Book One

Chapter One

"Yugi's Nuts"

"Stop stalling, Yugi. Are you going to play or forfeit?" Kaiba Seto - easily irritated by delays of any kind - prompted his opponent. Yugi (Yami edition) calmly looked across the dueling field and continued to ponder his next move. The two were outside in Kaiba's latest Duel Monsters arena. Once again, the unreasonably wealthy president of Kaiba Corp. had challenged the King of Games to a duel, wanting to win back his title as champion. Jonouchi, Honda, and Anzu stood on the sidelines, cheering on their friend. Mokuba stood next to his brother.

"Yugi!" Kaiba shouted again. "Make a move!"

"I will!" Yugi, although he didn't have a very good hand, had great faith in his cards. He felt rather nervous - what? Yugi nervous in a duel? No, he felt unwell. His eyes had begun to water, and he was starting to feel sick to his stomach. Oh well. No queasy feeling was going to stop the legendary champion of Duel Monsters; the supreme leader of ancient times; the strongest pharoh to ever walk over the sands of Egypt. Focusing his eyes back on the dueling area, Yami Yugi raised his card above his head -

and dropped it on the ground. And thereafter preceded to run to the nearest bunch of lilac bushes, where he fell to his knees.

"What the hell?? What are you doing?" Kaiba yelled after him from his place in the arena. Really, it wasn't like Yugi to run away from a duel. Even when losing. Especially when losing.

"What are you doing?" he repeated.

Kaiba's referee stepped closer to the bushes and replied, "He appears to be vomiting, sir."

Upon hearing that, Kaiba's look of complete surprise was usurped by one of repulsion. "That's dis-gust-ing!"

Sure enough, Yugi was puking as if there was no tomorrow. Jonouchi and Honda stood still, utterly taken aback by the dramatic turn of events. Anzu cried out her pattented "Yugi!" and ran towards her fallen friend. Mokuba pushed his way from his brother's side, through surprised KC employees, to Yugi.

"Hey Yugi!" the younger Kaiba called when he'd reached him. "Are you okay? Was the duel too much for you?"

"Yugi, what's the matter? What happened?" Anzu asked.

After Yugi had finished puking, he sat back on his heels to answer his two friends. Unfortunately, he didn't get that far before he fell backwards (away from the puke and into Anzu's lap) and swooned. Anzu gasped.

"Whoa, Yugi, are you okay? Hey Yugi?" Mokuba turned to the nearest KC employee. "We need to get an ambulance here for him now. I think he's really sick."

"Yeah, sick in the head," Kaiba the elder responded. "It doesn't matter. Unless he can finish the game, I win!"

"I don't think he's going to be able to duel for a while, Seto," Mokuba said as he glanced back at the sweaty, game master.

"No … no, I can finish." Yugi feebly attempted to sit up.

'Where did that come from? Why am I so sick all of a sudden?' Yugi tried to call to mind what he'd eaten during the day. Mom's rice balls for lunch; miso soup for breakfast; and a few sodas after school. Something must have been past its expiration date. But, regardless, the duel must go on. Placing a hand on the ground, he tried to push himself up. Slowly and delicately, he came to a full standing position.

'There. That's not so bad. I guess it must have passed …'

Whoops. Yugi felt his knees buckle under him. Whiplash followed, which further increased his feeling of discomfort.

"Yugi!" Anzu grabbed hold of Yugi's arm and tried to help him back up. "Come on, get up. Forget the duel. You need to go home right now."

"No. I'm not leaving this duel unfinished." Yugi turned his attention towards Kaiba. "I'm not forfeiting and I'm not leaving." Before he could rise to his knees again, another wave of nausea broke over him. Up came the rice, and what was probably some of the soda. Anzu leaned forward, laid a comforting hand on his back, and politely handed him a handkerchief.

"Thanks." He took the frilled piece of fabric and wiped some of the smell from his nose. 'Okay, maybe this won't work after all. I wonder if Kaiba would allow me to duel from sitting over here.'

"Yugi! Duel or forfeit! Time's running ouuuuuut!!" Kaiba yelled, his glutes tensing, causing a tight wad of his cottony underbriefs to compile between his buttocks.

'What's wrong with us?' Yami Yugi temporarily retreated to his mind to confer with little Yugi.

Little Yugi, as he noticed, was looking a little pale. 'I don't know. I feel so …I don't know. Really sick.

'What do you think caused it?'

'I don't know. I've only felt like this one - two other times. When I had an allergic reaction.' Little Yugi's head began to wobble on his neck. 'Maybe I'd better sit down …'

'Yes, perhaps you - '

Little Yugi's spirit form collapsed in a punk-ish looking pile on the floor of his mind.

'Yugi!' Yugi (YE Yami edition ) ran over to Yugi (LE little edition ) and knelt beside him. 'Yugi, can you hear me? Yugi?'

Sadly, there was no response. Yugi LE was out like a light. For the night. In the middle of his fight. His mind took a flight on a kite to a place that wasn't bright.

All right.

In the real world, Anzu was becoming semi spastic towards the unresponsive Yugi. "He's not answering me, guys. Come on, help me get him up so we can get him to the emergancy room. And call his house and tell his grandpa what's going on." Jonouchi and Honda obeyed by lifting Yugi out of Anzu's lap, and then carrying him from the field. Kaiba felt like it was time for another coniption.

"If he leaves, I win! No make up matches, no continuations!!"

"Hey, Kaiba, does he look like he can duel right now?" Jonouchi adjusted the body in his arms so he could turn Yugi's face towards Kaiba. Mokuba, meanwhile, took out his cell phone (adorned with a picture of his favorite capsule monster) and called for an ambulance.

"Let's go wait around front for the ambulance to show up," he said, closing up his phone. "I called already and it's on its way."

Inside the hospital room, which was divided by a screen, Yami Yugi lay tossing and crying incoherantly.

"Wake up! Wake up, Yugi!" Surprisingly enough, this was uttered by Yugi himself.

"Yugi, what do you mean?" Anzu asked.

"Yeah, who're you talking to?" Honda added.

"He's talking to his other self. Or his other self is talking to him … or something." Jonouchi surmised.

"What's wrong with Yugi?" Anzu asked Yugi. "Is little Yugi okay?"

Yugi (YE) merely responded with, "Yugi, wake up."

Just then a doctor came. "You're friend's had an allergic reaction to something. We're not sure what it is, yet. Do you know what he's allergic to?"

All eyes landed on Anzu. "I don't know. This has never happened before."

Yugi's eye's fluttered open and tried to focus on the situation surrounding him. He was sitting up in a bed, wearing a hospital gown over his -very- itchy skin, with Anzu, Honda, and Jonouchi staring at him. And also a doctor. He opened his mouth to speak, but realized that it felt nearly impossible to breathe. Before Anzu could cry out and run to his side, the world went grey again and he found himself once more in the hallway of his mind.

Little Yugi was nowhere to be seen. "Yugi?" Yami Yugi called. He ran to the door of Little Yugi's mind, only to find that it was shut. "Yugi?" he pulled and pushed the door, trying everything he could think of to open it. But it was stuck fast.

"Yugi! Open your door! Can you hear me?" Yami Yugi pressed his ear to the wood door, straining to hear any sounds of life from within.

Silence.

Once again, Yugi YE found himself sitting upright in the hospital bed. Anzu was holding his sweaty, itchy, swollen hand.

"Anzu! I can't find him! I can't find Yugi!"

"What do you mean you can't find him? Where is he?" Anzu asked.

"He's not there. And his door is locked. I can't find his spirit anywhere. And his door is always open!"

Anzu understood about half of what the Yugi before her said. "What?"

"Yugi's spirit collasped, and now I can't find him."

The doctor came back into the room and said, "We've narrowed down his list of allergies. It's either a reaction to cashues or peanuts."

'Nuts?' Yami thought. 'Nuts?!'

"Oh no!" his deep voice intoned. Turning to Anzu he said, "I ate the nuts!"

Turning inward, Yami Yugi called to mind the previous night, when he, hungry and in possesion of the body, went downstairs for a midnight snack. Being ignorant of his host's allergic tendencies associated with members of the nut family, Yugi YE had poured himself a heaping bowl of Kellog's Granola Nut Bran cereal.

'But why didn't I feel the effect then?' he wondered. Looking down at the glowing millenium puzzle (which the hospital staff had been unable to remove), he realized the puzzle must have protected him by delaying his reaction. The strain of the duel must have been too much, and that's when Yami Yugi's eating habbits caught up with Little Yugi's body.

"I ATE THE NUTS!"

Yugi's generally understanding friends looked at him with concern (Anzu), surprise (Honda), and confusion (Jonouchi).

"I ate the nuts! I ate the nuts!"

"Yugi," Anzu ventured, "what nuts?"

"The nuts! The nuts in the breakfast cereal. I ate them!"

"Uh, we know. That's why you're here," Jonouchi said.

"And now I can't find him," Yami Yugi cried again.

"Okay," Anzu touched one hand to her forehead and held the other out for silence. "You ate the nuts in the breakfast cereal, which is why little Yugi got sick, and now you can't find him in your mind. Is that it?"

"Yes," Yami Yugi said desperately.

Honda waited until Anzu put her hand down, and then said, "It doesn't really matter who ate the nuts, because we're all hear now. The doctor will give you something to make you better and then everything will be back to nor-, back to the way it was."

"But what -" Yugi YE began.

"No 'buts.'" Anzu interupted. "You're only going to make yourself feel even worse if you keep this up. You need to get some rest and try to fight this off."

"That's true, but -"

Like a streak of lightning, Anzu's arm shot out, stopping, palm flexed, just in front of Yugi's face. "I said no 'buts.' If you feel that badly about it, the only thing to do is fight it off and get better."

The room was silent. Even Yami Yugi, who had, in his past life, ruled thousands of men, decided not to disagree with Mazaki Anzu.

"Now lie back down and go to sleep," she continued, retracting her hand. "We'll leave, but I'm going to be back in to check on you in ten minutes, and you'd better be asleep by then."

Yami stared at her, but didn't object. When Anzu finally tore her eyes away from his, she, Honda, and Jonouchi left the room quietly. Jonouchi slipped his debilitated friend a thumbs up before closing the door.

With only ten minutes to fall asleep, Yugi YE tried to put all of the anxiety from his mind. Or at least enough of it to loose conciousness. He found, however, that even he was affected by the strain of Yugi's severe allergic reaction. Sleep, it seemed, wasn't all that far away . . .

White walls. White ceiling. Metal bed.

Yugi knew this place. It was the hospital ward. And, unless he was mistaken, it looked like the same room he'd been in during his first diabetic shock. How ironic. But what the heck was he doing here now?

'Yami? Where are we?'

'Yugi! You're here.'

'Where had I been?'

'Then maybe Anzu was right. We only needed rest.'

'Whoa, what did Anzu say? Did I pass out?'

'Yes. You had an allergic reaction.'

'What? What am I allergic to now?'

'Nuts.'

'I've always been allergic to nuts. I never eat them.'

'I know that now.'

'Then WHY am I in this hospital room? What happened? What did Anzu say?"

'I ate the nuts, Yugi.'

"What? You ate nuts? In my body?"

'I'm sorry. I didn't know.'

"Oh man. Now I remember. We were in the middle of that duel. I passed out during the duel?"

'Yes.'

"Because you ate nuts."

'Yes.'

Little Yugi sighed. "Is it the next day already?"

'Yes.'

"I wonder if this counts as an excused absence."

'I'm sorry, Yugi.'

Yugi LE shrugged. "It's okay."

'Kaiba won the duel by default.'

"That's okay too, I guess."

Both Yugis looked up when the hospital room door slowely opened.

"Anzu!" Yugi LE said.

"Hey, Yugi. How are you? Are you okay? Are you you?"

"I'm okay now. Is anybody else here?" Yugi tried to see past her into the hall.

"No, it's just me. I wanted to stop by before school and see if you were any better." Anzu closed the door behind her and stood next to Yugi's bed. "We were really worried about you yesterday."

"Yeah …"

"So you'll be in school tomorrow?"

"Yeah, I guess so."

"Great. I have a surprise for you," she smiled.

"Huh? What do you mean? What kind of surprise?"

"Duh, Yugi, I can't tell you. You'll just have to wait and see. So you'd better get well so you don't miss it." Anzu turned to leave.

"Uh, okay."

"I'll see you tomorrow!" she said before slipping out the door.

"Um, right. See you tomorrow."