12. A Way Out

When Yugi awoke the next morning, he found Serenity already awake and sitting on the other side of Téa. Sitting up quickly, he asked, "How is she?"

"The same," Serenity said listlessly. "How are you? Feeling any better?"

"I feel rested, if that's what you mean," he told her. "But I won't feel better until I know she's okay."

Serenity nodded. "Everyone else is already up and eating breakfast. Why don't you get something to eat. I'll sit with her."

"I'm not hungry," he said immediately.

"You should eat anyway, Yugi. Starving yourself isn't going to help her."

Now it was his turn to nod. He reached down and smoothed the hair around Téa's face, brushing the back of his hand down her cheek to her chin. She was still and pale and Yugi had to swallow over a lump in his throat before he took his hand away from her face then got up and walked out of the niche where she was lying. As Serenity had told him, everyone was awake and they were gathered together, sullen, eating from the rations they'd gotten back from Rex and Weevil.

"Hey Yuge!" Joey cried out seeing him. There was a forced jovialness to his voice that made Yugi cringe. "Come on and get some breakfast." He slid over a bit to make room for Yugi between himself and Tristan.

"I'm not very hungry," Yugi repeated as he sat down with them.

"If you think you aren't hungry now, wait until you actually eat some of this," Mai cracked, handing him a granola bar. "If I never see another granola bar again it will be too soon."

He took the proffered bar and opened it, biting into it without much enthusiasm.

"How's Téa?" Rebecca asked. "Any change?"

Yugi just shook his head.

"We were just going over our plan for trying to find a way out of here," Tristan informed him. "Kaiba, Mokuba, Duke, and Rebecca found a bunch more tunnels last night."

"We think at least one of them must be another way out," Duke confirmed. "And they're all lined with more hieroglyphics and torches and stuff, although the torches aren't lit. We figured we'd split up in pairs to search for an exit. Kaiba and Mokuba will head east, Joey and Mai will take the south tunnels, and Becks and I will go west. You, Tristan, and Serenity stay behind with Téa."

Yugi frowned. "You said there were hieroglyphics. Does anyone know what they say?"

Kaiba shrugged. "Mostly the same stuff we've been seeing about how great and all-powerful Ramesses is or how useless the 'nameless pharaohs' are."

"Anything about the 'other dark force' that might tell us how to fight back?"

Kaiba shook his head. "He'd have to be an idiot to spell out his plan on the walls for us to read."

But Rebecca's eyes widened. "Wait a second, I think there was something in one of the tunnels I was in." She scrunched up her face, trying to remember. "I forget which tunnel it was in and I was just sort of skimming the hieroglyphs as we went along because we weren't there very long, but I remember something on one of the walls about 'Shadow Powers combined.' It might have actually been Dark Powers instead of Shadow Powers now that I think about it. Do you think it might be about the Orichalcos?"

"I don't know, but we should check it out," Yugi replied.

"Do you really think we should be wasting our time reading hieroglyphics that we know were put there by Evan's boss when we should be trying to find away out of here? Surely you want to get Téa out of this cave as soon as possible," Kaiba argued.

"Of course I do, but we need to learn more about Ramesses and anything we can about how he's using the Orichalcos and the Shadow Games together. If the hieroglyphs can give us any insight at all, it would be worth at least skimming them as we go."

"Except only Kaiba and I can read them," Rebecca pointed out.

"No, I can, too," Yugi reminded her. "If I go with Joey or Mai then each group would have one person who can read hieroglyphics."

"Don't you wanna stay with Téa?" Duke asked.

"I'd rather help her, and I can't help her sitting around here. The only thing that will help her is figuring out how to defeat Evan."

"If that's what you'd prefer, you can go with Joey and I'll stay with Serenity and Tristan," Mai offered.

Yugi looked at Joey and Mai. "That would be great, if you don't mind."

"Whatever you want, buddy," Joey said supportively.

"You sure you or Kaiba shouldn't stay back with Téa?" Duke asked. "Judging by the way Evan kept trying to get rid of you two or separate you from the rest of us, I think you're the only ones he's afraid of."

"I can handle him," Mai snapped.

"We can handle him," Tristan corrected. "Guy doesn't need a duel so much as a cracked skull."

"He won't come looking for us anyway," Kaiba said confidently. "He's a coward." He spat the word like a curse. "He only wants to fight us on his terms and he knows that after what he did to Téa we'll eventually come looking for him."

"I think Kaiba's right," Yugi said. "He went to way too much trouble to get us into that Wedju Chamber to try and fight us anywhere else."

The course of action agreed upon, they finished their breakfast quickly. Yugi found that the prospect of having something to do that would work toward helping Téa brought back a little of his appetite. He still had to force himself just to finish an entire granola bar, but at least it didn't make him nauseous.

After breakfast, they geared up for their search. They found four of the five flashlights they'd brought with them into the cave, meaning Evan probably had one, but four was enough for each group to have one and still leave one behind with Mai, Serenity, and Tristan. There were plenty of rations left, which they divided up among them. The water supply was alarmingly small, so each group took only one half-filled canteen so they could leave plenty for Serenity to give to Téa. Yugi and Joey then checked on Téa one last time before heading off with Mai's compass toward the south end of the cavern and the group of tunnels branching off from there. They randomly chose one of the tunnels and began exploring.

Two hours later they'd come up with three dead ends and were searching through a fourth tunnel, torches unlit, when Yugi found something interesting in the hieroglyphics.

"Listen to this, Joey," Yugi said, training his flashlight on the wall. "It talks about a 'cleansing force, more ancient than the Millennium Items.' Doesn't that sound like how Rafael and Dartz talked about the Orichalcos, saying stuff like they were going to rid the world of evil."

"I don't know. I missed most of your duels with Rafael and Dartz, but it doesn't sound good. Guys like Hitler and Osama bin Laden talked about 'cleansing,' too," Joey replied, and even in the dim light reflected from his flashlight, Yugi could see Joey shudder.

"Yeah, which is exactly the kind of thing that makes me think this 'cleansing force' is the same as the 'dark force' Pegasus mentioned."

"Anything about how to beat it?"

"No. But it says the 'cleansing force' can pull the darkness from men's hearts and fuel the Shadow Games. I think that pretty much describes what Ramesses and Evan have been doing here."

"Okay, but how do we stop it?" Joey asked.

"Well, if the darkness in our hearts is fuel, we have to cut off the source of fuel."

"We already knew that," Joey complained, "we just don't know how."

"What's the opposite of the darkness in our hearts?" Yugi asked, thinking out loud. It was like putting together the pieces of a puzzle.

"The light in our hearts?"

"Exactly. Love. Friendship. Teamwork."

"But Yuge, we don't have access to it when we're dueling. I stood with you, my best friend in the world, and couldn't feel anything but anger and hate. The friendship, the teamwork, that was all gone, and that was even with us fighting on the same side."

"It wasn't really gone, though," Yugi mused, "otherwise it couldn't come back so quickly whenever we snapped out of it. Hidden away is more like it. And there has to be a way to uncover it, to access the love and friendship and all the other things that fight darkness. If you think about it, darkness isn't even really a thing at all. It's just the absence of light. So if we find a way to access the light, the darkness will be gone."

"Which leads us right back to how."

"I know, I know," Yugi said, thinking as they started walking again. "What we need to do is go through every duel and every weird thing and figure out exactly what got us out of it."

"Okay," Joey said. "So, uh… the first duel was Mokuba and Jacques Rousseau. Mokuba acted all weird but was fine when the duel was over."

Yugi's forehead creased as he pictured Mokuba's duel. "You know, that's not quite right. Right after the duel ended, Jacques attacked Mokuba one more time with Tyrant Dragon. Then Mokuba summoned Spirit Ryu and pumped up his attack by discarding two dragons."

"Are you sure that was because of the Orichalcos? I mean, if someone attacked me, I'd call up something to defend myself, too."

"Maybe," Yugi said thoughtfully. "No, wait, that can't be right. He pushed Rebecca aside. Mokuba wouldn't do that normally."

"Yeah, you're right," Joey agreed. "So then what?"

"Uh…" Yugi tried to remember. "Then I think the ref threatened to disqualify them both if they didn't turn off their duel disks and Kaiba got involved and then while Kaiba and the ref were arguing, Mokuba shut off his duel disk and calmed down Kaiba, which is pretty much how Mokuba normally behaves."

"Okay, so sometime between summoning Spirit Ryu and calling off Kaiba, something made Mokuba go back to normal. But what?"

"I don't know," Yugi said. "Let's look at the next duel and see if there's a pattern."

"Uh…" Yugi could only see Joey's silhouette in the darkness, but he could tell Joey was scratching his head. "That was Zig-freak von Schraider and that American girl."

"I don't think that was a Shadow Game," Yugi said. "And I don't think Leon and Lawrence's duel was, either."

"Okay, Kaiba's duel then. That one was pretty par for the course for Kaiba. Lots of hissing and spitting and posturing. Hard to tell when things went back to normal. Normal for Kaiba looks a lot like the Orichalcos for everyone else."

"Not quite," Yugi disagreed. "Remember at the end when Kaiba lunged at Raul? That's not really like him. You're right about the posturing, but Kaiba doesn't usually lose his cool like that. After all, he'd just won. Normally he just laughs at someone like he's untouchable. He only backed off when Mokuba stopped him."

"Well, that would fit with the whole friends and family plan like in California. Mokuba's the only person Kaiba really cares about."

"Good point. And you know, Kaiba was involved at the end of Mokuba's duel, too. Could he be what snapped Mokuba out of it?"

Joey's silhouette shrugged. "Maybe. But Mokuba's not like Kaiba. He cares about a lot of people, not just his brother. Why wouldn't Rebecca snap him out of it?"

"I don't know," Yugi pondered. "Okay, next duel."

"Mai."

"Mai," Yugi repeated. "We talked about that last night. She napped back to normal the second she hit you. It was a very obvious difference because one second she's furious and the next she's on her knees beside you all guilty. You, or hitting you, was definitely the catalyst. I'm positive. And I think it's safe to say you're top of the list of people she cares about," Yugi grinned.

"Well, charming guy like me, who can blame her?" Joey shot back and Yugi rolled his eyes even though Joey couldn't really see him in the dark. "So we've got Kaiba maybe or maybe not stopping Mokuba while Rebecca has no effect. We've got Mokuba stopping Kaiba. We've got me stopping Mai. So who was next? Rebecca, right? I don't think she did anything weird after the duel was over, though."

"No, Duke and I didn't give her a chance. We were on the field the second the ref called the duel."

"Okay, so you stopped Rebecca. Is it just me, or is there a pattern forming here?"

"Yeah, it definitely looks like friendship is a factor here. What about your duel with Mako?"

"Uh… boy, I was ticked at him. He took control of my Red-Eyes and I was going to attack him directly after the duel ended."

"When did you feel like yourself again?"

Yugi could just make out Joey's brow furrowing in the gloom. "When Tristan knocked me down. I think we're onto something here, Yuge."

"Maybe," Yugi said, "but there's a piece missing because it didn't work later. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. My duel was last that day. I think I felt normal again when Téa stopped me from using Berserker Soul to keep attacking after the duel was over. It was pretty much an exact reply of the duel with Weevil on the train in California."

"So we're six for six on the whole friendship versus the Orichalcos thing," Joey said.

"But the second day was different," Yugi said.

"Well, my duel was first and I felt normal again after Serenity came up to me when it was over. That makes it seven in a row. And I was there when Mai's duel finished, too, so eight for eight. Then Mokuba was there at the end of Kaiba and Ziggy's duel, so nine for nine. Yuge, I think this is it."

"Then explain my duel with Rebecca."

"I wasn't there for it."

"You saw the end, though. Kaiba had to knock me out. If this is all about friendship, why would I not be able to stop when facing Rebecca? I spent the last two years living under her grandfather's roof. She's one of the most important people in my life, right after you and Téa and Tristan and Grandpa. And the morning of the first duel we'd had this great talk, too. Sort of a bonding moment. But instead of that making a difference, I took what she'd told me and threw it back in her face. Why?"

Joey stopped short. "Hey Yuge, what if it's not something about you but something about her? I mean, Mokuba's got this crush on her and yet she couldn't stop his duel the first day and now you're dueling her and she has no effect on you, either."

Yugi frowned. "Why would that be?"

"I don't know. But something about the Orichalcos freaks her out more than anyone else, even though she never actually fought an Orichalcos duel back in California."

"It can't be Rebecca because she wasn't the only one who didn't have an effect on me. Serenity grabbed my arm and I just shoved her aside. That ticked Duke off so he tried to shake me, but nothing. The only thing that stopped me was Kaiba knocking me out with his duel disk." Yugi shook his head. "It just doesn't make sense. If it's about friendship, then why would three different people I really care about have no effect on me?"

Joey started walking again. "What if it can't be just any friend but someone really special and important? That could be why Kaiba worked on Mokuba but Rebecca didn't. He may have a thing for her and everything, but he doesn't really know her all that well yet, so I don't think she could be considered really important to him, not yet."

"It still doesn't fit my duel with Rebecca, Joey. She's really important to me. Not like Serenity is to you or anything, but I did spend two years living in her grandfather's house and I promised him I'd take care of her. I'd do anything to not have hurt her like I did. And Serenity and Duke… I know I'm not as close to them as to you and Téa and Tristan, but after all we've been through together, how can they not be important to me?"

"Okay, okay, I hear you," Joey placated him. "Was there anything else different about that duel?"

Yugi's eyes widened. "That was the first duel after I'd touched the fake Millennium Ring—with the Orichalcos stone in it."

"So maybe the friendship thing was working fine until you actually touched the Orichalcos stone."

"Maybe. But that doesn't help us now because we've all touched them."

"True. And look what hanging onto one did to Mai the other night."

"Yeah, that was pretty bad. But you helped her out of it," Yugi said thoughtfully. "She was better when you were holding her."

"Or when I took the Ring away from her, anyway."

"No, it was you," Yugi disagreed. "She started calming down when you were holding her. No, wait." Yugi thought about it some more. "You and Serenity. She really calmed down when Serenity was taking her pulse and everything."

"Yeah, you're right."

"So even though Mai had just been holding an Orichalcos stone all night, you and Serenity brought her out of it." A sudden thought hit Yugi. "When you touched her."

Joey's eyebrows went up. "Yeah?"

"Joey, it isn't just seeing our friends that stopped us, it was touching them. Think about it! Kaiba put his hands on Mokuba's shoulders. Mokuba grabbed Kaiba's arm. Mai hit you."

"With a duel disk," Joey pointed out.

"Was it just the duel disk or did her arm touch you?"

Joey thought about it a moment. "I think her elbow hit me, too."

"I grabbed Rebecca's shoulders, Tristan knocked you down, Téa grabbed my arm…" Yugi was starting to feel excited. "The second day, same thing. Serenity grabbed your arm, Mokuba touched Kaiba, you touched Mai—" But then he stopped short, deflated. "But it's still the same problem. It didn't work for me in my duel with Rebecca. Duke and Serenity both touched me and I didn't stop." He slumped, disappointed. "I thought I was onto something there."

"Maybe you are, Yuge. Maybe we need to look at that one duel and figure out why that is different. Maybe if we figure out what was missing we'll know what we need to do."

Yugi thought about it. "You guys were missing, actually. You, Tristan, Mai, and Téa."

"So maybe we need everyone there? You said when we were getting ready to come into the cave that you had a feeling it was important that we all came. Could that be why?"

"Maybe. Although we're forgetting one duel. You and me against Rex and Weevil."

Joey's jaw clenched. "Yeah. There's that. Everyone was there for that and nothing made a difference until we hit the water."

"Wait a second though. Was it really hitting the water that did it? Is that the exact moment that you felt like yourself again?"

Joey was silent for a moment, thinking, then his eyes widened. "You know, Yuge, I don't think it was. I think it was when Tristan and Duke pushed you into me. I remember being so mad at you all I could think about was attacking with Gilford and then you slammed into me and I thought 'oh crap, what have I done?' and then we hit the water."

"Yeah, me too," Yugi said, getting excited again. "I was getting ready to summon something, I don't even remember what it was, and then Tristan and Duke rammed me and I hit you and in that split second before we hit the water I felt terrible. I knew exactly what I'd done and felt awful." He frowned as another thought hit him. "But wait. Why was it when I hit you but not when Tristan or Duke—"

"Yuge?" Joey said, cutting him off, an odd look on his face.

"Yeah?"

"Is it just me or is it getting lighter in here? A little while ago I couldn't see you very well, just what you were shining the flashlight on. Now I just could tell you were frowning."

Yugi's eyes widened. "You're right, Joey! I can see you better than I could a while back, too."

Joey was quiet for a minute. "And do you hear something?"

Yugi fell silent too, concentrating. At first he couldn't hear anything, but then he heard a sort of rushing sound, like a waterfall but not as intense.

A slow smile spread on Joey's face and he took off at a run down the tunnel.

"Joey, wait!" Yugi called out, taking off after him. A few feet away, the tunnel took a sharp turn to the right and Joey disappeared around the corner.

"Joey!" Yugi shouted again, then he rounded the corner and stopped short.

Ahead of him the tunnel sloped sharply upward and opened up to reveal trees and rocks and sky. It was raining—not quite a downpour, but not exactly a light drizzle either—and Joey was standing outside in it, his arms open wide. His head was thrown back and he was laughing, his face turned up into the rain. After a moment he looked at Yugi, beaming. "We did it, Yuge, we found the way out! Now we can get Téa out of here!"