Sakakku

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Notes: Thanks to Mother Chow Goddess, who caught my mistake last chapter ::grimaces:: I finally fixed it.

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Chapter 18

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Ryou had made it three-quarters of the way through the genealogy. It hadn't improved in the slightest.

Kaya was in there, making her rounds. She was moving along the walls again, but much slower than previous times. When she reached the window, she furrowed her brow and went over every square inch of it. Then she swiftly made her way to the door connecting Ryou's room with Malik's, and put her hand on the handle.

Her reaction was instantaneous. "What have you been doing?" she demanded.

Ryou, who had given up on her ever talking, looked up in alarm. "What?" he asked.

"How are you doing that?" Her braids lashed her face as she swung her head around. "Not even Geoff could dismantle my locks!"

"What do you mean?" Ryou threw the book down and got up in a hurry.

"Look!" Furiously, she shoved down on the knob, and kicked the door. It flew open.

"Aah!" Ryou cried involuntarily. Malik, lounging on the bed on the other side, glanced up sharply. When he saw Ryou, he shot up and tried to dash across the room, but Kaya grabbed the door and yanked it closed again. Balling up her fist, she smacked the door, leaving a black handprint that looked wet. As Ryou watched in disbelief, it dissolved into the door and he knew it was sealed again.

"How were you doing that?" Kaya asked again, her voice a dangerous hiss.

"I didn't do that," Ryou protested. "Do you mean the door was unlocked all this time?"

"It was not," Kaya frowned. "I locked it and sealed all the walls. Something has been draining my magic." She glared at him suspiciously.

"It wasn't me!" Ryou tried to tell her. "I don't even know how to- to be magical!"

"It wasn't even moved," she said, mostly to herself. "It was just- gone. Something sucked it up."

"Today?" Ryou asked.

"I don't think so…" her brow furrowed. "It's been going little by little, but I wasn't really sure. But today it was almost all gone." She sighed. "I'll have to redo all of it. And then report this to Bakura. He won't be happy."

"Why?" Ryou found himself asking. Kaya simply looked exasperated. "Why do you have to help out Bakura?"

She knew perfectly well what he meant, and her eyes flashed. "You don't understand anything, Ryou," she accused.

The words stung. "I understand a lot more than you think I do, Kaya," he retorted. "I'm the one imprisoned here, after all. And you're the one helping to imprison me. I don't think your mother would have approved."

He would have taken it back if he could have. He normally wasn't the type of person to tell that to anyone, ever, under normal circumstances. But these were far from normal circumstances, and he'd said that with the intention of hurting her.

Kaya's eyes grew brighter. It was almost painful to look at her. At first Ryou thought it was the guilt, but soon realized: she was glowing.

"I'm sorry," he tried to say, and he meant it. But he didn't think she realized that.

She continued to glow a moment longer, then immediately the light left her. And as shadow crept back over her body, a wall of darkness closed around the room. Ryou glanced around fearfully.

It wasn't the Shadow Realm darkness, and it wasn't even nighttime darkness. More as if he'd covered himself with a blanket on a sunny day. It was an eerie feeling and Ryou liked it less than anything he'd been put through so far.

"You won't break this lock," Kaya said solemnly, with no trace of anger or malice in her voice. She was just a girl doing her job. "I'll be back tomorrow to check on it."

The shadows didn't cover anything in the room, just obscured it somewhat. Kaya made her way over to the door and slipped through it. Usually, Ryou would hear her drawing bolts; she didn't magic it shut because of the Rare Hunters. But this time, there was nothing.

Cautiously, he made his way over to the door and tried to touch the handle. But the minute his hand drew near, the shadows clustered around and a wave of pain shot up his arm. Gasping, Ryou leapt back, staring wide-eyed.

Whatever had undid her previous spells, he'd like to see it go up against this.

xXx

'Go talk to Geoff.'

Kaya made her way down the hall, hurrying a few feet ahead of the Rare Hunter accompanying her.

'You and he can talk a while, catch up, and maybe find out what's been happening to your magic.'

She paused when the hallway split into two, looking at the Rare Hunter for guidance. He nodded for her to go right.

'Yes, sir.' She'd hesitated, then knelt at Bakura's feet. He regarded her for a moment, smirking, then nudged her with his foot and told her to go.

"Here," the Rare Hunter told her, and she backtracked. The door he was pointing at was marked by a single eye in the middle; just as the door leading to her temporary rooms were. Of course. She tried the knob, but it was locked. Kaya knocked on the door, frowning a little. When she'd put her hand on the knob, she'd detected a really powerful locking spell. Why did Geoff think he needed it?

"Coming," a muffled voice said, and her heart skipped a beat. When Geoff finally opened the door, his hair cut neatly as ever, she squealed and jumped on him, hugging him as hard as she could.

"Kaya!" he shouted in surprise, then laughed and grabbed her. "You're here! I can't believe it!"

"I missed you," she choked out, burying her face in his shoulder.

"Here, come on in," he said, swinging the door open wider. "Ah…" he started when the Rare Hunter made a motion as if to follow. "I'm so sorry, but I haven't seen my sister in three weeks. Would it be okay if we were alone? Just for a while? We won't go anywhere…"

The Rare Hunter had started nodding at the beginning of the sentence. Inclining his head, he backed out of the room and shut the door behind him.

Kaya beamed at her brother, ready to start a long, involved discussion of everything they'd missed, but something about his expression caught her off guard. "What is it?"

"So what have you found out?" Geoff asked in a hushed whisper.

"What?" She asked again uncertainly. She wasn't sure what he was talking about. Did he mean… "Something's been sucking up my locking spells in Ryou Bakura's room."

"I know." Geoff exhaled. "That's the one thing I haven't been able to figure out either. But I have gotten a lot of information.

"You know about the Millennium Items, right?" Luckily, he didn't wait for her to answer but plowed on. "Bear with me, I'm going to go over it. Maybe hearing everything from beginning to end will help us." With that, he started an overview of something she'd only heard hints about:

"The seven Items are scattered. Bakura and Marik have the Eye, the Ring, and the Rod. Pharaoh Yami, who is alive, has the Puzzle; that much I know. Yami used the magic of the Puzzle to split bodies with his 'light', his 'hikari', Yugi Moto. Just like how Bakura used the magic of the Ring to split bodies with Ryou.

"Malik and Marik are so confusing. Marik isn't a real yami. He's something different, something even more improbable than the yami-hikari relationship. Apparently he was born from something dark living inside Malik.

"I know, I know!" he said hastily, mistaking Kaya's stunned expression. "I don't get it. But that's what happened. And then somehow, they got new bodies.

"I- I don't know how they did it. But I think Marik managed to transfer his spirit into the Rod instead of inside Malik. Then he used the same process that Bakura and Yami did. So it was relatively easy for him anyway.

"But that's not the important part. What's important is what's happening now. They called us in here to lock the dungeons after the breakout of a prisoner, Joey Wheeler, and to lock the rooms. They know that someone is planning on helping Téa Gardner, another captive, escape." Geoff's eyes shifted at this, and he looked like he wanted to say something else, but changed his mind and plowed on:

"When I first got here, I thought that Bakura and Marik were pure evil. I bet you did too." Kaya nodded fiercely for the first time, and Geoff hurried on: "But whenever I report to Marik, I've been beginning to feel something weird surrounding him. An aura of sorts. You've felt it too, around Bakura?"

Now that he mentioned it, she had. But she hadn't paid attention to it; every time she got near Bakura all she could think about was how much she hated him.

"There's more," Geoff rushed on, "but I've been talking too much. They won't let you stay here forever. What have you found out?"

He looked at her expectantly, and her throat closed. "How did you learn all this?" she blurted.

"Odion. Malik. Prisoners from 'my' half of the dungeons. Bribing Rare Hunters." He shrugged, but looked at her curiously. "Have you been trying to find out anything, Kaya?"

Hating to say no, she bit her lip. "They killed Mother," she said instead.

Geoff's eyes darkened. "I know," he said, balling up his fist. "That's why I'm trying to fight them. What are you doing, Kaya?"

She took a deep breath. "Bakura sent me here," she said evenly, "to find out what's been sucking up my magic."

He gazed at her disbelievingly. She shrugged. "You don't know, so I guess I'll go now," she said quietly, moving swiftly to the door before he could say anything. She slipped out and motioned for the Rare Hunter to lead the way back to Bakura's throne in the main room.

xXx

"What did you find out?" Bakura asked lazily.

Kaya took a deep breath. That Geoff is a traitor to you… "Nothing, sir," she said quietly. "He noticed the force as well, but cannot identify it."

"Hm," Bakura frowned. "I don't like this, Kaya."

"I'm sorry, sir," she said placidly. "I used a more powerful locking spell on Ryou's room. If I reinforce it every few days it should hold."

"Ah," Bakura smiled. "That's better. But I want you to be investigating this… unusual occurrence."

"Of course, sir," she said, bowing down and taking her cue to exit the room.

What a good, obedient little servant she made. She hated it. But she couldn't do what Geoff was doing. She couldn't betray Bakura. It was too frightening…

She cried herself to sleep that night, missing her mother worse than ever.

xXx

Geoff didn't know that Kaya was sobbing across the palace. He didn't even know where she was kept. But his sister was on his mind as he crept from his room three hours after dark. She was afraid, he knew that. He wished their mother was there. Kaya seemed to draw her strength from her.

Geoff had always prided himself on being independent. Even now, he was able to accomplish a lot, all on his own. But that didn't stop him from missing his mother.

When he nearly ran right into Odion, he mentally scolded himself. Without talking, he followed the bigger man through the hallways. Odion had a natural ability to blend in with the shadows, he noted. Geoff himself had put a quick shadow-spell on his cloak before he left the room.

He moved up ahead of Odion when they approached Téa's room. Closing his eyes, he put a hand on the doorknob and focused, deliberately unweaving the locking spell he'd placed there just a few hours ago. The door silently swung open, but Geoff didn't leave right away; he wanted to make sure Téa and Odion left together safely.

Odion shifted behind him; Geoff knew what was troubling the man. Téa didn't seem to be in the room; he peered around closely to be sure.

Suddenly, a soft blue figure detached itself from the darkness of the wall. Téa moved forward gracefully, coming into view. Odion nodded in approval at the cloak, and Geoff shook both their hands. When the two of them left, he furrowed his brow briefly; he quickly replaced the locking spells. Then he slipped down the halls, making it back to his rooms with ease.

He hadn't thought he would be able to sleep; was sure that he'd be up all night worrying for those two. But the exhaustion overtook him the second his head hit the pillow, and he woke up the next morning to disaster.