Me: hello again, mina-kun! 'w' Happy to see me in such a long time? No? Aw... TT-TT
'Leanne: (bows) thank you, Yume charm o' happiness for your awesome review! It was very much appreciated. :D
Me: yes, well, I'm not completely sure if anything will get in the way of this chapter's production, but I think we all hope not.
Disclaimer: (is still arguing with the rock) no own Yu-Gi-Oh! or Shaman King nor Yu Yu Hakusho! Go away! :O
Warning: (surprised to come into the room with no one screaming bloody murder) Shonen-ai, chance of deaths, etcetera....
Me: now, where did we leave off last time...? Oh yes...
"What do you mean, I need an invitation to speak with the prince?! Let me in right now!" Bakura was having a bit more trouble getting into the Fourth Ring of Hell then he had anticipated. He had forgotten that Seto was the prince of the place. The extremely paranoid demon prince, at that. Then again, the Angels had kept him captive for several years in his childhood. But still...
"I'm sorry, sir. But he has strictly ordered us not to let anyone in without his permission." Two Guards were struggling with keeping Bakura from busting into the place.
Now he was getting just a /bit/ angry with them. "I'm sure these rules are normally great, but you obviously don't understand! I HAVE to talk to him, and whether your necks are in my way or not, it's not going to matter much." One snorted, trying to look unintimidated, but you could clearly see the fear dancing in his eyes; playing off their heats. "Now, are you going to be good, and let me pass? Or would you rather face death?"
They gulped, but took their twin rapiers to their hands.
Upon seeing their harmonious response, Bakura rolled his eyes and prepared for combat.
"What is the meaning of this??" Kaiba glided down in between Bakura and his servants; demanding an explanation.
Bakura blinked back his surprise and stood up straight. "I was merely asking for admittance to speak with you... Kaiba."
The brown-haired demon scowled. "That's Kaiba-sama to you, Bakura."
"And that's Bakura-kun to you, Kaiba." he retorted with sickening sweetness.
With that serving as breaking the ice, their old rival/friend relationship was reborn. Seto motioned for the guards to let him pass, and led him inside to his private quarters.
"Now, what did you wish to speak to me about?" Seto sat himself down behind his human-styled business desk and pointed Bakura down to rest on the enlonged one-armed couch.
Bakura, sitting down and helping himself to the tray of rum candies set on a silver tray, started to explain himself to Kaiba. After getting through telling his purpose for going after Kyokae's items and giving reason for wanting Kaiba's help, he finished what he had to say and sat silently, waiting for his answer.
Seto, as the bureaucrat of Hell, took Bakura's proposal into account, and sorted out all of the possible risks involved with everyone. As an old friend (and rival), he did sincerely want to help him out, and felt as close as a demon could ever get to feeling pity towards Bakura's currant circumstances. So, he could definably help him to at least find out what and where he needed to get to. But accompanying him was something he would have to give more thought to.
He would decide later.
"Bakura, I will help you find the whereabouts of your 'Shadow Realm'. I will give you the rest of your answer at a later date." Bakura let go of a breath he wasn't even aware he was holding. "Well? What are you waiting for? Let us depart to researching together."
They sat together for several hours undisturbed in the library of the Kaiba residence. So far, their search had gotten zilch on results. Nothing, not even in the many dark magic handbooks was the Shadow Realm mentioned. Bakura added that it might be a spirit plane, and not normally accessible by demons, but Seto shot this down; reminding him that Yami had gotten into it easily enough and left a material body there.
It wasn't until Kaiba Mokuba had wandered in, that both realized how much time they had wasted looking through useless books.
Kaiba was in the middle of a thick book titled: Traveler's Guide: A map to the Known Worlds. So he set the book down, and told his younger demon he had adopted as a brother/son, to wait by the marble courtyard for his training. As the fledgling left the two, Kaiba turned back to Bakura; still buried in his search.
"You must rest if you wish to be at your best. You wouldn't want to miss anything because of fatigue, now would you?" Bakura grumbled, but agreed. He hadn't slept in two days, anyway. "You may, if you want, stay under my roof for as long as necessary."
The tanned demon snorted. "You're being unusually generous, Kaiba. I don't think you've ever offered me this much service without cost before."
"Only because I understand what it's like to loose someone so close." he replied simply. "Good evening, friend." and he was gone from the room, leaving the somewhat stunned Bakura behind to find a room to accommodate.
Back in the town of Domino, a couple of demon fledglings had been taken here to live for a short period of time, and they were all playing together outside a small, demolished building.
Catching the chunk of debris they were throwing around, one pointed up to the sky clouded with smog. "Look! It's a dragon! And four shiny people coming here!" she squealed.
"Rebecca! Get away from there! Don't attract them to us!" yelled the oldest of the group. Yes, he knew exactly who those 'shiny people' must be. Angels! "Anna! Take Hiei and hide by the radio tower! Yusuke, you go to the mall with Rebecca, and don't budge until I get there."
"But, Yoh! Where'll you be?" Rebecca demanded before Yusuke picked her up and began to run.
"Don't worry, I'll be fine." The Angels were in a stone's throw now, and everyone was hidden; save Yoh.
Malik could finally see what was going on in the dead town as they drew closer to it. Tepemkau wanted to go after the running demons, but Malik left them. They weren't of any value to them anyway. "Demon scum," Jou murmured.
"Angel! Get down here!" Yoh yelled from the ground.
Meeting demons was making Yuugi a bit uncomfortable. Yeah, he knew he would have to eventually meet some anyway, but so soon seemed like they were everywhere. And he thought they could only come into existence by rejecting angel form. But there were so many...did they all reject a holy rebirth?
Tepemkau landed on the softened, but sickly earth, and flattened his gargantuan wings to allow Hiroto and Yuugi to disembark. Jou was the first to slip off and drew his small dagger usually used for cutting tough plant roots.
"Waddya want, demon?" He said 'demon' with a sharpness he only had for them. "Are you all so low you'd delay a rescue mission?!"
Yoh looked surprised when Jonouchi mentioned their objective in Domino, but blew it off. In fact, he scoffed him for it. "You've gotta be kidding me. Why would an Angel care about a missing commerade?" Jou took an angry step forwards. "Don't come any closer! I'll-I'll cut you in half if you do!" He drew his katana to reinforce his otherwise idle threat. "There's no way you're gunna get past me to my friends! Why are you really in Demon Haven, Angel?"
"I just told ya, numb-skull! What's wrong with all of you demons, don't believe we could care just because you don't?!" This time, Jou lunged at Yoh, dagger raised.
"No! Jou, don't!" Yuugi cried. He tackled the other boy to the ground before he could stab the winged 'fiend'.
This shocked Yoh even more. "C'mon! Stand up and fight me like the Angel you are! You'll have to go through me long before you even lay eyes on my friends!"
Honda until now had decided to let Jou get it out of his system before intervening. "Yeah, knock it off, Jou." He turned to the present demon. "And you, back off. We aren't looking for trouble, and I don't know what you've heard about us, but it was apparently all wrong. All we're looking to accomplish here is finding our friend, believe it or not."
Malik stepped forward off of his ka. "You keep saying that you're trying to protect your friends, while we're trying to save ours. I really don't see a reason for us to fight, do you?"
Now that the others had come into the picture, Jou started to settle down, and put his dagger back into his belt. Not that he felt any better towards demons as a whole. This one might not be so bad, but there are always exceptions to every rule. Like Suguroku had told him as a child, "They're evil for the most part.", and he stuck to that rule.
Though ruffled, Yoh put his sword away, and cooled down. "Ok, say you really are looking for your friend. Why did you pick Domino City? How did he go missing in the first place?"
Bravely, Yuugi decided to answer. "We didn't really 'pick' Domino, it was just what popped out first. And Ryou went missing after he went to save his human from, a vampire." He had almost said 'one of you', out of habit, but stopped himself. "He's been gone for quite a while now, and we've just gotten out of Heaven a while ago."
"Yes, would you happen to know of anything of an albino Angel around here? Actually, he went to New York first, but if this is 'Demon Haven', maybe you've heard something, anyway?" Honda mentioned. Yoh tried to remember anything he had heard, but drew a blank. Hiroto shrugged. "Oh well. We've still got a lot of places to hit, so it's okay. It's just, he's very close to us, especially Yuugi over there." He pointed to the shortest of them, and the spiky-haired boy blushed.
"New York has a lot of vampires, doesn't it? Try to see if you can talk to someone named Kyokae. She'd be able to help you, but it usually comes with a price tag attached." Yoh followed Honda and shrugged loosely. "Never to much, though."
Malik waved his thanks. "Thanks, friend. My name's Malik."
"Yoh."
"Nice to meet you, Yoh. Thanks again for the tip." Malik bowed, as did the rest of the Angels, and Yoh bowed humbly back. Yuugi, Malik, Honda and Jou hopped back onto Tepemkau.
"Always nice to know we're not alone being the immortals who still value friendship over anything. Good luck!" he yelled, as they took off for New York.
As they sailed over the clouded sky towards North America, Yuugi sat in silence, thinking. What would he do if they couldn't find Ryou? Would he be able to accept that he could have, could have...
He didn't want to think like that, because there was no reason to get depressed over one of many. many variables. So instead, he found his mind wandering over to one of his past lives, his first one. How he had been impartial to countless sacrifices, or what should have been called slaughters. How King Atemu (a/n: a.k.a. Yami ) had 'selflessly sacrificed himself' to seal Duel monsters forever, yet the seal never fully worked, considering kas were still around to the fullest for ages.
Then he had worked his way back to wondering about Yoh, and his being a Demon. And he recognized something. People turned Demon because they rejected angel form, but by doing so, it usually meant so they could go back to find someone. Didn't that make them in a way /better/ than Angels? Because they wouldn't let a dream, or person leave their life for good?
Yuugi glanced at Jou.
But then, they might have gone back because they wanted revenge on someone. And they would be the truly evil Demons. So everyone thought they were savage creatures just because some were? Not all Angels are saints, either. They just pass on because they don't really want to bother themselves. And those were always the worst of the population.
When the United Nations Building in New York became visible to the troop of Angels and ka, Tepemkau slowed his neck-breaking speed, and Yuugi slowed his philosophical thinking.
Ryou lay quivering on the Soul Room's floor. Now that Bakura had left for the next 'quest' thing, he found himself with lots of time on his hands.
The albino HalfAngel glanced around the fairly empty room. Not much was in here other than him. In fact, there was /nothing/ else to occupy his mind, but thinking.
Contenting himself to flop down limply on the smooth, pearl-like ground, Ryou decided to make up a story. It looked like he would have enough time...
He started to fabricate the characters. One would be young, a bit naïve. Just your basic protagonist. Short build, not the bravest person, with the exception of defending his friends. Grey/brown hair, light jeans and a loose, black shirt. No need to go over the edge... His name would be...Myoni. Yeah, that sounds good. Myoni would have a small ring of close friends, but what he didn't know...yeah! That's it! One of his friends could be a super crime-fighting, butt-kicking martial artist! But just as Ryou was about to picture this guy in his mind, he thought back to the innumerable stories with butt-kicking kids in it. He decided he would have to be more original than that...
It ended up being Myoni sent on a perilous journey for an herb he needed to for his friend's treatment. Yes, Hana, the friend, had a deadly curse set upon her. One that would eventually turn her from the path of what she had planned out, to the path of oblivion. She would wear baggy, black jeans, and a black mesh over-top covering a white sleeveless shirt. Many chains...Ryou saw many chains hanging off of her... Two piercings in her right ear. That sounded good.
"Sounds interesting, right?" he wondered aloud, to no one in particular.
Ryou spent the rest of his time expanding on this world just fabricated in his mind. Took his mind off the current circumstances, anyways.
Me: omg, I can't believe how quickly I finished that chapter! It took me, like, a whole three days! XD I'm so proud of myself! T-T
Ryou: (smiles his kawaii smile) yes, Erin-chan! You finished off with me /not/ being depressed for once! A change for the better, at least...
Chibi Myoni: ja, mina! hummm...maybe Erin-chan will prolong my life, and write my story herself... Guess it's up to the reviewers! XD
Me: by the way, I dressed Hana similar to myself. Yes, yes, I know. No imagination at all... :P see the pretty purple button? That's why I updated so fast this time...who knows how fast I'd update with many reviews... O-O
