Okay, thanks to everyone who reviewed, including Travithian Axile, who just reviewed for the first time. This chapter's battle was inspired by Aki-Reakku, and so they get partial credit for this. Enjoy!
Chapter 15: Needles
After the sun went down, the sky darkened, and countless stars appeared, twinkling down on the group. Katz waved his hands, and suddenly huge floodlights flared on, filling the arena with light. "All right," he began, turning to his captives and Princess Muumuu, "The matches in the Quarter Finals will go as follows: Yugi and Sephiroth, Auron and Kaiba, Vincent and Sesshomaru, and Nightmare and Squall."
"No!" shouted Yugi. "I don't want to fight Sephiroth!"
"Yeah, and I don't want to fight Yugi!" the silver-haired villain yelled in agreement.
"What the hell are your problems?" Kaiba demanded.
"Sephiroth is my friend, and I don't want to fight my friends!" the little duelist explained.
Katz stared at them and said, "Well that's all well and good, but why don't you want to fight, Sephiroth?"
"I like Yugi. If things were different, I'd like to think of him as a little brother," he replied.
The wizard sighed, and said, "Okay, I won't make you actually fight one another, but you're still going to compete."
"If they aren't going to fight, then what are they going to do?" Kilik wanted to know, comforting the still-sobbing Mitsurugi.
Katz didn't answer, but waved his hands, and a short gray hair appeared. "Their task will be to find this hair."
"That doesn't sound too bad," Sesshomaru said, looking dubious.
The mage tossed the hair on the ground, a brilliant flash of blue light sparked, and a huge pile of needles in all shapes and sizes popped into existence. "They have to find the hair in the stack of needles," he said with a wicked grin.
"Isn't that a little dangerous?" Squall asked.
"Nah, I made sure they came from a decent STD clinic instead of a crackhouse."
When everyone stopped and stared at him with looks of horror, Katz put his hands up and said, "I was kidding! You know…ha, ha, just a joke?"
"We're not amused," Auron told him flatly.
"Okay, I'm sorry! Freak out, why don't you!"
The mage muttered under his breath, and transported everyone, except Yugi and Sephiroth, into the stands next to the still-sleeping Cloud and Nightmare. "Okay gentlemen, you can use whatever means necessary to retrieve the hair, BUT you can't use your powers directly on the pile."
The two contestants began their search, and soon, both of them had severely pricked fingers. "Damn it!" Sephiroth grumbled, as he received yet another finger prick.
"This is getting me nowhere!" the One Winged Angel thought to himself. "Yugi's a really nice boy, but I'd rather not lose such a pathetic contest. Katz didn't say I couldn't use my powers on anything else: just the pile. Hmm…I think I've got an idea."
Keeping his eyes on his task, Sephiroth sent his awareness out and touched the Jenova part of Cloud. The ex-SOLDIER's mind was still wrapped in a drunken fog, but that didn't matter. The villain pushed on his target's mind, and Cloud got to his feet and staggered out of the stands, zombie-like in his movements. "Yes, puppet…" Sephiroth exulted, "Get your spiky ass over here and help me!"
Suddenly, Yugi notice what was happening, and within the depths of his soul, Yami snarled, "Bastard! Sephiroth is using his power to influence Cloud to help him find the hair! Well, we'll just see about that!"
The pharaoh spirit took over Yugi's body and used his Shadow Magic to link himself to Cloud's mind. "What are you doing?" Sephiroth shrieked. "Get the hell out of here! This is MY puppet!"
"Yugi may like you, you silver-haired fairy, but I don't, and I'll be damned if I let you use someone else to cheat without a fight!"
"Oh, you want to mind-wrestle, do you? We'll you've got yourself a fight then, Buster!"
The pharaoh and the angel glared at each other, and continued the hunt for the hair, wrestling in Cloud's mind all the while. The spiky-haired hero clutched at his head as he struggled to wrest himself from their control, and finally, he started screaming in pain. "Katz, aren't you going to put a stop to this? They're going to tear Cloud's mind apart if this keeps up," Vincent said.
"Eh, let them fight it out," Princess Muumuu replied, effectively cutting off the wizard's response.
The ex-Turk glowered at her, pulled out the Death Penalty, and shot both Yami and Sephiroth in the leg. "AHH! Son of a fucking bitch!" screamed the pharaoh.
"GODDAMNIT!" yelled the villain. "I can't believe you just shot me!"
Cloud snapped out of their spell, ran back to the stands, and hugged Vincent. "Oh, you saved me! Thank you, thank you!"
"If you'll stop squeezing my pancreas, then we'll call it even," croaked the were-demon.
Katz stood up and yelled, "Hey, you two might want to finish looking for that hair before you bleed to death!"
Yami and Sephiroth ground their teeth and hurriedly sifted through the rest of the pile. A few minutes later, they both found the hair and grabbed it at the same time. "I found it!" they bellowed in unison.
"No, I found it!" Yami cried, trying to snatch it away from Sephiroth.
"Fuck off, midget!" he retorted, taking the hair and shoving the possessed boy away. "If it weren't for the fact that you inhabit Yugi's body, I'd kick your dead ass back to bum-fuck Egypt, so you'd better just back off!"
"Yami, stop fighting with Sephiroth!" Yugi admonished from inside his own head.
"But, that fucker cheated!" Yami protested. "We lost because he's a cheating bastard, and you just want to let him GO?"
"Why not? It's not like either of us wanted to marry that bitchy princess anyway."
"Hmm…good point."
The pharaoh turned his attention back to his opponent, who was doing a victory-hobble on his one good leg. "Fine, you win, Fairy-Boy."
"I'm SO glad you see that now," Sephiroth sneered. "Now if you don't mind, why don't you let your better half have his body back."
Yami muttered under his breath, and retreated into the Millennium Puzzle, leaving Yugi in control. The tiny duelist struggled to his feet, shrieked once, and fell down. "Okay, the match is over, so can someone PLEASE come fix my leg now?"
That's it, everyone, that's the end of Gladiator…just kidding! I don't actually know if Yami can control other people's minds with the Puzzle, but Marik could do it with the Millennium Rod, so why not? Anyway, how was it? Good? Bad? Well, if anyone else wants to make a suggestion, send it in a review and I'll see what I can do. Oh, and if I don't write another chapter for this or There's No Place Like Home (my other fic, for those who don't know) before Saturday, then Merry Christmas and all that jazz.
