Chapter 2: An Unknown Past
The air-water leaked out and plummeted to the ground. An inch from the cheap tiling it halted, constantly shifting shape as it rose slowly to mid-height. Expanding it solidified into a ghostlike image of Yugi, a determined shine in his semi-transparent eye. Someone gasped faintly in the background but the former pharaoh didn't notice as he only watched helplessly as he turned once more into a blob, which zoomed to Bakura's ER door and seeped through the cracks around it.
All the while, Tea, Tristan, and Joey watched silently as Yami's eyes and face tightened (They too knew about the whole Yami thing.). When the air-water pictured Yugi, Tea gasped loudly.
A few seconds later a shrill moan came from the other side of the door. There was a noisy cheer from the doctors as Yugi's voice protested, "No, I'm fine, stop, I'm not a bonehead!"
The original doc came out, apparently excited.
"It's a miracle!" he yelled. "Not only is he alive, he's sane! He's not paralyzed or anything! It's as if he was never hurt! Can I have your permission to keep him here for a while, to study?"
"I don't know, can you?" Tea said with a wide smile of relief.
The surgeon rolled his eyes. "May I?"
Yami Yugi shook his head firmly. "No. He's coming home, we want him there." Actually he wanted to scream the living hell out of him, but he had a feeling he wouldn't be able to take his Aibou home if he said so.
Disappointed, the doctor disappeared into the ER and came out again with Bakura, his head in bandages.
"Hi guys," he said in Yugi's voice. Joey started, but Bakura (who had Yugi's voice) motioned for them to go with twitches of his head. Joey took the hint, grabbed his arm, and pulled him down the hall to the exit. The others followed him quickly.
When they reached the parking lot after hurriedly signing a release form, Joey opened his mouth to talk but Yami beat him to it.
"What did you do, Aibou?!" he yelled.
Bakura blinked. Or Yugi. It was so confusing. He crossed his arms but didn't answer.
The color was rising in Yami's face. This was odd. He had never showed temperament before. In a soft, dangerous voice, he said, "Aibou, answer me or I will beat the answer out of you."
"Grandpa wouldn't like that."
"ANSWER ME!"
"It's hard!"
"As best as you can, Yugi. I'M WAITING!"
"Alright! I didn't know I could do it, did you? Anyway, I kind of transferred my soul to fill up Bakura's void. He's here, with me, but he's really small and diminished. Wait a sec he's talking to me."
There was a pause and then Yugi/Bakura said, "Bakura says he thinks he knows why he didn't die. He says it wasn't getting hit in the head with a fist once, it was because he was so used to having his Yami inside him that when it was taken from him so quick it kind of made him faint, so they thought he was dead and left him alone. That's what he thinks. And now that I'm here he feels better, but he really needs the Eye to patch him up and the Ring, so he feels like himself again."
"Did he see who did it?" Tristan asked anxiously.
Yugi conferred for a while, and then said, "Well, it isn't Pegasus, cause they were wearing something like a sun and a moon insignia on their suits, he can't say anymore than that. But then again, they might have just been wearing them because they wanted to fool anybody who saw them Yami, why are you looking at me like that?"
Yami's face was agitated. "Idiot," he replied in a tight voice. "Simple fool no, you couldn't know sorry"
"Yami?"
Yami shook his spiked head. "Yugi, if we don't get that Ring back you're gonna have to stay in there until we do. If it takes a long time to do it then you're going to get so used to Bakura's body that it will be so painful to put you back in your own, we might not be able to get you out."
Yami could see Yugi's body lying in the soul room as though dead. He watched Yugi in Bakura's body for a while longer and sighed. "Great," he muttered, kicking at a stray can. The can rolled off a little till it stopped at the feet of a man with a black suit and a sun wrapping around a crescent moon insignia on his chest. Yugi/Bakura gasped, "Its him!"
The man smirked and three more men in the same suit came out of nowhere to stand behind him. He pointed at Yami and boomed, "One word, boy. Your Millennium Puzzle." Then he looked briefly confused and counted one his fingers, then decided it was too hard for a guy who dropped out of elementary school and rushed at the group of teens with his friends.
The Eye of Anubis glittered on Yami's forehead.
"Wait," he demanded, holding an outstretched palm toward the oncoming attackers. They slowed to a stop and snorted. "I challenge you to a little game I used on a bully once." His eyes flickered as he produced a knife out of nowhere. Handing it to the heavy-set man, Yami instructed him to hold in his left hand. Then Yami took paper money out of his pocket and placed it in his right hand.
"The whole point of the game is to draw money from my right hand with your left, without dropping or pricking yourself or me with that knife of yours or dropping any money. We each have a turn. You can only take 5 bills at the maximum every time. If I take all the money before you I lose, and you get my item and all the money. If you do you lose and you tell us who you're working for and leave us alone. Ready?"
The man jeered at Yami. This was too easy. "Oh yeah, sucker. Bring it on!"
Yami nodded. "You first."
The man eyed the bills hungrily. Money he snatched 5 bills quickly and struggled for a while to balance it all in his left hand along with his knife. When he did, he looked up to see Yami staring unnervingly silent at him. The man scowled.
"My turn," Yami said softly, and drew one bill, no problem.
"The whole point of this game," he hissed as he offered his right palm to the man, "Should be easy enough to understand. Go."
The black-suited man sneered but didn't move. His mind working at top speed (not remotely fast), he decided to just stab Yami and take the money and the Puzzle with no hassle. He quickly shot his knife toward Yami's body, who dodged it easily and kicked him in the stomach. He doubled up, wheezing, clutching his chest.
"The whole point of this game was to see if you could control your greed. You couldn't, therefore you lost. Now, answer-who do you work for?"
"N-no one you know cough I'm n-not gonna tell you wheeze " he rasped.
Yami's eyes hardened. "You agreed to this game, you lost, now answer me, as your part of the deal!"
"N-no"
"IS THAT SO?"
"Y-yes"
"WHY NOT?" Yami seemed to grow taller and taller with each passing second.
"Cause she'll kill me and my family dead"
Yami's eyes widened as his friends gasped. "Tell me who it is and I won't let that happen. Trust me!"
"You don't understand!" the man shrieked suddenly, straightening. "Niwatori has other ways of AAAIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
He screamed a heart-rending scream that was cut off as a mountain of fire enveloped him and burned him to ash in seconds. His fellows backed up in fear, then ran. Yami, Yugi/Bakura, Tristan, and Joey stared in wonder and apprehension as the wind blew away some of the ash that was once a man a few seconds ago.
"What just happened 'ere?" Joey asked finally to no one in particular, his voice trembling.
Yami stepped forward and knelt before the ashes, no expression written on his face. He fingered them for a minute before saying in a flat voice, "I have no idea. But now we know we're up against a new enemy that goes by the name of Niwatori who can burn up a guy form who knows where." He closed his eyes, then opened them slowly. "I think it's time to pay a visit to our old friend Kaiba. Again."
Kaiba sat at his desk with his legs on its mahogany surface. His glass of wine was left unattended by his feet as he closed his deep blue eyes, trying to remember what it was that made him so drawn to help Yugi that day. It wasn't the debt, he could have done something else, less expensive, but something else. His thoughts were interrupted as his phone rang. Sighing he lifted his feet off the desk and picked it up, saying formally, "Seto Kaiba here, who are you?"
A familiar voice answered, "It's Yami Yugi. We need to talk, all of us, face to face. I don't trust these modern contraptions. Meet us outside your building in five minutes. Its an emergency." The line went dead. Seto took the receiver from his ear and stared at it a moment before putting it back and rising from his chair, heading downstairs.
Yugi/Bakura wiped sweat off his forehead as the humidity took its toll. Tristan pulled a portable fan from his pocket and blew himself. Tea and Joey also took fans from their pockets and used them as well. Yugi/Bakura scowled.
"How come you guys all have one and I don't?"
Tea shrugged. "You had one, remember, you just gave it to Yami when you found out you could each have a body."
Yugi/Bakura's scowl deepened as he watched Yami grin mischievously and pull another fan from his pocket. Using it, he said innocently, "Wow, it's so cool"
"GRRRR," Yugi/Bakura growled. Then "what? Oh, really? Bakura has his own fan," He reached into Bakura's pocket and drew out a fan identical to Tristan's. Now everyone had the pleasure of a fan blowing in their face. Suddenly Tea sniggered.
"What?" Joey asked. "Is it me? I know I put too much cologne on, but I didn't think you guys would noti-"
Tea shook her head. "No, it's Yami! Hahaha!"
Yami frowned. "What?"
Tristan and Joey started laughing simultaneously, followed closely by Yugi/Bakura.
"What?!" asked Yami again, irritated.
"Yo-your hair!" Tristan managed to gasp before collapsing into laughter once more.
Yami gingerly fingered his spiked hair. But it wasn't spiked anymore. The humidity and the hairspray in his hair didn't mix well, and the reaction caused him to have what looked like a 'fro. A multi-colored 'fro that bounced playfully in the summer sun. Yami growled and whipped a comb and a can of hairspray out of his pocket. He set quickly to work, carefully spiking his hair. After he put the hair supplies back in his pocket he raised the fan above his head and fanned his hair. Tea shook her head, plucked the fan from his fingers, and pulled a plastic bag out of nowhere. She wrapped the bag securely around Yami's hair, then sniggered as the picture met her eyes.
Yugi/Bakura, Tristan, and Joey had just picked themselves off the ground when they saw Yami's head wrapped in a plastic bag. They collapsed once more, tears of mirth streaking down their faces. Yami threw up his nose at them and strode into the KaibaCorp building. The others followed, holding each other for support.
Kaiba had just stepped out of the elevator when he saw Yami and his friends in the lobby, Yami wearing an exceptionally odd hairpiece.
Kaiba raised his eyebrows as he approached them. He nodded curtly to Yami, saying, "Nice hat, Yami." Yami growled again and whipped the bag off his head, stuffing it in Tea's pocket. Kaiba's eyebrows rose even higher, and Yami glared at him as if daring him to comment. He didn't take it.
Yugi/Bakura, sensing Yami's obvious bad vibes, spoke quickly, "We asked you to talk to us cause we need information on someone," he explained to Kaiba.
"So why me?" he asked.
"Cause your such an important person and all, you have the names of everybody in Domino and everywhere else."
"Point taken. Who do you want to know about?"
"A girl or woman named Niwatori."
At this Kaiba's eyes widened. The gang (I'm just gonna call Yami and the friends "the gang") looked at him curiously as anime sweat bullets appeared on his face.
"Erm Kaiba?" Tea asked hesitantly. Tristan and Joey had the sort of expression on their faces that suggested Kaiba be sent to an insane asylum, while Yugi/Bakura and Yami tried to make what they could of Kaiba's suddenly strange behavior.
"So you know her then, right?" Yami asked.
Kaiba snapped out of his daze and silently ushered them into an empty office. He shut the door behind them and snapped, "Of course I knew her! She was-well," he became very awkward all of a sudden.
"Yes" Joey leaned in, apparently very interested in the answer.
Kaiba scowled at him. "She used to be my girlfriend, okay?"