A/N: Okay...

A/N: Wow, I think everyone who's been following the story (and even new reviewers) reviewed for this last chapter! I looked at the review page and I was like, WHOA! TEN new reviews! That's, like, more than a third of all of the reviews I have so far! YAY! Thanks, everyone!

Disclaimer: NOT. MINE.

Ten Little Duel Monsters

Serenity hugged her brother's corpse to her, sobbing brokenheartedly. For a few seconds, no one quite knew what to do.

"Serenity, it'll be okay," Ryou said softly, attempting to pull Serenity off of her brother's body.

"NO! It won't be okay! It won't!" she yelled at him through her tears.

"Serenity, please let go." Suddenly, Serenity turned around and began to cry into Ryou's shoulder. He patted her on the back as though comforting a small child, ignoring the wet spots appearing on his shirt. "It's okay; it's okay."

Not wanting to upset Serenity, the others looked at each other, communicating without words.

How did he die?

Tristan moved silently into the room, and kicked over a large picture in a metal frame that had been dented. It portrayed a field with a picket fence running through it.

It must have fallen on him.

Seven little Duel Monsters going after chicks

Someone took offense and then there were six

Someone took offense...

Someone took a fence...

The picture!

For several minutes, no one spoke in respect for Serenity's grief. Then, Kaiba spoke up.

"Look, I know you're probably sad, but it doesn't change the fact that we have a murderer loose on the island. You just have to pull yourself together and help us search outside of the castle. We need to go now."

"Kaiba, show a little compassion for her," Ryou said softly. "How would you feel if Mokuba had just been murdered?"

Serenity wailed at the word murdered.

Kaiba stared at him for a few seconds, then said, "Fine. But we're going to search in fifteen minutes." He turned, trench coat swishing behind him.

"Wait!" Serenity cried, just as the group was about to leave the castle.

"What now?" Kaiba snarled, annoyed.

Serenity ran from the door and into the dining room, then began to scan the room with her eyes. Sure enough, the Red Eyes Black Dragon china figure was lying in pieces on the floor. Serenity spotted its head and one of its wings that were still intact. She picked up the cold china and held it in her hands, closing her eyes, until her hands had transferred their warmth to the smashed figure in her hand.

Tears trailed down her face again. Joey... why did it have to be you? I'm going to miss you... so, so much...

I love you, big brother...

"WHEELER! Are you coming or have you been murdered, too?" came Kaiba's voice.

Serenity opened her eyes and looked down at the pieces she held in her hands. "Coming!" she announced, wrapping the china in a nearby cloth napkin and slipping it into her pocket.

"Okay, Tristan, Marik and I will search this side of the island," Kaiba instructed, gesturing to a portion of the island containing forest and a beach. "The rest of you will search over there." He waved his arm in the direction of a portion of the island containing desert and wasteland. "We'll meet back here in three hours. Make sure not to miss anything."

The two groups left.

"This is impossible," Tristan grumbled as he, Marik, and Kaiba walked through the forest. "You can't see anything in here! The killer could be hiding in a tree, for all we know, and we'd never see him! Or he could be wearing camouflage clothes! This is just stupid! We should be concentrating on finding the laptop instead of trying to find a murderer that might not even be there."

"What do you mean, the murderer might not be here?" Marik asked. "People are dying left and right! Of course there's a killer! I doubt that these have all been accidents."

"Ah... what I meant was that one of us is probably the murderer. So this is totally pointless. It's just another way to get us to split up and make us easier to kill."

"I doubt that one of us will die while we're in groups of three."

"They say bad things happen in groups of three."

"That means three bad things happen before any good things happen. It doesn't mean that when three people meet that disaster will strike. And as for one of us getting killed, the member of the group not being killed or doing the killing would have to be pretty dumb not to notice that a murder is taking place right next to him. We're fairly safe."

"Would you two shut up and concentrate on searching?" snapped Kaiba.

"You know, if there was someone here, we'd have seen them by now," said Ribbon. "I mean, we're searching desert and a wasteland, right? They're totally flat lands! A murderer would have to be stupid to hide here! What's he going to do, hide behind a dead tree or a cactus, then jump out and say "Gotcha"?"

"I don't know," Serenity said, depression making her apathetic. "Maybe so."

"Maybe they created tunnels underground to get around?" Ryou said. "Then no one would see them."

"It's possible, I suppose," Ribbon said. "Should we check over there?"

"Sure. Let's go," said Serenity. (A/N: Did anyone besides me notice that everything Serenity said just rhymed? That was not intentional, I assure you!)

"OW!" Marik said, accompanied by several words not fit to be heard. A heavy tree branch had just fallen out of a nearby tree, hitting him hard on the collarbone. As pain radiated throughout his head, shoulders, torso, and arms, he noted that his left arm was immobile.

"Are you all right?" Tristan asked. Was that intentional? Was someone trying to kill him? That branch did come just short of his head...

Marik groaned and sank to his knees, holding onto his collarbone with his right hand. "I'm fine," he said through gritted teeth. His eyes filled with tears.

"Perhaps we should go back?" Tristan suggested.

"NO! We have to finish searching this island!" Kaiba yelled. "If he wants to stay behind and get killed because he got hit by a twig, that's his problem!"

"That wasn't a twig; it was quite near a tree trunk!" retorted Tristan.

"It's okay. I can protect myself," Marik said, standing up shakily.

"What?"

"I'm going to go back to the castle and lay down. Whether you trust each other enough to search the island is your business. You can come back with me, or you can keep going." Marik headed back the way they'd come, tears beginning to spill out of his eyes. Ra, I'm probably going to need a sling for this thing! It hurts more than the time that they put the tattoos on my back!

Kaiba and Tristan looked at each other.

"Go if you want. I think it would be more foolhardy to go back without being sure that no one else is here." Kaiba began to walk away.

Tristan stared after Marik and Kaiba for a few seconds, then ran after Kaiba.

Ryou was lying down with his ear on the ground.

"Hear anything?" Ribbon asked him.

"Nothing. So much for my tunnel idea."

"You never know. Maybe they didn't dig tunnels under the desert or wasteland," said Serenity. "The forest would have provided them with more cover."

"I think we're done searching here," Ryou said. "It's pretty obvious that there's nothing to find."

"Shall we go and help Kaiba, Tristan, and Marik search then?" Ribbon asked.

"Fine by me," said Ryou.

Ryou, Ribbon, and Serenity walked towards the forest, looking left and right as they went, keeping an eye out for Marik, Kaiba, Tristan, or the killer.

"Should we call out for them?" Ribbon asked.

"We don't want to announce our presence if there's a murderer nearby," Serenity pointed out.

"True, but if the murderer does come, then there's three of us and one of him, so we'd be pretty safe."

At these words, a dark figure came barreling out of the trees nearby, causing Serenity and Ribbon to scream loudly. Ryou reached out and caught the man by the arm.

"Kaiba?"

"What's going on? Why are you here?"

"Why are you here? Where's Tristan and Marik?"

"I knew it!" Serenity screamed. "He killed them both!"

Kaiba glared at her. "Don't be stupid. Marik's fine. He just went up to the castle to lie down.

"And Tristan?" Ribbon asked, voice shaking.

"DEAD!"

A/N: Sorry for the abnormally short chapter, everyone! It just happens fast... Tristan's gone, and Kaiba is the only witness. Things don't look good, do they? How did Tristan die? Well, I'm going to be mean and make you wait until the next chapter to find out! Review please (or no new chappies!)

TCD0012: Well, Ribbon's not gone yet! Still think Tristan did it? Ribbon doesn't appear in many fics because she's from the first season (and the manga, come to think of it), but the first season wasn't aired in the U.S. I put her in my fics mainly because it's fun to have someone have a crush on Ryou!

Athena777: (draws one-half of a tally mark under Mai's name and one-half of a tally mark under Pegasus's name on big chart) Do you still suspect Tristan? Or now is it just Pegasus and Mai? Didn't kill off Serenity quite yet, although it probably would have been kinder not to let her suffer and mourn her brother for long. What can I say? The killer isn't very nice.

SiriusIsthar: (draws tally mark under Tristan's name on large chart) I may be killing a lot of people's guesses with this chapter, becuase everyone thinks it's Tristan. But I had to, due to the order of deaths, it had to be him or someone else, and I didn't want that someone else to die yet.

JessiePotter: I couldn't kill Ryou just yet! He's my favorite character!

Revan Starr: (laughs) Yugi's going to live forever because he's short? Well, it worked for Yami for 3000 or 5000 years (although I think that had more to do with the whole being-sealed-inside-a-puzzle thing than being short). And MY Ryou hasn't died yet!

KisarathedragonPaliden: (grins mischievously) Who said I was going to kill Kaiba? (looks at last chapter) Ahh... guess it sounded like that... but (slaps hands over mouth)

Shan's Mousey: (draws one-half of a tally mark under Pegasus's name and one-half of a tally mark under Bakura's name on chart) Yeah, but I didn't want Yugi to suffer by seeing all of his friends die. And I couldn't leave him out of the story because Yugi fangirls wouldn't like it. (A/N's friend Mel: Well, we're mad that you killed him!) Oh, and I killed another main character. I didn't even realize that I was killing all of them...

Slifer02: (draws one-half of a tally mark under Alister's name and one-half of a tally mark under Tristan's name on big chart) Yeah, And Then There Were None is one of my three favorite Agatha Christie books (the others are The Pale Horse and Cards On the Table, although Endless Night is amazing also) Still think it's Tristan?

Standings: (decided to drop the half-votes, from now on you can vote for multiple people and each vote will count. I also dropped numbers for tallys. So each line means one vote)

Tristan: l l l l

Kaiba: l l l

Pegasus: l l l

Ribbon: l l

Yugi: l

Mai: l

Ryou: l

Bakura: l

Alister: l