Argghhh…..so many frickin' PLOT HOLES!

Yes, I'm a little frustrated. And experiencing writer's block on the next chapter. This could get a little messy!

However – Enjoy!

Sparkles and Thieves

The sun's morning rays were just beginning to break over the horizon, and the train was just nearing it's final destination. The only two that hadn't deemed the train-ride worthy of their sleep had been Seto and Hiei – Seto had become obsessed over the broken electronics, and Hiei….

Well, no one had been able to truthfully say they'd ever seen him sleep up to this point – why start now?

Without actually showing interest, Hiei had kept an eye on the sleepless ningen man all night. He was actually rather amused by the way he tried to repair the objects – and surprisingly, by morning the ningen was done. At least, he appeared to be – all the machinery was put back together, and the brunette gave a small smirk before tapping his younger sibling on the shoulder.

Mokuba blinked rather blearily at his brother, then his face lit up in a brilliant smile as he saw his brother holding the iPod in his hand. Smiling faintly back, Seto placed it in his younger brother's hands, and as he returned across the room, paused and flicked a pair of earplugs to the demon on the window, pushing a pair into his own ears.

"You may want those," Seto said softly, pulling out his newly working laptop. Doubtfully, Hiei pushed them into his ears just as Mokuba's off tune singing made a horribly effective alarm clock for the rest of the compartment.

And as the train rolled to a stop, an alliance was formed, demon to ningen.

"Sir will please follow Dobby now, yes? Dobby must take sir to entrance hall, to meet Master Dumbledore sir and go to Hogsmeade, Dobby must."

Ryou was normally thought of as a good natured, calm, and overall collected sort of boy. He'd seen all matter of Duel Monsters, from Egyptian God Cards to Kuriboh, and generally considered himself lucky to have been near those who played them.

Sadly enough, nothing had prepared him for an encounter with Dobby.

And that's was why Ryou Bakura, reincarnation of the King of Thieves, was dragged through a castle by an eighteen inch elf.

"Eep! Dumbledore-sensei, HELP!"

"You!"

"You!"

"Me!"

"Hi Bakura." Mokuba brushed past his irate brother and a bristling Atemu, both of which had just stepped out of the train, to give the Thief Spirit a quick hug. "Did you bring me anything?"

"Mokuba!"

"Don't take anything that maniac gives you!"

Bakura's eyebrows shot up. "Atemu, darling, you shouldn't growl like that. You're giving poor Yugi frown lines. And Seto – we've covered this. I am perfectly sane, thank you very much." He turned to look at Mokuba, who was now as tall as he was. "And yes, I brought you something." He snapped his fingers, and as his palm opened, two sparkly objects that looked more than slightly expensive. "New earrings. You like? They're the pharaoh's gold." A rather wicked grin was aimed at a now positively fuming Atemu.

Mokuba nodded as he hooked them in his ears, oblivious to the pharaoh's clenched fists and his brother's twitching face. "Thanks, Bakura!"

Dumbledore watched the scene play out before him. "Well, seeing that you already know each other, I suppose it's rather futile to go through introductions."

Bakura glanced towards the Tantei. "I know these three, Dumbledore, but the other four I've never seen." He stepped forward, a flourished hand outstretched to Kurama. "Ryou Bakura, King of Thieves, at your service."

The entire Tantei group flinched as one. Seeing Kurama's eyes flash gold and his mouth open, Yusuke rushed forward to avoid the spirit's impending doom and grabbed Bakura's hand.

"Hi, I'm Yusuke, this is Kurama, that's Hiei, the extremely bouncy girl with blue hair is Botan. Nice to meet you – now I'm sure Dumbledore's a very busy man, so let's get this trip going!" He looked expectantly to the headmaster, hoping the man would suggest they move before Bakura was reduced to a whipped and slashed puddle of blood on the floor.

"Quite right, Yusuke. We will be taking the Knight Bus to Diagon Alley, where I expect all of you to choose your course books, have yourselves fit for Wizarding robes, and then acquire a wand." Dumbledore held out his wand arm out in a smooth, sweeping motion, and the large purple bus appeared with a loud, obnoxious bang.

Botan jumped in surprise, dashing behind Kurama. "Is….is that thing even safe?" she questioned from her still-livid human shield.

"As safe as anything else in the Wizarding World, I assure you. Everyone on, please."

"Welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard. Just stick out your hand, step on board and – Oh, 'ello, 'fessor Dumbledore. Which way 'ouldjya wanna go?"

"Diagon Alley, Stan. We'd like to go straight to Gringotts, if you would."

"Sure fing, 'fessor! Take 'er away, Ern!"

Bang!

Surprisingly enough, Yusuke was the only one thrown backwards.

"Dammit!"

"Baka. You've no balance – how do you expect to win any sort of fight?"

"Shut up, Hiei."

Dumbledore's eyes resumed their unnatural twinkling state.

Enter, stranger, but take heed

Of what awaits the sin of greed

For those who take but do not earn

Must pay most dearly in their turn

So if you seek beneath our floors

A treasure that was never yours

Thief, you have been warned, beware

Of finding more than treasure there

The reactions to this engraved stone were rather predictable. With three known thieves in the group, how could it not?

"Hehehe…"

"Absolutely not, Bakura."

"Yeah, 'Kura, you can rob the bank after you're done teaching. But right now you're supposed to be inconspicuous."

"I wouldn't get caught! The King of Thieves never gets caught!"

"Which is why we had a cell in the dungeons of Egypt furnished especially for you."

"….OK, so I got caught a few –"

"Thousand –"

"Times. But I always escaped!"

"Children. We are here to exchange money. Not squabble about your nonexistent past lives. Now the nice goblins are waiting to take your money and open a bank account for you. Please try to at least act like normal, quiet, peaceful, law-abiding citizens for once in your damned lives."

"Oh, really…?"

"Hn."

"NO! Bad youkai! No stealing! You're on probation for a reason!"

"Botan, it's not like it'd be hard. Can't you feel the weakness of those defenses? And the sheer amount of gold and magic down there."

"Hn."

"No. Absolutely not! Absolutely not!"

"Botan, you take all the fun out of life."

"Hn."

The goblin looked disdainfully at the sack of gems Bakura laid in front of him. "Do you wish to make a new account or add to your old one, sir?"

"My – what? I don't have an account here." Ryou had taken over for the courtesies, Bakura backing this decision. He'd never been much good with niceties towards other people.

The goblin blinked slowly. "Yes you do, sir. All of you do, in fact. If you were unaware of this, I suggest you follow Griphook. He'll show each of you to your vaults."

Seto decided he didn't trust anything that was shorter than Yugi. Or something that had green-tinged skin, for that matter. As he opened his mouth to object, he was rudely elbowed by Bakura, who hissed in his ear, "Are you rejecting free money?"

"No, but I'd like to know where it came from in the first place," he hissed back.

It was Atemu's turn to intervene. "Kaiba, it must have something to do with your–"

Seto made a slashing motion with his hands to cut the pharaoh off. "If your next words happen to be 'connection to the ancient past', I'm not interested, Yugi." Raising his voice a little, he called up to the goblin, "Lead on, if you will."

At the back of the line, the tantei were having a discussion of their own.

"Kurama, where'd we get money from? Especially here?"

"I expect Koenma put in a bit for us, somewhere."

"And as the Grim Reaper I've had a vault here for ages!"

But after a refreshing ride down in a doubled cart, there was no doubt that Koenma had most certainly not put in quite that much for them. Hiei's vault, Kurama's vault, even Yusuke's vault – all were piled sky high with golden coins, various gemstones, and random objects that radiated strange spirit energy. Botan, being the only one not particularly impressed with the riches inside her vault, was the first to come up with an explanation.

"I think they've got most of Yoko Kurama's treasure in here. And Yusuke, a lot of this looks like it might have been Raizen's stuff at one time. Hiei…hmm…maybe the Koorime had a vault in here at one time, and it got transferred to you?"

Yusuke recovered next. "Who cares! Look at all this! I see why you guys were thieves! This is fucking awesome!"

Kurama turned to hiss at the Spirit Detective. "Yusuke, would you please lower your voice? I'd rather not have that information spread around."

Yusuke waved him off. "Right, right. I need a bigger bag!"

Botan looked at him questioningly. "You don't have to fit all of it in one shot, Yusuke."

"But….there's so much to buy! Did you see all that stuff out there?"

Kurama was there to stop him from taking the entire trove out with him. "Trust me when I say this, Yusuke. One bag will be more than enough to buy anything you want. Just take only the gold coins – you can't buy much here with jewels. And we're here partially to impress, so taking only gold is a wonderful incentive for people to pay attention."

"Vain fox. We are not here to impress."

Before Kurama could retaliate, Mokuba poked his head around the corner, equipped with his own overflowing bag. "Are you four ready to go yet? You still need to pick out course books." As he said this, a golden cat statue fell from the bag.

Kurama smiled. "We're almost ready. And like I was just telling these three, you really only need to take the gold coins. They're one of the few actual monetary sources around here."

Mokuba looked at his feet. "Oh. Will you help me pick some out? Everything's rather….discombobulated in our vault. Yours actually looks somewhat organized!" Kurama nodded and scooped another few handfuls of coins into his bag, then stood and followed him a few doors down, where a room was piled sky-high with Egyptian artifacts.

"Like I said, it's a mess. I found some coins, but the rest of its….well, kinda buried," he restated, bending down to remove various statuettes and trinkets from his bag.

Kurama closed his eyes and quickly concentrated on the smells of the room. There, in the far right corner, gold, a newer, cleaner scent that the rest, with a faint smell of goblin collecting over it. "Try over behind the statue of Anubis – no, the big one in the corner. I think I see some."

Mokuba trotted over, and sure enough was able to resurface with two bags of the coins. "I've gotta get one for my brother, too," he explained, "He's trying to pry Atemu and Bakura apart."

As if on cue, a cry rang through the chambers. "TOMB ROBBER! You can't tell me that's not my father's crown!"

"Just try to get it back!"

"Both of you shut up and grab some money! I refuse to stand down here listening to you bicker about –"

" Bakura! Where the hell did you get a copy of the Book of Thoth?"

"Hey! That's mine!"

"Not anymore!"

"Will you please get back to the cart now? The others are probably finished already!"

Mokuba smirked up at Kurama. "Just a typical day, I suppose."

Reviews!

PenPusherM: But of course! Hmph – you must not have seen my threat last chapter, otherwise you would have torn my head off!

Crazy Hyper Lady: Uhhh – here ya go! And thanks for reviewing the other stuff!

Inu-Ice-Dragon: (Reaches for crowbar) Erm….You're welcome? I like shonen ai as much as anyone! Though writing yaoi is gonna be a little sticky for me. ((That just sounds wrong…..))

Chelley Angel: Of course so soon! I was at home, sick and bored! Hope you like this one too!

RainOwl: Trust me, I don't plan to abandon this anytime soon.

Nicole: Hey! That's my middle name! Awesome! Thanks for the review!

Dymond: Aww…..I feel so loved! Unfortunately I can't do Hiei/Kurama – PenPusherM and AnkaraTheFierce will gut me alive, and I see them every day at school. I'm not risking my life just yet ((They both battle each other over the summer with pointy sticks – you should see the bruises and blood!)). But Yami/Hikari stuff is definitely in store!

Utah's Shadowed Moon: Oh no! Why is she angry? Don't be angry! I love you! …..In a totally non-gay way!