Hi people! Guess what? GOT HOLIDAYS ON MONDAY! YAY!
Of coarse, then I suddenly realised how much stuff I had to do... I've spent practically half of the past couple of days on the computer trying to colour art requests, remaking my site (TIS FINISHED! YAY!), reading and reviewing stories I've had on hold and working on my stories (of coarse).

AND off the computer I have to read the 'His Dark Materials' series (yawn... Though Iorek's cool, like Kai in bear form, heehee), Inkheart, then Harry Potter and Eldest. THEN mom says I'm supposed to read some novel I need for next year (fifth year, AH!) and read over some of my schoolbooks. I'm gonna spend my summer reading... and going to Spain! Wahoo!

ANYWAY, now that I've done a little ranting, which I need to do now and again to stay sane, thankies so much to Chicary and Bookdragon, the peeps who reviewed. You guys RULE! -glomp-

Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!

"This is talking"
"These are thoughts"

Chapter Three - Yugi's Treachery?

"No again!" Ryoura thought frantically, slapping his hands over his mouth in a desperate attempt to keep water out. The chain around his ankle was fitted into a bolder set deep in the sandy ground, holding him under the surface of the water. He had found himself in this same place every few nights when he drifted off the sleep, though lately his nightmares were becoming a little more realistic. The nightmare itself hadn't changed, but he could almost feel the water surrounding him, the tone of his yami's voice made his eyes sting with worry and Yugi's word, 'I'm sorry...', seemed sadder every time he heard them.

Tonight was the worst yet. He could actually taste the water in his mouth before he covered it. The shackle around his ankle dug into his skin and caused him pain, and his lungs hurt from lack of oxygen.

Then he heard it; the evil chuckle and taunting voice that had haunted his nightmares. And once again, the man said the same thing; "Having a nice swim?... It's about time I fed my revenge, Bakura..."

He said 'Bakura' with such venom., such hatred and anger, but with a sick, sadistic edge to it. It was almost like the way Kage had once taunted Ryoura, and at the thought of his parents murderer Ryoura shuddered.

The image around him shattered like glass and he landed with ease on the floor of the Shadow Realm, ready for the dramatic change of scenery. He sadly shut his eyes and waited; then heard Bakura's cry of distress. He didn't look at his yami this time, not wanting to see the pain in his eyes or the blood covering his clothes.

"How...? How could this happen...?"

Bakura disappeared after he spoke and Yugi materialised to Ryoura's left. Glancing up he saw the yami, once again, summon a silver sword from thin air, then begin to fight enemies Ryoura could not see. Finally, as if a sign of Ryoura's escape from his nightmare, Yugi raised the sword above his head and shut his eyes, tears streaming down his face.

"I'm sorry..." he whispered, though Ryoura could hear him clearly, then sliced downwards, the end of Ryoura's nightmare.

Only this time something was different; the split second before he awoke, he heard a scream of pain, from the voice of a person he couldn't picture in his mind yet it was familiar.

But before he could try and place the voice, he felt a violent tug at his arm. His eyes snapped open and the voice vanished from his mind, and he was met with the eyes of his yami.

"Ryoura, you can't sleep any longer. We need to do as much searching as possible before dusk," the tomb-robber informed, moving away from his hikari and picking up his bag. They had decided to stop at an oasis and rest in the shade of the trees during midday, to rest up and avoid the harshest of the days sunlight.

Ryoura sat up with a groan and rubbed his eyes, thinking over the dream in his mind. "What time is it?"

"Late enough, we shouldn't have slept this long," Bakura sighed, throwing Ryoura's bag to him when he stood up. Pulling his own bag over his shoulders he walked over to where the horses were tied, placing his hands on the creatures back and pulling himself up. Once he was righted he held the reins lightly.

"Mornin' Spot. Mornin' Blotch." Ryoura yawned, pulling himself up onto his horse too. Yugi's horse, who Ryoura now dubbed 'Stain', wasn't there, so he figured Yugi had taken him and was debating which direction they were heading. Sure enough, Yugi and his horse were standing a short distance from the oasis, looking around. The group travelled silently once Yugi picked a direction, travelling at a fast pace to make up for their sleep-in.

"Pepper, what exactly are we looking for again?" Ryoura had found it safer to talk to Bakura through mink-link, as he was afraid of another outburst from Yugi.

"We're looking for a weak link between the Shadow Realm and this realm," Bakura answered. "It's inside a temple, but that was millennia ago, and the temple itself was destroyed during the years I was in Egypt."

"Now you didn't have anything to do with that, did you?" Ryoura grinned, his tone teasing.

"No. But from what I've learned from books I've been studying lately, the humans of this time haven't broken through the magic barrier that surrounds the temple. It hasn't been found."

"Is that... good or bad?"

"Good. Had they found it they may have removed some of the artefacts there. That temple is a sacred place; not even I stole anything from there."

"How come?" Ryoura tilted his head, confused. Whatever Bakura was like now, Ryoura knew he had been extremely avaricious back in ancient Egypt.

"Because it seals our world off from the Shadow Realm. Every object in that temple plays a part in keeping monsters from crossing into this world and causing chaos. If you remove one thing from temple, the seal doesn't work, so the monsters are free to roam as they will. Because of this, the temple is protected by Millennium Magic."

"So wait... Are we looking for magic waves from the Shadow Realm or Millennium Magic? 'Cause we'll have a really hard time with both! We've got Millennium Magic around each other, and Egypt seems to be made from magic of the Shadow Realm." Ryoura scratched his head, bemused.

"That's because Egypt is so strongly linked to the Shadow Realm..." Bakura thought about Ryoura's question for a moment, then sighed. "Both. A dramatic increase in either magic would most likely lead us in the right direction. Let us know if you sense anything."

"You mean if I get an odd, fluffiful feeling?"

Bakura rolled his eyes. "Yes..."

"Ok Pepper!" Ryoura smiled brightly, though he knew now their conversation would, once again, slip into silence. Sighing, his mind drifting back to the dream. "Who's voice was that...?" he whispered to himself so no one could hear.

Suddenly Yugi pulled hard on his reins, causing his horse to stop dead in it's tracks and rear up slightly, kicking it's front legs. He had sensed a sudden pull of his magic towards the east, and action that may just be linked to the temple they were searching for.

Bakura, who had been travelling a short distance behind, pulled on the reins of his horse to stop from running into Yugi's, but he suddenly found his grip lost, and fell backwards, tumbling over the back of the horse and landing hard on the ground. His unexpected fall left him paralysed momentarily as his mind tried to catch up with what happened.

Ryoura yelped and pulled on his horses reins hard. The creature stopped just before Bakura, but reared up then thrust it's hooves downwards towards the tomb-robber. Luckily, Bakura spotted this just in time and rolled quickly out of the way, the horses hooves just barely missing his head. Ryoura almost fell off his horse he tried to jump off so quickly, stumbling over next to Bakura. "Bakura are you ok?" he asked in a loud, panicked voice, wrapping his arm behind Bakura's shoulders and helping him to sit up.

Yugi, who had been looking in an eastward direction, looked back and blinked at the sight before him. "What happened?" he asked. He hadn't been paying any attention and had not noticed Bakura falling off.

"He just... fell off his horse!" Ryoura exclaimed, helping his yami when the tried to stand up. "Maybe you shouldn't be moving so soon," he said, walking with Bakura as he heading back to the horse, correcting his path when he began to tilt from dizziness, "I mean, you should take it easy after a fall like that, you could be injured."

Bakura shook his head and placed his hands on his horses side when he reached it for balance, though Ryoura still kept a hold of one arm just in case. Reaching up he took his reins in his hands and narrowed his eyes. "That explains it..."

"What? Bakura, what are you talking about?" Ryoura asked, looking at the reins in his hand, his eyes grew wide. "How did...?"

"They snapped?" Yugi asked as he got his horse to walk over next to Bakura's horse, across from the other two. "I thought this stuff was strong. How could it just snap like that?"

"It didn't," Bakura muttered, holding up one end of the broken reins for them to look at. "This is been cut."

"What?" Yugi and Ryoura exclaimed at once, though Ryoura's voice was more dramatic. Sure enough the leather strap and been severed cleaning, those there was a stretch part on one corner. Someone must have cut it most of the way but left it hanging on by a small bit so it wouldn't be spotted.

"Who would do that?" Ryoura asked angrily, narrowing his eyes.

"The more important question is when..." Yugi whispered, taking the other back of the severed rein from Bakura. "This wasn't damaged before we left, the horses were only just equipped and no one went near our horses after we choose them."

"The reins were definitely not damaged yesterday," Bakura muttered, "nor this morning when we settled at the oasis."

"So... this only happened in the last few hours?" Ryoura asked, swallowing hard as he looked around. "Do you think someone's following us?"

"Maybe..."

Yugi looked to the side as Bakura began to try and pull himself back up on his horse, though Ryoura protested, and bit his lip. Someone was following them? He didn't know why some one would be following them; they had nothing of value unless someone had their eyes on the Millennium Items, which was possible considering they were made of gold.

But Yugi knew it was something else the person was looking for. When Ryoura and Bakura were back on their horses, Bakura having repaired the reins so they were usable, Yugi set off east-wards without a word, mind focussed on another matter.

It was the voice he heard the other morning. It was definitely the cause of all of this. Raising his hand once again to the side of his face where the large, bloody handprint he had awoken to one day had been placed, he frowned. He didn't know how or why the mysterious voice was doing what it was, but Yugi was terrified.

Yugi let his hand drop from his face and reach inside his jacket, running his fingers along the blade of the sheathed dagger he had found there when he last awoke; the blade that had undoubtedly cut Bakura's reins.


"Ah! Too hot!"

"No duh, it's Egypt!" Ilia exclaimed, rolling her eyes as the blond member of the group grumbled to himself. "You've only been off the plane a few minutes, it's going to take a while to get used to it."

"But I don't wanna get used to it," Joe moaned, picking up his bag, "I just want it to stop being so hot!"

"With with this country being Egypt and the whole global warming issue, that's not likely to happen," Steve muttered, rubbing his eyes. He had fallen asleep on the plane, and had luckily slept off some of his crabby attitude. "Just suck it up, we didn't come here to hear you complain. We're here to find Yujhi."

"Your right... sorry..." Joe looked down. He had been missing the shortest member of their group a lot lately, mainly because the idea had finally reached his mind that Yujhi was gone. He couldn't just pick up the phone and call him, or expect and e-mail from him telling him about where he'd gone on holidays. He really was gone, and to make it worse he might never come back. "So... How will we be able to find Ryoura and the others?"

"Easy enough I'd say. If I can look five thousand years into the past with my necklace, I'm sure I can look back and see where they were this morning. It should be easy enough to place them after that." Ilia explained, smiling brightly. Tossing her bag over to Steve (he caught it but protested with a number of grumbles), she marched out of the airport empty-handed with the two boys behind her, carrying her bags as well as their own.

"Lazy woman..." Joe muttered, scowling at Ilia as she walked ahead of them.

"I know, and proud of it!" Ilia smiled back. She raised her hands to her Millennium Necklace and ran her fingers over the eyes symbol. "I sure hope this will work... I don't want to let anyone down..." she thought sadly to herself, walking absentmindedly towards the nearest restaurant. They needed something to eat and it didn't matter where she used her Millennium Necklace, as it didn't put on a glowing show every time she used it like most other items.

A few minutes later, after she'd sent the other two off to choose a good meal from the menu by the door, Ilia was seated at a table in the corner of a restaurant with here eyes closed as she tried to clear her mind. The boys hadn't complained when she asked (or ordered) them to leave, as they knew she needed time to herself to concentrate.

Placing her hands flat out on the table Ilia closed her eyes and began to concentrate on her Millennium Necklace, feeling a soft wave of magic wash over her from the item. "Millennium Necklace... show me where Yugi and the others where earlier this morning..."

It formed almost instantly without effort, an image of an oasis appearing before her eyes. Ryoura and Bakura were sleeping under a number of trees, Ryoura looking slightly uncomfortable. Yugi was awake and standing by the horses, petting a dun-coloured horse but looked at the dapple-grey one.

"An oasis?" Ilia thought, noting the image of the site in her mind. She was about to try and move the images further from the oasis to find some indication of the area they were in, when she say Yugi standing by the grey horse he had been looking at earlier.

Yugi held his hand out and when Ilia blinked, a blade had appeared in his hand. Raising the dagger up he took a hold of the reins of the stallion and looked at them, then placed the blade against the leather near the metal bit in the horses mouth and cut through it slowly and cleanly, stopping before it was severed completely. He walked around the stallion and did the same to the other side, and from this angle Ilia saw something unusual. Yugi's eyes looked the same, but for some reason Ilia saw something different about them. They seemed more empty, and angry, cutting the strap with an evil glint in his eyes.

She snapped out of her trance and gasped, unable to keep the Necklace focussed any longer. She stared at the table in front of her with shock. Why was Yugi sabotaging the horse's reins? It may have only been for a split second, but Ilia was sure she'd seem something around Yugi, something black that resembled a magical aura that surrounds powerful magic-users. Was he being possessed? Or had something happened to Yugi and his magic was reflecting his inner feelings?

"Ilia?"

Ilia jerked out of her stare and looked up, meeting a pair of azure eyes.

Steve blinked in confusion and tilted his head, "Are you ok? You look a little worried..."

"Ya I'm fine. Just needed to take a break. I'll try again later," she smiled brightly. There was no point in worrying them about Yugi right now; for all she knew it mightn't be a problem when they meet up again. She'd just have to act like she saw nothing until she was sure Yugi's attitude was seriously something to worry about. She pouted and folded her arms, leaning back in the chair and crossing one leg over the other. "So? Where's my food, servant-boy?"


Ryoura yawned heavily and let his eyes stay closed, head drooping as tiredness began to overtake him. The sun had set a long while ago and now Ryoura found himself cold instead of hot, and he was exhausted and aching from travelling for so long without stopping apart from when Bakura fell off his horse. It seemed to have hurt his pride a little, as the tomb-robber hadn't said anything since then, and Yugi seemed to be in a deep, yet uncomfortable, silence. Why?

"Guys," he finally said, hoping he wouldn't get yelled by Yugi again, "I don't know if you realised, but the suns gone to sleep and the horses are sleep-trotting. Don't you think we should rest a little bit?"

Bakura looked back at Ryoura, though it was difficult for the goup to see each other with only the moonlight to guide them, and opened his mouth to speak. But Yugi spoke first.

"It's not far..." he whispered, his tone deep and voice very unlike his own.

"How do you know?" Ryoura asked, tilting his head. He could sense an increase in magic in the direction Yugi was leading them, but how did Yugi know for certain it was what they were looking for?

"I can sense it..." Yugi whispered, "just tust me." Had Yugi not been leading the group and there had been more light, they may have seen the evil grin spreading across his face as he spoke.


"It's a sand dune."

"This is the temple..."

"... Nope. Still looks like a sand dune to me."

"Ryoura..." Bakura growled, hoping to silence his hikari before Yugi got angry and started yelling again. He didn't care in the slightest what Yugi thought of him or Ryoura, but his lighter half was another thing. Though he, like Bakura, hardly ever cared what people thought of him, he was sometimes hurt when his friends would comment.

Ryoura seemed to understand what Bakura was trying to do, because he closed his mouth and didn't say another word. Yugi slid off his horse and walked over to the spot he had pointed out to the other. Ryoura was right; it did look like nothing more then a sand dune, but the powerful magic radiating from underneath the group was enough to convince them Yugi may be right.

Sliding off their horses Ryoura and Bakura headed over next to Yugi, Ryoura tilting his head curiously as Yugi began to study the ground. "Two things, Pep'. Even if this is the temple, it's buried under a couple o' thousand years of sandstorms, and it's too late to be going into a temple. And I'm tired!"

"Would you care to repeat that to Yugi?" Bakura asked, arms folded as he watched Yugi stand up and take a few steps back. Bakura stepped back also, and Ryoura followed suit once he'd looked back and forth between the two a few times.

Yugi raised his arm out in front of him, palm facing the ground, and shut his eyes, looking relaxed. There was complete silence around the group for a few moments as a small ball of light appeared in Yugi's palm and began to grow.

"He's going to break the barrier?" Bakura thought, narrowing his eyes. He would have though Yugi would look for another method, but seeing as he had choosen a method Bakura would have used, the tomb-robber shrugged and raised his palm out, a large ball of fiery green magic appearing in his palm. Ryoura looked nervous, but did the same as his yami, waiting for Yugi to make the first move.

The shadow stood behind the group with it's arms folded, it's body not longer a fiery mass of black like it had been before. It now stood with a build slightly more human-like, arms folded across it's thin-framed body, a grin plaster across it's face. "That's right... flying blindly into my web, my friends..."

Yugi raised his hand up, Ryoura and Bakura copying, and the three balls of magic were thrown down to strike the floor, causing an explosion of green and golden light.


To Be Continued
Hmm.. weird, huh? Yupyup, sorry for that -sweatdrops- heehee. Well, there ya go! Another chappy to this outlived fanfic! Though this one was really weird and even I felt it was kinda pointless O.o;
Ok, my Beyblade obsession has exploded to life at the sight of Kai fighting King and Queen, so I've got another Beyblade story started and prologue finished. That means I have two stories to focus on now. Silly me, making more work for meself. Well, that'll be up once I figure out a name and summery (summaries… they take forever!)
Welp, hope you guys liked the chappy! Please review, coz me lovies reviews and so does Ryoura!
Ryoura: REVIEWS! -glomp-
Heehee, slán slán for now peeps!
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