A loong wait for this chap. Sorry.

Hopefully the next one won't take as long. But as an apology, this one is extra long and probably twice as complicated as it needs to be. Enjoy!

-Standard Disclaimers apply_

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"We're here, sir," Croquet said as he opened the door of the limo.

"Take the car and sell it to a chop shop," Pegasus told him as he got out.

Terra got out as well, only now she was wearing a suit and sunglasses like Croquet's. Somehow, she even managed to keep a straight face. Pegasus guessed it was to bother Croquet, who seemed slightly flustered by it.

"Of course," Croquet said and drove off to follow his employer's unusual instructions.

"Where'd you find this guy, under a rock? He never bats an eyeball," Terra whined, letting her bland composure slip for a minute.

"He used to work for my family when I was younger," Pegasus mentioned, speaking off-handedly.

Pretty soon, Croquet walked up with a wad of a few hundred thousand yen.

"I got a very good price, sir," he said as he handed the money over. "May I ask, sir, what we are doing?"

"Finding a hidey-hole," Terra said, and grandly gestured to the impressive game store in front of them.

The sign claimed it was closed, and the store front was impressively decorated with some huge dice.

"Because -" the next word got interrupted by a distant explosion. "- that was your hospital room."

Not waiting to answer anymore questions, they walked to the door and knocked.

"Sign says closed," a voice shouted from inside.

Not to be outdone, Terra opened her mouth to yell back, then thought better of it and just kicked the door a few times.

"How many times must I tell you," the voice said as the person it belonged to walked up, "We're _not_ -" He stopped to gasp in surprise and alarm.

"P-Pegasus-san?"

"Nice to see you again too, Otogi-boy," Pegasus said with a smile. "Care to unlock the door?"

Otogi fumbled with the keys before he got the door open.

"I thought you were - how did - ?"

"I'll be happy to explain things in a minute, but right now I think we should get inside," Pegasus cut him off.

Quickly, Otogi showed them to a cozily decorated rec room.

"My manager's on vacation," he mentioned after seeing how his guests were looking around at the shockingly empty building.

Inside his mostly calm expression, Otogi was actually on the verge of freaking out. He'd visited Pegasus at the Duelist Kingdom, that was one thing, but now his idol was here, at his own _house_!

'I _knew_ I should have had the walls painted differently,' he complained to himself mentally.

It was too late now, his idol and that guy Croquet had gotten a long look at the paint job, they probably hated it - the female guard giggled.

Wondering what the hell that was about, Otogi sat across from his guests.

"What happened? Most people think you're dead or something. No offense," he added very quickly.

"None taken - to be honest, I'm not quite certain myself," Pegasus admitted.

Before Otogi could ask anything else, the female guard stood up.

"Okay, fine. I'll cut to the chase, as much as I hate doing that," she announced.

She then seemed to glow and the guard outfit was gone. Now she was just some platinum blond in a blue dress.

"Huh?"

Not the most intelligent of responses, but somehow it was justifiable.

It was amazing - the terror known as Terra was actually going to sit down and talk sense, it would seem. Pegasus didn't know what to say, he was so astounded - but it was just as well considering what she said next.

"…On second thought, I'll actually cut to the chase later. First Dicey-Wicey's gotta go bye-bye."

'So much for sanity,' Pegasus thought with a sigh. Meanwhile, Otogi-boy didn't seem to take to being called 'Dicey-Wicey'.

"What do you mean, 'go bye-bye?' This is _my_ house!"

"I know _that_, silly," Terra said with her inane grin going full blast, "But you're not gonna be in it for a while."

She waved a hand over Otogi's face. His expression blanked out.

"You're _really_ curious about the Tournament," she informed him, "You're gonna go see everyone, find a nice girl, and then fall off a blimp. Now say bye-bye! Say bye-bye!"

Otogi waved 'bye-bye', then walked out the door. Judging from the flick of Terra's hand, the boy's hypnotized state had been cast off once he was outside. He hoped. It wouldn't really do to leave the poor fellow walking around brainwashed. Speaking of which…

"He's going to fall off a _blimp_? The boy's a little obsessive, I'll grant you, but isn't that a bit much?"

"Ah ah ah," Terra scolded, shaking a finger at him, "That's not for you to know Peggy-kun. I'm not here to save Dicey-Wicey, so unless you fall off a blimp with him he's on his own."

Croquet, to his credit, had not moved or said anything during all of this. Nor did he say anything now. Instead, he merely stood up and walked into another room. Even that man had limits on the insanity he could take for one day, and Pegasus didn't blame him - if he could just figure out how to avoid Terra, he'd have already started running.

"Now, where was I? Oh yeah, the chase! It's later now, so I guess it's okay to start listening to your silly questions now Peggy-kun."

"Hmph," Pegasus huffed, "It would help if you'd be a little more specific about this 'thing' I'm supposed to be stopping, you know."

"Oh, was that all you wanted to know? I coulda told you all about _that_ already! Why didn't you ask earlier?"

Ignoring the sound of grinding teeth that suddenly echoed in the room, Terra sat back onto the sofa and closed her eyes as she gathered her thoughts.

"First of all, you need to know some basic facts about the Shadow Realm. Besides being dark and spooky and filled with dead souls, it's kinda the barrier between this world and another world."

"Another dimension?"

"I said as much, don't interrupt," Terra said, snippy.

"Anyway, like I was saying, the Dark World, as it's called, is the opposite of the World, which humans like to call the Real World (which is very silly and naïve of them), or sometimes the Light Realm (which is slightly more accurate, one would suppose). No human could ever go to the Dark World and survive, but there is something from the Dark World that can come here. That's why the Shadow Realm exists - to block the Dark World from engulfing the World."

As she spoke, Terra grew more and more serious.

"That something is called a Darkie. Darkies have a way more complicated name for themselves, but nothing someone from the World could ever hope to pronounce. As it so happens, in the very beginnings of the three dimension's existences, there was a certain kind of thing that was made of the stuff of all three planes of existence. Gold from the World, Intention from the Dark World, and Power from the Shadow Realm. It was divided into seven large pendent-like thingies at some point (I don't know when exactly) and the Darkies used it to try and get to the World from the Dark World.

"Of course, they ended up in the Shadow Realm instead, which really ticked off their boss, the Darkie Lord, that was trying to get to the World. The Darkie Lord was trapped inside the Shadow Realm, and at some point the seven pendants were taken from him. That was the earliest 'Shadow Game', you could say, seeing as it took place inside the Shadow Realm. That happened back when dinosaurs were still running around, World-time-wise."

"What happened to the Darkie Lord," Pegasus asked after he processed all of that.

"He's still in the Shadow Realm, and has been trying to get out for some time now. Unfortunately the Realm's getting to be very leaky nowadays…but he still needs the seven pendants to get free. Boy was he mad when he found out they'd gotten to the World without him!"

Though none of this was at all funny, Terra laughed.

"And these 'pendants'…are the seven Millennium Items…is that what you're saying?"

"You're only half right - the seven pendants were just some big ol' chunks of gold, all looking exactly the same. But the person that brought them into the World had them all melted down and made into jewelry - something about the original shapes being too bulky, he said. I wasn't paying attention at the time."

Pegasus nodded to himself, and it took a few seconds for him to track on her last sentence.

"Wait - you were _there_ -"

Terra had disappeared again. He sighed, and went to find Croquet.