Chapter 8

'Domino Park – midnight, be prepared to duel' was all that was written on the piece of paper that Kaiba had found in his brother's room. He was not only annoyed by his brother's disappearance, but also angry that Mokuba had taken most of his deck and dueldisk too. He had made his way across the town and was storming through the park, his white coat flowing along behind him, when there was a bright explosion of light from behind some trees in front of him. He quickened his pace in to a run, passed the trees and in to a clearing where he saw a duel taking place between Mokuba and Emma.

Mokuba had just attacked Emma with Kaiba's Blue Eyes Shining Dragon whose strength was at 5100 ATK points. This had wiped out all her monsters, leaving her with no cards on the field. She had two cards in her hand, her life points were at 300 and to her left side off the field was a card with a sword through it. On Mokuba's side of the field he only had his brother's dragon, wasn't holding any cards and his life points were at 100.

"What is the meaning of this!" Kaiba yelled angrily

"It's a duel genius." Joey shot at Kaiba as he and the others made their way across to him.

Kaiba ignored the comment as he continued to yell at Emma. "I warned you to stay away from my brother!"

Yugi was now beside Kaiba. "We can explain, but you have to have an open mind."

Kaiba glared at Yugi before he shouted to his brother. "Mokuba, end this nonsense now, we're leaving!"

"Stop ordering me around." replied Sobek.

Slightly shocked at his brother's reply, Kaiba walked towards him. "I guess I'll have to drag you home." He stretched out his arm ready to grab Mokuba but it was thrown back by the force-field surrounding the two duellists.

"Enjoy the short time that you have left of your life before I bring about your downfall mortal." snarled Sobek as he saw Kaiba begin to back away. He turned back to his opponent. "It's your move."

Unsure of what was going on, Kaiba watched as Emma drew her card and looked down at her hand.

"This looks bad." Gasped Tea.

Joey looked over to the card with the sword through it. "Yugi, why did you give the squirt that Lightforce Sword card?"

"I didn't know that this would happen." cried Yugi as he watched Sobek gain the advantage with the card he had given Mokuba.

Emma picked a card from her hand and showed it to Sobek. "I play the spell card Pot of Greed to allow me to draw two more cards." she told him trying to keep her voice strong.

"She's in trouble." Yami told Yugi.

"All she has to do is survive one more turn, then she'll have her Pikachu card free to use." Yugi answered Yami through his thoughts as he looked at the card with the sword through it.

Emma drew her cards and stared at them for a moment as she worked out what would be the best move to make. Finally she set two cards on to the field, one in the monster field and the other in her magic field, and then she ended her turn.

"If you had paid better attention to your brother, then none of this would be happening." Sobek taunted Kaiba as he drew his card. He immediately placed the card on his magic field. "X Defend will change your monster from defence to attack position, which means that there'll be no way that you can survive my attack."

Emma's card flipped face up and changed to attack position, revealing the card as Gemini Elf. Together the two female elves waited arms locked around each other as they watched the dragon power up ready to attack and destroy them.

"When I tell you to, I want you to break the puzzle." Yami spoke to Yugi with the sound of urgency in his voice.

"What!" exclaimed Yugi out loud causing his friends to turn and look at him with confusion on their faces.

"Just do it." Yami ordered.

Emma flipped up the card she had set in her magic field. "I activate the spell card Sonic Speed Search, which allows me to search my deck for any card of my choice and play it before your monster's attack hits." There was a blue blare that shot from the field and into her dueldisk. She drew the card that she wanted. "And the card I chose is Double Edged Blade." She placed the trap card on to her magic field.

"Ha!" Sobek let out a huge laugh. "Trap cards don't affect my monster. You're out of luck."

"This trap card isn't targeting your dragon." Emma's voice was confident and for the first time this duel it wasn't forced either. "Thanks to this card, when my life points reach zero due to an attack from my opponent, their life points are also reduced to zero, making the duel a draw."

"What!" Cried Sobek. "This can't be!" He watched as the elves were destroyed and both of their life points began to decrease.

"And as we agreed earlier, a draw is counted as a loss for both of us, so say good-bye." She said this with a smile on her face even though she knew that she wouldn't be around to see Mokuba return to normal. She stared across to Kaiba hoping that he appreciated the sacrifice that she had just made.

The force-field barrier around them began to lift and Emma and Sobek were pulled into the shadow realm. The bodies left behind slowly fell to the ground.

"Now!" Screamed Yami, and the sound of the millennium puzzle breaking quickly followed.

There was darkness all around her as she stood unable to move with the shock of what had just happened. "So this is what the shadow realm is like?" Emma said to herself.

"You're not in the shadow realm." answered a voice from the darkness.

Emma jumped as she had not been expecting a reply. "Then where am I?" she asked.

"Inside the millennium puzzle." came her answer as Yami appeared in front of her. He gestured for her to follow him and slowly they made their way through the darkness.

"How did I get here?" Emma asked.

"When your life points had dropped to zero I had Yugi break the puzzle." He began to explain. "The force given off from the break pulled you inside as you were about to enter the shadow realm."

"Okay." Emma said really slowly as she thought about what had been said. "And you knew that this would happen, how?"

"When you first showed me the millennium key I had some kind of vision, a flashback of a memory perhaps, I'm not entirely sure." Yami told her. "But I knew that this would happen as a result from the breakage."

"I wonder if Shadi knew about this?" Emma asked aloud and then remembered what Sobek had said. "You don't think he's dead do you?" she asked Yami.

"I'm afraid I don't know." Came his reply.

"I have this feeling that he's not." she said and waited for Yami to comment but he did not. "He had doubts about me being the reincarnation of Hathor, so maybe this was some kind of test or…." she trailed off as she guessed that Yami wouldn't say anymore on the subject of Shadi.

There was silence for a while as they approached a rather old and battered looking door which they stopped in front of.

"Am I dead?" She asked Yami as he grabbed the handle and began to pull open the door. He looked slightly confused. "What I mean is that I know I'm not in the shadow realm but I'm also not in my body either."

"If Yugi can fix the puzzle back together quickly enough then you may return to you body." Yami assured her.

"And if not?" she asked as they both stepped through the door together.

"Then you'll remain here until the end of time." Yami said sadly.

She looked at the view that met them in the new place that they had just entered. Stairs criss-crossed all over the place leading to doorways that seemed unreachable as many were upside-down or even in mid-air. Emma would have been amazed, even impressed if she hadn't just been told that this may be her new home. She turned to Yami.

"I'm sorry." was all he said.