Yosh yosh! As some of you may have noticed, the chapter-order-screwup is no more! Once again, this fic is slightly readable!

As for any questions/smarmy comments about why I didn't fix the spacing and stuff on the older chapters while I had the chance (c'mon, admit it, you were wondering, weren't you?), I left you all a little note in Chapter 29, which had to be completely reuploaded after accidentally getting deleted during said chapter reorganization.

Time for fic now!

0

Disclaimer: I do not own Yugioh

Claimer: I own the stuff what I invented!

0

0

0

…

Yami slowly stirred, not quite certain how or when he'd dozed off in the first place. The biting chill reminded him swiftly enough, and afterwards he only felt embarrassed that he had actually fallen asleep at all. Inside the Hellpit, one didn't…you didn't simply nod off like that.

All this close contact with Yugi must be turning him stupid.

Speaking of the mortal, Yami felt vaguely surprised that Yugi hadn't noticed that his only companion inside the Hellpit had fallen asleep on him. Or maybe he had: Yugi might have decided to let him sleep, the boy was surprisingly thoughtful for his level of maturity. That was part of his appeal…

In fact, Yugi seemed to have found something else to occupy his time with. Yami could distinctly hear the sound of metal clinking against metal, as Yugi fiddled with something with such concentration that the mage-demon's return to consciousness had passed him by completely. But what in the world could Yugi have found in here to amuse himself with, let alone anything made of what sounded like many small, metallic pieces…?

Unless -!

Abandoning any pretense of subtlety, Yami straightened up and peered over Yugi's shoulder. Trickier than it sounded, what with the lack of gravity plus Yugi's hair, but just as Yami had thought, resting on Yugi's lap was a very much opened golden box, the small golden pieces inside being energetically examined and tested against each other.

By all rights, Yami should have been utterly furious. Not just furious - he should have been outraged, he should have been enraged - but he didn't feel anything like that at all. A curious numbness seemed to have settled into his brain during his nap, all the more curious for the fact that Yami had been shocked into numbness more than once in his life and while those times the lethargy had been almost painful, this feeling was…strange.

Not better and not worse - just strange. Different.

Maybe it was because he was the only one to ever handle the treasure inside this particular box before. He was the only one who had ever done so, maybe the only who could, but…

Yugi blinked and turned his gaze away from the golden puzzle pieces in his hands, apparently sensing that he had an audience for his actions. After the few seconds that it took Yugi to register who exactly was watching him passed, the mortal turned bright red with embarrassment.

"Sorry - I shouldn't - I was just - I mean - sorry, sorry!" Yugi yelped.

Anything else he would have babbled, Yami was able to cut off by simply reaching over with his free hand and gently taking hold of one of Yugi's wrists. Yugi had been in the process of stuffing all the pieces back in the box as quickly as he could, hoping not to make Yami any more upset than he already was - but Yami wasn't, not really, and he made a point of mentioning it.

"…You're really not mad?" Yugi asked.

"I am not…though perhaps next time you could ask for permission before you rummage around in my pockets," Yami said, still a little surprised himself that he was taking this so well.

Yugi had the decency to blush again, and apologized twice more. There was a moment of silence before Yugi spoke again.

"Um…why do you have this golden-puzzle-thing anyway, Yami?"

Hmm. What should he say?

"And do you know why it looks a little like that golden wand-thing that that Seto guy had with him? The one that…um…"

Crap. Yugi had seen something he was better off never knowing about…but what exactly had he seen? Hauru's brutal execution, quite likely. But had he seen the girl's death as well? Yami hoped not.

"You mean this mark, correct?" Yami asked in reply, releasing his grip on Yugi's wrist to pick out one of the largest pieces in the box. The one that had always seemed to stare at him.

"Yeah," Yugi said, "That eyeball-thing. It's kinda weird."

Yami actually had to force down a snort of amusement. Yen would have ranted himself into a heart attack after hearing that such an ancient symbol had been reduced to the status of being 'kinda weird'.

"That shape is known as a Sennen," Yami explained, "It is a very old symbol, and is involved with very old magic. This particular object once belonged to an ancient sect known as the Guardians of the Twelve Hours of Night. They were known for having very powerful dark magic."

"Oh," Yugi said, apparently not very impressed, "What happened to them?"

"No one knows," Yami said, "They just disappeared one day, leaving behind several powerful artifacts, which were kept and guarded by the priesthood for the next thousand years."

"If that's the case, I can see how that Seto guy has one - he was a priest, right?"

When Yami nodded, Yugi continued, "But how did you get one?"

Yami was about to open his mouth and explain exactly how - damn Bakurah for being so damn persuasive about paying the priesthood's secret vaults a little visit - but Yugi was already tracking back to what Yami had said before, and exclaimed "Wait - when you said you and Bakura…was that…?"

Yugi took Yami's sigh of disgust for his younger self's choice in friends as an affirmative - which it was - and laughed. Annoyed, though he wasn't certain what exactly was setting him off, Yami was quick to point out that it wasn't like the priests knew that the treasures were there at the time, since no one had ever understood how they worked anyway, and this one especially couldn't even be handled by anyone else - at least not usually…

"Weird," Yugi shrugged, "But I do have a thing for puzzles, and this is a magic puzzle…isn't it? I couldn't get any of the pieces to fit together before, so I wasn't entirely sure."

"It's called the Millennium Puzzle, and yes, it is a true puzzle," Yami said, "But I'm not surprised you couldn't solve it. I was never able to fit any of the pieces together myself."

"That's so stupid," Yugi said flatly, "I mean, what's the point of have a puzzle with no solution? All puzzles have solutions. Just look at this."

Yugi fished through the pieces inside the box, picking one out and holding next the piece with the Sennen that Yami was still holding out.

"This piece and the piece you've got should fit together, right? It's stupid if they don't go where they are supposed to go," Yugi said, pressing the pieces together in demonstration.

The pieces connected smoothly, with the distinct 'click' of metal-against-metal. At that same instant, Yami felt something almost like a bolt of lightning hit him, almost stab him through his whole body and more. It practically scared him straight out of his skin, and the sudden jerking and squeaking on Yugi's part told the mage-demon that he wasn't the only one.

…