3. Cut Off
The island, as it turned out, was much larger than it had appeared when they first landed. While the beach where they'd landed on the east side of the island was only about a mile long, the rest of the coast, ringed with high cliffs, stretched both north and south for what might be several miles. To the west of the beach were woods and it was anyone's guess how deep they went. As the group of almost forty passengers and crewmembers hiked north along the island's coast, the going got more and more difficult. They were grateful for the cliffs as there were many caves dotting them that would make good shelters; however, it made trying to follow the coastline increasingly difficult. The group gradually spread out until they were walking in smaller groups of two to five people. Téa realized that Joey and Mai had disappeared a while back and she tried not to worry about them, hoping instead that it meant he was finally getting a chance to talk to her. She was first relieved then overjoyed when they finally reappeared about half an hour later looking very friendly. Her reaction paled to Serenity's however; as soon as she saw that Mai was with her brother, she practically tackled the older woman in a warm embrace, then stayed at her side and chatted with her like they were two sisters reunited after a long separation. Joey took it all in with the biggest, goofiest smile Téa had ever seen.
Guess they got to talk, she thought, covering her mouth to keep from laughing.
Now only if she could have the same luck.
She'd been trying for the entire walk to get a chance to talk to Yugi. The last moments before everything went to hell the previous night kept replaying in her mind to the point where it was starting to feel unreal. She wanted to verify that it really did happen, that he really had said he couldn't stop thinking about her, that he really had kissed her.
That he'd really said he loved her.
But every time she got close to him, there was Rebecca. It was nothing new for Rebecca to be both clingy and possessive with Yugi; she'd spent much of the KC Grand Championship hanging off his arm, driving Téa up the wall. Still, something seemed off to her today. From the moment Mokuba Kaiba had entered the picture on the pier three days ago, Rebecca had shifted her attention completely from Yugi to him. Now ever since their arrival here, she was back to hanging all over Yugi, who, Téa suspected, felt guilty for going to see Pegasus instead of staying with her. A few times as they walked he would give Téa an apologetic look over Rebecca's head, which at least let her know he wanted to talk to her, too. It was something, anyway.
But why the sudden shift of Rebecca's attention back to Yugi? Téa wondered if maybe kissing him on the beach right in front of her had been a huge mistake. She'd been so relieved to see him she hadn't even really given it any thought, she'd just done it.
Must've really pushed her possessive button, Téa thought, clenching her fists in frustration.
But something else was different, too. Normally Rebecca was one of the most vivacious people she knew, always brimming with energy and a sarcastic comment or two. All morning as they hiked, however, the young prodigy seemed strangely subdued. Where the clinginess at the KC Grand Championship had involved giggling and squealing and comments about dates and other things that made Yugi squirm, today she was largely silent. Before this Téa couldn't remember five consecutive minutes where Rebecca wasn't talking. Today she'd gone in half-hour stretches without uttering a syllable.
Is she really that upset about the ship sinking? If it were any other thirteen-year-old, Téa would be sure that's exactly what it was, but Rebecca had gone through the whole Orichalcos mess without so much as flinching. Getting shipwrecked was scary, sure, but not compared to Duel Monsters coming to life and stealing people's souls. She's just jealous, that's all, and she's mad that he's with me now and so she's playing up the whole tragedy thing, knowing that will push Yugi's buttons, Téa thought uncharitably, and then felt bad for thinking it.
Eventually they stopped for a break, the purser in charge, Evan Haines, gathering them together and passing out crackers from Sho Inoue's backpack. He then took Michael Hardy, the Australian duelist, and one of the other crewmembers to scout ahead while the rest of them took a breather. Mai, meanwhile, came up behind Téa and furtively slipped her a candy bar.
"Way better than the lifeboat rations, trust me," she whispered with a wink. Téa smiled in gratitude, glad Mai was going to be hanging out with them again, and not just for Joey's sake.
Yugi found a seat on an upended dead tree trunk and, of course, Rebecca was at his side before Téa could take more than two steps in that direction. Growling under her breath, she counted to ten in her head until she was calm enough to sit down on Yugi's other side.
"Hey," he said a little shyly.
"Hey," she replied, trying to smile without showing her frustration.
The rest of the gang joined them, finding various rocks or just the ground to sit on. Mai groaned as she sat down and pulled off her boots.
"Ugh, the water ruined them," she complained.
"Sorry," Joey said sheepishly, and Téa realized that the boots must have gotten soaked when Mai and Tristan had gone after Joey the night before.
"Don't be. It was worth it," she replied with another smile, then pulled off the other boot. "But if I'd have known we'd be hiking, I would've worn better shoes."
Téa and Yugi exchanged a look. "What is that, a standard line in the girl handbook or something?" Yugi asked, then they both started laughing.
"What?" Mai asked, defensive.
"Nothing," Téa giggled.
It seemed like they'd only had seconds to rest when Evan, Michael, and the other crewmember—Harrison, Téa thought his name was—returned.
"There's a narrow path along the edge of a cliff up ahead," Michael explained. "It's a bit dodgy, a lot of loose gravel, but if we get past it, we'll be on the north side of the island. There's another beach at the bottom that would be a good spot to set up another signal fire."
They spread out a bit once more, Evan directing Michael Hardy to take the lead and grouping all the minors and those accompanying them toward the back. The three young American duelists and Sho Inoue were clustered together ahead of the von Schroeders, who in turn were ahead of Kaiba and Mokuba, with Yugi, Rebecca and Téa bringing up the rear. The rest of Téa's friends were somewhere up ahead of all the younger kids. As they walked, Téa gradually fell further behind, more and more frustrated as Rebecca continued to monopolize Yugi's attention. Ahead she noticed Kaiba and Zigfried von Schroeder get into some sort of argument over some business dealings or another while Mokuba and Leon rolled their eyes at each other behind their brothers' backs. Then Leon sped up to flirt with the two American girls, while Mokuba slowed down to let Rebecca and Yugi catch up to him. Téa watched as he walked with them for a bit with no better luck than she'd had in getting Rebecca unglued from Yugi's side. Eventually he hung back further, letting them move ahead just like she had, until the he was walking beside her, the two of them taking up the rear.
"Hey Téa," he said quietly.
"Hey Mokuba," she replied. "How you holding up?"
"I'm okay."
Slowing his pace a bit to let Yugi and Rebecca get even further ahead, he said in a low voice, "Hey Téa, can I talk to you for a minute?"
"Sure, Mokuba, what's up?"
"I…" he started, but looked a little embarrassed. She waited patiently, and he started again. "I was wondering how well you know Rebecca."
She shrugged. "Not well, really. She was just a little kid when I met her in Domino right after Duelist Kingdom, and then of course we spent some time in California together a few years ago, but I'm not exactly close to her like Yugi is."
"Yeah, I noticed," Mokuba replied a little bitterly. "I…" he faltered again. "Téa, we're friends, right? Can I ask you something?"
"Sure we're friends, Mokuba," she said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Just don't tell your brother," she winked.
He grinned. "Yeah, yeah, 'friends make you weak,' blah blah blah," he said, rolling his eyes. "He means well, though, really he does. He's just had to be responsible for so much at such a young age. But anyway… uh… you and Yugi…"
Téa felt her cheeks flush a bit.
"I uh… I saw you guys on the beach when we landed," he finished.
"Yeah," she said, not sure what else to say.
"That's really cool and everything." She could tell he was a little embarrassed, too. "I always thought you guys would make a great couple."
"Thanks," she said, feeling even more awkward, but pleased too.
"So, uh… then… what's the deal with Rebecca and him? She's been, like, velcroed to him all morning. Does she have a crush on him or something?"
"Oh, Mokuba, I don't think it's anything," she said, trying to reassure herself as much as him. "They were really isolated together in Egypt for six months, and last night was really traumatic and everything. I think she's just looking for something familiar to cling to."
"I guess," he said.
"You like her, huh?"
Now it was Mokuba's turn to blush. "Oh, I don't know. I've really had fun getting to know her on the ship and she's really smart and really cute and everything."
Téa smiled. "You and your brother are pretty much living in San Francisco these days, right?"
"Yeah, it's hard to oversee the various Kaiba Land parks from Japan. Why?"
"Well, Yugi tells me Rebecca and her grandfather are moving back to northern California."
"Really?" His face broke out into a broad grin, but then he quickly schooled his features. "I mean, that's kinda cool."
She laughed. "Are you sure you're really a Kaiba?"
"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?"
She laughed harder, holding up her hands defensively. "It's a compliment," she told him quickly. "You're a great guy, Mokuba, and you have a huge heart. And I definitely think—Mokuba!" she cried, stopping short as he slipped on some gravel. She grabbed his arm to help him keep his balance.
"I'm okay," he said quickly.
Up ahead, Kaiba had stopped when she'd cried out his brother's name and looked back. "Mokuba, you okay?" he called back. Yugi and Rebecca, right behind him, stopped and looked back too.
"Yeah I'm—" he started, but he never got a chance to finish. With a deafening roar, the boulders above them suddenly broke apart, showering rocks and debris down on them.
"MOKUBA!" Téa screamed, then knocked him out of the way as a huge chunk of the cliff sailed past them and took out the ledge where Mokuba had just been standing. Unfortunately, the force of her shove sent him sliding over the edge. Téa managed to catch his hand in hers, but his momentum almost pulled her down with him.
"TÉA!" she heard Yugi shout from up ahead at the same time as Kaiba roared "MOKUBA!"
Téa grasped frantically for some sort of purchase to keep Mokuba from dragging her over the side of the cliff, but the ground was all loose gravel and dirt. In an instant, however, Yugi and Kaiba were there. Yugi grabbed Téa around her waist and threw his weight backwards. Not a heavyweight by a long shot, he didn't add much stability, but it was enough to stop their forward slide. Kaiba was right behind him and he threw himself down on the gravel and reached past Téa toward his brother.
"Mokuba! Grab my hand!" he called down.
Mokuba was trying hard just to hang onto Téa without flailing. When he saw his brother, he swung his body so that he could reach Kaiba's outstretched hand. The force of the motion caused Téa to slide another couple inches forward and Yugi's arms closed even more tightly around her waist. She could feel him dig his boots into the ground to try give him leverage to keep them from sliding further, but there was no leverage to be had. But then Mokuba had Kaiba's hand, taking some of the weight off Téa. Yugi and Kaiba pulled backwards together, dragging first Téa and then Mokuba up over the edge and onto the ledge. A moment later, she felt more hands helping, grabbing them from behind and pulling backwards.
"We gotcha, Yuge," she heard Joey say, and she heard Tristan grunt as well.
When he was mostly up on the cliff, Mokuba let go of Téa's hand, causing her to topple backwards onto Yugi, who in turn fell onto Joey. She scrambled up and Yugi threw his arms around her while Kaiba did the same to his brother.
"You okay?" Yugi asked into her hair.
"Yeah," she said a little breathlessly as she pulled back. "How 'bout we don't do that again, okay?"
"No kidding," he agreed, his eyes wide with worry.
"What the hell happened?" Tristan asked, and then there were more people there.
"We need to get off this cliff, it isn't safe," Téa heard a heavy Australian accent say.
Quickly but carefully, the group made its way down the sloping path until they were at the bottom of the cliff. It ended in a beach that was smaller than the one they'd landed on early that morning.
"You okay?" Yugi asked Téa again. He'd kept his arm tightly around her the entire way down.
"I'm good," she assured him, but her heart was still racing.
"What happened up there?" Tristan asked again. "What made those boulders come crashing down all of a sudden?"
"I knew that path was precarious," Michael Hardy said.
"I'm sorry, but that cliff didn't just fall apart on its own," Kaiba growled, his hands still protectively gripping Mokuba's shoulders.
"What are you saying, Kaiba, that someone did this on purpose?" Yugi asked.
"Oh, no, no, no," Mr. Goradon said quickly, "I'm sure it was just an accident."
"I don't think it's a stretch to think that if someone who was on that ship was capable of blowing it up, they're certainly capable of bringing a boulder down on someone's head." Kaiba said, and Téa saw him give a pointed glare at Pegasus who she just now noticed watching them all impassively.
He gave Kaiba an exaggerated look of shock. "Surely you don't think I could do such a thing to young Mokuba or the lovely Miss Gardner?"
Yugi looked furious at that remark, but Téa held her hand up. "Stop, Kaiba, I don't think anyone did it. Michael is right, it was a gravelly cliff to begin with."
Evan Haines, Amy Burns, and the three other crewmen waded into the group and tried to regain order and get a headcount.
"Is everyone okay?" he asked. "Did everyone make it down okay?"
"Hey, where's Rex and Weevil?" Duke asked suddenly.
Téa looked around and didn't see them, but a moment later they came sliding down the hill from a different path than the one they'd been on. They stopped short, panting and out of breath, when they noticed everyone looking at them.
"What?" Rex asked.
Kaiba let go of Mokuba and strode over to them, his long coat trailing in the cool air behind him like a cape. "And just where were you two? You weren't busy knocking boulders down onto the cliff, were you?"
"I don't know what you're talking about!" Weevil protested in a tone of voice that made Téa rethink the whole accident thing. She heard Yugi growl in the back of his throat and start to move away from her toward them, but she held him back.
"Listen you two pieces of worm-ridden filth," Kaiba threatened, "if I find out either of you had anything to do with my brother almost going off over the side of that cliff, you're going to wish your parents had never even been born."
"Mr. Kaiba!" Evan cried out, coming between him and Rex and Weevil, both of whom were starting to look distinctly afraid. "Idle threats aren't going to get us anywhere!"
"I assure you, it was no idle threat," Kaiba said, his voice ice.
"I'm sure it was just an accident," Evan said placatingly, but Téa thought trying to placate Kaiba was like a mouse trying to placate a hawk.
"I'd like to see for myself," Kaiba replied, then headed up the way Rex and Weevil had come. Evan started after him, then seemed to decide it was pointless and just let him go.
"Well now what?" asked Mai while they waited for Kaiba to come back. "We're not going back the way we came, that's for sure. That landslide took out the entire ledge back there."
"Obviously not," Evan agreed. "We'll have to split up and look for another way back to the east side of the island."
"I don't think that's our best plan, mate," Michael Hardy interjected. He pointed up to the cliffs and woods surrounding the beach. "It isn't going to be easy getting back over that. I think our time would be better-spent making camp here. We need to find shelter, fresh water, get some food—"
"I can catch some fish!" Mako Tsunami said brightly.
"Wait a minute," Evan said, "we need to get back with everyone else."
"You wanna try, be my guest," Michael said, his arms folded. "But let me tell you, I'm an outdoorsman and I think it's a fool's errand. Let's make camp here. We can make a signal fire on this beach like we planned."
"And we could continue dueling, letting the holographs act as signals," Goradon suggested, and Téa groaned at his one-track mind.
"Hold on," Evan said, pulling out one of the two-way radios. "Let me radio back to the main camp and see what the captain has to say. Maybe one of the boats has enough fuel to come around and pick us up."
While Evan was talking on the radio, Kaiba returned, his face grim.
"Well?" Yugi asked.
"There's a path that leads up above the one we were on. It would have made a perfect vantage point for pushing over a boulder onto the path below." He gave Rex and Weevil a hard stare.
"We didn't push any boulders down!" Weevil protested. "Why would we want to cut off our way back to the rest of the passengers?"
"You tell us," Kaiba replied.
"Was there a way to get back to the main part of the island from up there?" Michael asked, but Kaiba shook his head.
"There's a gap that's too wide to cross. Which begs the question, how did Rex and Weevil get there? They would have had to have been ahead of us and gone up the same way I just did."
"That's exactly what we did do," Rex replied hastily. "We just wanted to see what was up there."
"Sounds like a lot of work for the two of you," Téa pointed out, beginning to think that Kaiba may have had a point. "And you were making some pretty big threats the other night at dinner."
"Oh give me a break, that was duelist trash talk," Rex shot back, "and we were talking to Yugi and Joey, not you and Mokuba. If we were going to go to all that effort, it wouldn't be for the two of you."
Kaiba narrowed his eyes. "Don't think this is over. I will find out if you two had anything to do with this."
At this point, Evan finished his radio discussion with the ship's captain then announced to the group that they would have to stay put. None of the boats had enough gas to get off the beach much less make it a quarter of the way around the island, and the captain agreed with Michael that there was no sense in spending time looking for an alternate route back. They would camp here for the time being, thereby increasing their coverage of the island and their chances of being spotted. They were even happy to discover that between Serenity, who had completed a very basic six-week course of EMT training, and one of the crewmembers, a man named Harrison who was a former navy medic, they even had some rudimentary coverage in the event of an accident or illness among them.
"All right then," Evan told them. "We're on our own for the time being, so we'll have to take care of the basics. First we need to take a lunch break, and then we'll divide up into groups. We need to find water, shelter, food—"
"I'll catch some fish!" Mako repeated.
"Fine," Evan gave his assent. "Anyone else a good fisherman?"
"I am," Michael replied. Kenan Bagatui and his wife both raised their hands, along with Raul Pérez.
"Okay, after lunch, you all go with Mr. Tsunami and try and catch us some dinner," Evan told them, assigning one of the pursers along with them. He then split the rest of them up into four other groups: one to look for other food sources, one to find water, one to search for shelter, and the last to set up camp. Téa, Yugi, Joey, Mai, Rebecca, Duke, Tristan, and Serenity were all assigned to search for water. Kaiba and Mokuba were among those sent to look for shelter. Pegasus, Croquet, Goradon, and the other tournament official, a man named Nelson, were among those chosen to help set up camp. Rex and Weevil were part of the group that was to look for food on land along with Evan himself, who while not convinced Kaiba's accusations were correct, still seemed concerned enough to want to keep an eye on them.
Once everyone had their assigned tasks, they all found spots on the beach to sit while Evan and Amy passed out the MREs they had brought with them. Just as Téa was about to sit down next to Yugi and Rebecca with a pack that was supposed to be mesquite chicken with mashed potatoes and peanut butter cookies, Kaiba approached her and put a hand on her shoulder.
"Thank you," he said to her in a rare moment of absolute sincerity. "That's not the first time you've saved Mokuba."
She didn't know what to say, so she just blushed and nodded.
"I won't forget it, Téa." He looked at her intently for a moment, then strode off.