Started: October 24, 2004 7:45pm

The Shadow Wizards

Disclaimer: see chapter one

Summary: see chapter one

Chapter Five: Stuck In Time


Yuugi sighed as he leaned against the wall, looking at his white-haired friend. Everything seemed frozen. And, in a way, it was. His two friends, one new and one old, and himself were, quite literally, 'stuck in time'. They were caught in the real life version of Einstein's Twin Theory – the three were moving at a much faster speed than the rest of the world, and thus it seemed as though everything else was not moving at all.

But they were moving. Two and a half hours ago, their friend Cameron (who wasn't stuck in time) had been sitting down, reading their note to him. Now he was a little down the hall, about to enter the Headmistress' office.

Two hours ago, he, Hermione and Ryou had been sitting down laughing together at a joke.

An hour and a half ago, they had split up to find something to do.

An hour ago, Yuugi and Ryou had joined up again, and played a game of Duel Monsters to pass the time.

Half an hour ago, he had beaten Ryou, and the two had gone and found Hermione (she was, naturally, reading in the library).

Two minutes ago, he and Ryou had left Hermione to her books, and wandered off.

A minute ago, Ryou had kissed Yuugi… and Yuugi had kissed right back. Then he had come to his senses, and realised that, although he wanted this, wanted it badly, there was no way he could betray Akura like that.

So he had (reluctantly) pushed the hurt Ryou away, and apologised, explaining his situation. Now he was waiting for Ryou to answer.

'Technically, it's not betrayal,' came Ryou's soft voice, penetrating his thoughts.

'How?' Yuugi asked.

'They left us. Both of them – Malik left me when we graduated, your boyfriend left you when he… well, left.' Ryou moved slightly closer to Yuugi, who bit his lip.

'I know… I still want him to be with me, though.'

'As I want Malik… but there's no harm in having a relationship while we're waiting, is there?' asked the boy. Yuugi could see the sense; after all, who knew what Akura was doing, and whom he was doing it with? He might have completely forgotten about Yuugi.

It was time to move on.

'I see your point…' Yuugi murmured as he initiated the closeness this time. Soon they were standing within arms' reach of each other. 'Will you… will you kiss me again?' Yuugi asked, ever the bashful one.

Ryou smiled as he closed the small gap. 'Are you sure?' he asked. He didn't want to do anything Yuugi wasn't completely sure he wanted to do. Yuugi hesitated slightly then nodded.

He tilted his head back as Ryou looked down. Yuugi had grown over the three-or-four years since Ryou had seen him, and it was fortunate. It made him look closer to his age.

Their lips met, softly at first, then with slightly more pressure. It was just a kiss, no tongues, but it was the first step towards moving on for both of them. They were accepting that their first loves were just that, first loves. Nothing more, and they shouldn't prevent you from moving on to better things.

They broke away when Yuugi began to giggle.

'What?' asked Ryou, slightly irritated. He had been enjoying that! Yuugi tasted like the chocolate bar that they had taken from the kitchens an hour or so ago, with a faint underlying flavour that Ryou knew was Yuugi, and only Yuugi.

'Sorry. I opened my eyes without meaning to, and you had such a look of concentration on your face!' Yuugi laughed. Ryou allowed a slow grin to spread over his face as he formulated a plan. And that plan involved…

'Ah! Stop… ah!… tickling… me! Ah!' Yuugi gasped as Ryou attacked.

'Well, it's rude to stare at a person while you're kissing them!' Ryou chuckled.

'I… apol-… apologised!' Yuugi pointed out between gasps of air, and sighed in relief as Ryou stopped. He listened for an apology, but when none was forthcoming, he glared at Ryou, who just smirked.

'You're cute when you glare,' was the only answer Yuugi got. The two looked down the hallway when a very long creak was heard. It was probably just someone coming out of a door that wasn't at the same speed as them, since nothing that creaks should be that long, but they looked anyway.

Cam and Harry were leaving Lady Akira's office, with the Headmistress in tow. They were carrying the keys to the clay room in the art department, and two watches.

'They need another watch,' noted Ryou. 'If your theory is correct, that is.'

'I know – they also need a clock, or that's what Hermione told me. She said something like… they need it to keep track of the time in their experiment, and we need it to re-anchor ourselves… etcetera. I don't know.' Yuugi sighed. He wasn't really a genius – he wished Seto were here. He would probably know what to do.

They were relying on a TV show, after all.

As Cam and Harry left the Headmistress' office with the Lady herself in tow, they informed her on what they knew. The trio stuck in time didn't know what had happened, just that time had slowed down for them when they had begun to head back to the Hospital Wing.

The Headmistress seemed quite interested in what they had had to say. 'Well, let's try and get your friends back, shall we?' she had said, and rubbed her hands together.

Harry got the feeling she was just like Hermione, and loved a challenge that required using her brain and preferably, books.

'Do you think they're watching us now?' Harry asked of Lady Akira, who laughed.

'Undoubtedly, though they've probably got something else to do as well. We're moving very slowly to them. I'd say they've been stuck for about… three hours?'

'But it's only been a few minutes since we found the note!' exclaimed Cam.

'You forget that we're moving much slower. It's been a few minutes for us, but it's a lot longer for them.'

'Ohhh.' Cam and Harry finally understood, and Akira smiled inwardly. "Kids nowadays… you need to tell them everything two or more times to get it to stay. It's like telling a puppy to stay during its second or third training session," she thought.

Meanwhile, they had been walking quickly, and were not at the entry to the art rooms. The classes were doing photography today, so there was nothing stopping them from going straight to the clay room.

Yuugi and Ryou (holding hands and stealing kisses every so often) trailed the group slowly down the hall. They could see that there was speech going on, but they had given up trying to understand it when Harry first spoke hours ago.

Half an hour had passed since the Headmistress had been in on the act, and she was currently rubbing her hands together. Or so Ryou and Yuugi thought.

They gave up on tailing the three in the normal timezone after a short while more, and went off to find Hermione again.

''Mione? Hermione, where are you?' called Yuugi. Sound literally vibrated through this place. Yuugi and Ryou had experimented with the distances during the time their helpers had been making slow progress down the hall. They had realised that, as long as they were inside the same building, it was like standing right next to the person you're calling out to when they answer.

So Hermione should be easy to find; and she was. She was right where they had left her – sitting in the library, reading. Ryou got a closer look at her.

'Uh… Yuugi?' he murmured.

'Yeah?' replied the spiky-haired boy, looking up from the pile of books sitting next to Hermione.

'I don't think she's… alert,' Ryou fumbled for a word.

'What do you mean?' asked Yuugi, confused.

'She's on the same page she was when we left her here!'

While Ryou and Yuugi were trying to figure out what was wrong with Hermione, Harry, Cam and Lady Akira had found another watch and a clock they could use. They put the three watches on the clay wheel, and set the clock to the right time (it had been slow, from a recent blackout during the holidays).

'Now what?' asked Cam of Harry, who held the note.

'Now we wait for confirmation that Yuugi, Hermione and that Ryou kid are in the room with us.'

'That shouldn't take lo-' started Cam, cutting himself off when he saw the note.

We're here.

Just two words, scribbled on a bit of convenient paper, and Lady Akira pressed her foot down on the clay wheel, hard, setting it spinning at a high speed.

'Faster,' Harry urged, and Akira whispered an incantation. She lifted her foot off the pedal, and they watched as it spun faster and faster…

And suddenly, Yuugi, Ryou and Hermione began to slow down. At first, their actions were still super fast, then they gradually got slower, until they were at normal speed.

'What have you guys been up to?' asked Harry conversationally, when the three who had been stuck-in-time didn't move, still waiting, seemingly. Akira slowed the clay wheel down. The watches were gone.

Yuugi blinked. 'Uh… you can see us? We're back?' he asked, a grin spreading across his face.

'Yes, Yuugi. You're back!' laughed Lady Akira. Ryou coughed slightly, to get their attention.

'Ryou?' Yuugi asked, puzzled. Ryou jerked his head towards the girl standing between them. Hermione had a blank look on her face, and made no movements besides the occasional blink and inhale-exhale of air.

'Oh, right! We found Hermione like this in the library – something must have happened to her a minute or so after we left her. She was on the same page for about and hour and a half to two hours!' Yuugi exclaimed.

'Really?' asked Lady Akira, interested again. 'Hmm… nothing seems to be wrong physically. She's breathing and blinking… just not registering the world around her.' The Headmistress paused, thinking.

'I think I may know what is wrong with her, but I need to go and speak with the Potions Master here before I can be sure. Maybe even Severus…' she muttered to herself as she walked off. Suddenly she turned around.

'Take her to the Hospital Wing. Madam Mizuhara can make her comfortable while I figure out the cure. After you have given her over to the care of Madam Mizuhara, all four of you can go to class.'

The boys looked at each other, shrugged and began to push and pull Hermione haltingly out of the art department and down the hall to the Hospital Wing.


Finished: October 24, 2004 9:40pm

Heh, guess I was on a bit of a roll tonight! I got three chapters done! Wow… I didn't even do this well when I was doing QOG!

Just to Clear Something Up: I don't really understand what happened in that particular episode of 'Black Hole High' to get Josie to slow down again, so I made it up. The three watches represent the three people. Hope some of you science-lovers out there can actually tell me what would have slowed them down again! Ciao.