Book Dragon: "Updated!"

Chapter 32: Attic Arrival

A steady calm voice kept whispering. Whispering cooingly. Whispering inside the strange dark abyss inside; deep, deep, deep down. Behind closed eyelids. Behind a pale face framed by snow white hair. Inside the sleeping child.

Kaede was confused by it, walking down the twisting gray hallway, her hand brushing against the smooth stone colored surface. She followed the weaving downward path, walking straight down and spiraling. She wasn't falling. Something gravity shouldn't have allowed at all. Just following the sound of that voice that was familiar. So very familiar. Whispering in a foreign tongue.

The doorway loomed, gray and folding in on itself. She felt along the wall as she walked up the side of the wall, the ceiling, around back to the ground, following that eerie path, until, finally she lingered in the frame of it and listened. Listened to soft singing.

Inhuman singing.

(…)

"We're almost there." Kaiba glared at the microphone he was speaking into with the fury he had been feeling for the past hour. It was about god damn time they called! As every minute passed, he felt more and more like he was wasting his time. Javas pretended to be invisible in the other room with Christa, Kaiba knew. He knew his boy was trying to hide and didn't blame him.

"Good. I'm getting sick of baby sitting."

"But you're so good with children, Kaiba." Joey's voice said in the background, mockingly.

"Well, your sister is good at having them." He said bitterly. There was silence on the other line. Probably shock. Kaiba found himself smirking smugly at the silent buzz, with his arms crossed and eyes closed. Then there was an explosion of yelling and noise, to which Kaiba started laughing at darkly. He continued to listen with amusement as Yami tried to wrestle Joey away from the microphone.

"Joey! Stop! You're going to-" He kept laughing until a very different voice suddenly started shouting.

"STOP YOUR STUGGLING YOU, MEAT BAG!" Kaiba found himself wincing, gritting his teeth hard enough for it to hurt, and stared with wild eyes without really looking at anything around him.

"What the HELL was that!" He found himself yelling over the speaker angrily. He used anger to cover the sudden misty fright crawling in his body as he gripped the headset to the point where he could hear the plastic frame creaking under the pressure of his white fist clamped around it.

At first, there was no sound, then:

"…It's our escort." Yami replied slowly. Kaiba was relieved. For a second there, he thought it was actually something serious.

"You're escort sounds like he has a tongue like cardboard."

"Something like that. Kaiba, listen, keep Javas and Christa in the house. Our…escort as just informed us that…a friend of ours is looking after the both of you there." Kaiba was quickly at the window at those words, peering through one of the corners of the shades, before figuring he looked like an idiot and quickly flapping the shade open.

No one was outside.

"What kind of joke is that? I don't see anyone out there."

"Trust me Kaiba, someone's watching. Got to go."

"Yami-" deadline.

Kaiba rolled his eyes annoyed and flipped the microphone up out of his vision, before looking around the kitchen for more coffee, and liquor. After about ten minutes he was pouring himself some nice tea, he had drank all the coffee, glancing out the window every few seconds, seeing movement out of the corners of his eyes, swearing he could see something moving out there, but every time he looked there was nothing. After another ten minutes he took finally glance out the window before going back into the living room, while wondering to himself rather comically.

When did Yami plant that small birch tree in the front yard?

(…)

"That's my sister he's talking about…" Joey said, grumbling to himself, arms crossed, as they ascended a wall in the north, ignoring the huge plant bud with the needle teeth.

"We know, you've only said it several thousand times."

Marik retorted, rolling his eyes annoyed while propping his head up with his hand, his elbow leaning on the hung green bulging vine holding him around his chest. It had been forty-five minutes and they had only moved about fifty feet, more of it up a wall. It had been cool for the first ten minutes, but then he got bored.

Yami was busy asking questions. Many questions. He felt Yugi's curiosity like an expanding area in his head, felt and looked like his vessel all over, and had to suppress a grin and remain serious. He gripped the vine supporting him, and leaned over it as he spoke, asking all the questions he and Yugi thought up. History mostly. Why, how, when. It was interesting, and strange.

It seemed the original eight had been chopped down to seven. Acer had recently gone missing after she accepted Ryelle as her daughter. The seven brothers seemed…torn about. They asked how several times but their 'escort' couldn't quite explain it so they understood. All they knew was that Acer was missing, and Ryelle had been marked by her, and now Kaede was marked. They didn't get what being marked actually meant, and that was something else that wasn't being explained. It was puzzling.

All the while, Yami was relieved to find the thief was asleep. The white haired boy had his head tilted back; feet dangling limply, his mouth open a little yet not snoring very loudly. In his crossed arms, he had the knife clenched tightly in his fist.

Yet, Yami kept looking at the green circle around those white locks, extremely visible, that he was only really seeing for the first time. They looked to be growing out of his head, like he was some twisted chia-pet. But they weren't a true emerald green anymore. They looked like they were changing color. Changing to a darker reddish tinge at the very edges. It reminded him of the fall. Hauntingly so.

When the trap door came insight, he was quick to yell at the sleeping child, knowing full well he'd be pissed if he did later.

"THIEF!" T.R jerked awkwardly. Eyes flying open and righting himself immediately, knife clenched in his fist tighter and out in a stance. When he found no danger, he looked irritated at the Pharaoh. It was the first time he had had a some what restful sleep, and he had to ruin it. Why did the Pharaoh ruin everything?

"What?" He growled at those smug purples eyes watching him.

"We're close." He announced. T.R's anger twisted from him to the stranger holding his vessel captive and how much he would take pleasure in gutting him. In the back of his mind, his subconscious started on a different path, where his heart hid quietly. Eyes brown eyes lit with a strange light.

"How close, Pharaoh?"

"I'd say about five minutes…you look a bit eager." The gleam in his eyes drained a bit.

"What?"

"Eager, I said you looked a bit excited. Why?" He looked at him for a moment, blankly, before his face changed into a wicked grin and laughed like a demon. The turning leaves bobbed on his head.

"Why shouldn't I get excited? I get to create some bloodshed!" His eyes gleamed brighter at that. Yami stared at him, seeing the addicted murder he had first seen so very long ago, wondering strangely if he had indeed changed in some way. Any weaker man would've faltered under such a blood thirsty look.

"And Kaede?" Yami asked this a little softer. T.R looked at him sharply at the mention of her name, wondering why the Pharaoh would ask such a thing, annoyed by it. He didn't answer, but chose to look away from those piercing eyes as his mind started down the road he really didn't want to go down.

Yes, what about his vessel? It was because of her that he was about to kill, wasn't it? It was strange. Was she not the reason he was so angry? He felt a little knotted up and willed the feeling away to something he could accept.

"She's my vessel, Pharaoh. Mine. No one steals anything from me and gets away with it. Not the Thief King." He growled quietly. There was no comment to this. Yami just stared at him for a few minutes, before turning his head back forward, showing his back to him. The Thief King pictured throwing the knife right into that blue clothed back, pictured it so clearly and vividly, the blood splashing, the head rocking forward, and surprised blank purple eyes. He felt better.

They arrived at the door.

"My job ends here."

"Thank you." Yami said in reply to the big toothy maw. The eyeless creature was silent for a moment, before chuckling.

"Don't get withered." Yami took this as the equivalent as, 'don't get killed'.

"We'll try not to." The door, an oak brown, was slammed open by one green crooked vine as they were all hoisted up fast, making them feel like they lost their stomach somewhere along the way.

It was smooth and quick, they rose up through the hole, looking like they were almost riding leaping green snakes, before he where placed gently down on the boarded floor and uncoiled just a quick. A few seconds later, the green vines were all gone, and they were standing, a little shakily, in a vast room.

It was then that Yami realized that he had never been up here. Bakura and Ryelle had never showed him this place before, this place where his wife had called home for several months after her first arrival here. It was bright with large grand windows, but that light was turned into a hazy green from the many leaves it passed through to get to them.

The canopy of a large tree had grown in the wall of all the windows, trying to get the most sunlight as possible to keeping growing and surviving. Its massive form took up a lot of the south wall, trunk at least twenty arm spans around, branches wide and dipping as to house all those leaves, and the many apples hanging, dangling, and falling to the ground every once in awhile.

He looked at that tree admiringly, aware that Ryelle had crafted it accidentally once, many, many years ago. It was very well made, even on accident, in his standards. He felt like saying so when something dark caught his eyes. Something swinging that didn't belong in that street. The edges of a black cape fluttered behind them, teasingly, like a huge signal flag.

A pair of shoes.