YAY, I told you I'd update this month. Sorry another short chapter, but summer is starting to warm up so it's what i can do right now. Thanks to you readers, and special thanks to MissZoey for the mega review. It made my day. All of you are amazing

OK, boring stuff. Don't own Yugioh, Battousaisgirl16 is an amazing editor, Airi is mine.

Enjoy :)

Chapter 47

The more hours they walked the farther the desert stretched out before them. Following the tracks didn't make Yami feel like they were making any progress at all. Yes they had someone to look for with this Paradius, but no way of reaching the others. They didn't have any idea where Joey, Tristan, and Tea were or that they were alright. The duel with Cerys didn't help anything. Having the seal so close left him feeling drained, and he wasn't even the one dueling.

Feeling Airi's hand reminded him of the latest near miss. Thankfully that had ended in victory. For just facing the seal she was surprisingly calm, or maybe she was just too deep in thought like he was. It had been a shock to hear those things she said. Despite everything he'd done and Cerys' accusations about his past, she was still here. Doubt crept back into his mind. She didn't know the entire story. She might think those things were just negative propaganda or lies by the enemy. Would she still want to stand by him if she knew they were based in truth?

"Hey look." Airi pointed towards a dip in the ground. "I think that might be a stream. Mind if we stop and take a break."

"Sounds good." Yami didn't really care either way. His doubt still dominated his mind.

He let her lead him down to the stream bed. The shore line was leveled out from the slope, flattening out until I reached the final sharp dip which was carved out by the ribbon of water.

Airi dropped his hand and started pulling off her shoes and socks. Yami watch confused as she also pulled off her sock and put them inside the discarded shoes. Leaning her bag against the shoes as well, she sat along the side of the bank and put her feet inside the flowing water. He let out a long sigh.

"Oh yes." she said, kicking her legs back and forth. She looked over to see Yami still watching in confusion. "It feels good. You should try it."

He shook his head. "I'll pass."

"At least take your duel-disk off for a little while."

He looked down at the machine on his left forearm. It was bulky, but had almost become a part of him, so easy enough to forget.

"I think we'll be alright." Airi said. She saw his worry, and her face softened. "at least cool off your feet. We'll have a lot of walking ahead of us."

Yami finally gave in. The water did feel amazing on his sore feet.

"I wonder if the Nile feels like this." he said.

"It's probably a lot bigger." Airi looked up at the blue sky. "It looks amazing, at least in all the pictures I've seen."

"Hmm." Yami said. His mind turned back to Egypt and his past life. What did he do? His stomach clamped up at the memory of that duel with the Kaiba look-a-like, and the dead queen in his arms.

"Yami?"

"Huh?"

"I asked you how much farther we should go before it gets dark?"

He looked around. It was already late afternoon, judging from the shadows. They probably wouldn't get too far before night fell.

Airi pointed to the other side of the steam, where some rocks were perched up on the other side.

"Those look promising. Come on." she pulled her legs out of the water and started rolling up her pant legs.

"We're going to cross?"

"Do you see a bridge?" she went back to retrieve her bag and shoes. "Besides, it's not that deep. We'll just be careful."

Yami still didn't move. Knowing their luck something was bound to go wrong.

"You coming?" Airi stood over him with a impatient look. Even with it, he had to smile. He'd never tell her, but she looked cute exasperated.


The crossing didn't have anything eventful, except Yami swore the next time he got lost in the wilderness he would be more prepared. Slippery rocks and a large duel-disk made an imbalanced combination. Both he and Airi had to move slowly to make it across without getting an unexpected bath.

They finally reached the rocks and found an overhang for shelter. The two of them set up camp and had a dinner of some dried jerky Airi found at the bottom of her bag. She made a comment about it looked like some her field-school friends probably slipped in before she, Nasira and Rebecca went looking at rock art. She told some of the stunt the guys would play on the girls, and how Neal was usually the first one to apologize. Yami might have felt some jealousy of all this talk about the other dig members, if he was really listening.

"Hey, you ok?" Airi asked.

He faked a smile. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Beside everything else going on?" Airi again looked concerned. "you've got that thinking face again. Something on your mind?"

"Just thinking about the future."

She nodded. "Yeah, it's pretty scary. But we'll get there, and we'll get Yugi back."

Yami nodded. "I'll get Yugi back."

"I'll be there too." Airi reminded him. "Don't think you're going at this alone."

"I'm the soul Dartz wants the most." Yami reminded her. "I'm the one he'd accept a challenge with remember."

Airi nodded, frowning. "Yeah, I remember." she leaned against the rock wall. "Doesn't mean I'm happy about it."

Yami remembered how she was all for it when she was still angry with him. "You're not?"

Her face went red, remembering her words a few days ago. "I know you're the one he'll want to fight, but I don't want you getting soul snatched either."

He felt his cheeks heat up again. Airi yawned, leaning back against the back of the cave.

"You cold?" Yami asked.

"A little. There's a blanket in the bag if you want it."

Yami retrieved the blanket, and draped it over her. She opened her eyes. "Are you warm enough?"

"I've got the jacket." he settled back down.

He thought she was asleep, but then she shifted and her eyes opened.

"Hey Yami."

"Yeah."

"Thanks for keeping me on track during the duel."

"You'd do the same for me."

She nodded. "and Yami."

"Yes."

"Those things I told Cerys about believing in you. I meant that."

He nodded. She closed her eyes again. Yami looked out toward the dark desert. It was cold, but the stones helped block the wind. Airi really did believe in him. It was wonderful and frightening at the same time. He'd already failed her. How could she still want to be around him with everything he'd done past and present?

Airi shifted in her sleep and her head rested on Yami's shoulder. She shifted again and more of the blanket found its way onto him.

"You're shivering." she mumbled, before she drifted off again.

He smiled down at her. He made up his mind. She deserved to know who she was following.


They'd been traveling most of the morning in silence. Yami walked slightly behind, trying to gather his thoughts. What if she hated him again? What if she told him he was the monster the others said he was? What if . . .

"Are you alright?" Airi was at his side. "You've been really moody all morning."

"I just, I just have a lot on my mind."

She stood in front of him. "You need to get it out of your head or it will burst."

Yami closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "I need to tell you something."

"Alright."

He motioned to the desert. "We better keep moving. This will take a while."

They walked a few more minute in silence.

"You know my past is a mystery to me."

"Yes."

"Well . . . it's not as much as a mystery as I've told you." he swallowed. "During Battle City, during some of my shadow games, playing the God Cards broke some holes in my memory."

"You remember your past?" Airi was excited. "That's wonderful. Why didn't you tell us?"

"They weren't good memories." Yami said. "I saw duels and death." the memories crossed his mind again and he closed his eyes against them.

Airi put a hand on his shoulder. Her face was impossible to read, but she motioned forward to indicate they should keep walking.

Yami nodded.

"What do you remember?" Airi asked.

He took another calming breath.

"One of them I got during the clash between Slifer and Obelisk at Kaiba's tower. I was in a throne room with my advisers. The room looked like a disaster area. Things were destroyed and coming down around me. Then someone who looked like Kaiba showed up and challenged me to a duel. It ended in a clash with a Blue-Eyes and a Dark Magician."

"Did you beat him?"

He shrugged. "I didn't see the outcome."

"Either way, that might explain things, if you guys were past enemies. What else did you see?"

"There was a lot of destruction, and talk about a great enemy, like what the Ishtars told us. I also had a daughter." he smiled sadly. "I don't know what happened to her either. From what Dartz's thugs have been saying I probably killed her too."

"You don't know that." Airi said firmly.

"It was a war I helped lead. If there was any deaths, they are on my head."

Airi was quite for a moment. Yami waited for the information to sink.

"You said you saw dueling and death." Airi said, voice hesitant. "What was the death?"

Yami stopped walking, looking up at the sky like it would help the explanation.

"The first memory I got back was the death. It happened after I took in Ra's full attack for Mai and Joey. In it, I saw my past self, looking like I'd been through a war zone. In my arms . . . was a body. A body of a woman, noble birth from the clothes. She must have meant a lot to me because my past self was crying over her."

"Your Queen?" Airi said.

He nodded. She looked at the ground, probably in shock.

Yami didn't add she looked like Airi. He didn't need to freak her out more.

They stood there, Airi standing arms folded still looking at the ground, Yami looking at everything but her,

"Say something please." he finally said. No matter what it was it was better than the silence.

She shifted, brought out her thoughts. "Well, this explains why you got so moody."

He laughed, though it sounded forced.

She finally looked up. "Why didn't you say anything about this to me or Yugi?"

Yami looked at his fingers digging into the sleeve of his jacket.

"I came to protect the two of you. That has been my mission since Yugi put the puzzle together and your tear fell onto the pieces. You two are everything to me, and failing is my worse fear. Those memories showed me failing at protecting those I cared about in a past life. How could you trust me if you knew about my past. I killed my wife and possibly my daughter, destroyed my country and killed hundreds more. How could you believe in someone like that?"

Airi was watching him, but he still couldn't look up at here.

"Any thing else?" Airi said softly.

He shook his head. Why couldn't she yell at him and get it over with? History had repeated. Taking out an evil he'd lost her brother. The last threat at Battle City had nearly killed her and Yugi multiple times. The puzzle around his neck felt even heavier.

"Did you find out why you came to the present?"

Yami looked at her confused. "I know why I was sent into the future. I was needed."

"And why was that?"

Why did she care? Hadn't she been listening? He thought back about what Ishizu had said. "I was sent here because I wasn't successful in locking away the evil in the past. I came to combat the threat in the future."

Airi nodded. "It doesn't make sense for a murderous and evil king to care about people thousand of years into the future."

Yami looked down at the ground, trying to figure it out.

"Yami, if you were really evil back then, why would you send a piece of yourself to the future, locked up in a puzzle to help a family you'd never met. And even before you knew what your mission was you cared enough to protect complete strangers. That doesn't sound like a murder to me."

"I did want to knock Kaiba off a castle all in Duelist Kingdom."

"Who hasn't?" Airi put a hand on his arm. "All you saw was pieces. You don't have the full picture yet. You don't know what happened to those people back then."

"But I did it, or I think I did."

"Yami, your past was filled with war. People die in wars, that's why war is evil. You got sucked into one, and did the best you could."

Yami's eyes were stinging, and a stray tears slid down his cheek. "That doesn't change what happened back then."

"No it doesn't." she put her hand on his cheek, gently raising his face to look at her. "but you're not in the past anymore." her thumb brushed another tear away. "I don't really care about the Nameless Pharaoh. I care about Yami, and from what I've seen from the last few years, he's a pretty amazing guy."

He managed a weak smile. She pulled him into a hug and he hugged her back. They stood there a long time, with only them and the open desert. Finally Yami pulled away, still keeping his hands on her shoulders. Her eyes were shining too, and she blinked to keep the tears from falling.

"Thank you." he said.

She nodded, taking his hand again. "We better keep walking.

They continued on. Yami felt several worried filled pounds lighter. She didn't hate him. Things felt lighter with her there. He was going to set this right for her. No matter what it took, he was getting the Muto's out of this.


Airi faked calm, but her mind was spinning. During the conversation her emotions had been all over the scale. Yami remembered the past. Yami saw his worlds destruction. He was MARRIED! And had a kid. All those things had been shocks, but seeing how much he was worried about her reaction had been the biggest shock of all. This had been eating at him for months and he hadn't said a thing. Did her opinion really carry that much weight? It had been a shock hearing about his past, but some how, it didn't change anything. He wasn't the Nameless Pharaoh, no matter how many times people kept calling him that. He was Yami.

But if he did have someone waiting for him on the other side, what did that make her? She pushed it down. This was no time to be thinking about stupid girly things. But still . . . Honestly she couldn't think of anything with the thundering sounds in her head.

Airi stopped walking. "Do you hear something?"

Both looked around. There were no dust clouds to indicate an approaching vehicle, but there was a grounding sound like a engine of some kind. Then they looked up. Something was approaching on the near horizon. Yami shielded his eyes with his hands to see better and Airi squinted. At the same time they realized it was a plane. And by the way it was smoking it was in trouble. Airi turned to ask Yami something but was distracted by a light coming from his card case.

"Yami your deck!"

Yami pulled out the glowing card. It was the He Eye of Timaeus. Suddenly a ball of light erupted from the card and shot towards the sky. A short distance away, another stream of light erupted, and for the first time they realized there were other people walking server yards away from them in the desert. It had to be Hermos

"It's the others." Airi said, relieved.

Yami was watching the skies, the two balls of light had materialized into dragons. Timaeus and Hermos rocketed towards the plain, which had also had a glowing dragon flying beside it.

"Seto?" Airi said. "You don't think he got soul snatched do you? Mokuba could be up there too!"

"I'm sure they're in good hands." Yami said. "Or claws."

Both watched the dragons take position along side the plane. Between the three dragons, the rapidly descending plane slowed, and came down gradually. The smoking plane and dragons came gradually closer. It would be amazing under different circumstances. Airi and Yami instinctively back up from the perceived landing spot.

"Airi, Yu-Yami!" Joey's shouting made them look around. Tristan, with the unconscious Rex Rapter draped over his back, Joey and Tea where hurrying towards them. The friends united at the same time the dragons set the plane down. The dragons dissolved again, light balls returning to Joey and Yami.

"Fancy seeing you all here." Joey said. They looked dirty and tired, but then Airi was sure she and Yami didn't look much better. Airi went around giving everyone a hug. Seeing them was a relief. She didn't realize how much she'd been worried about them until the relief swept through her.

She gave Joey an extra tight squeeze. "Thank goodness you're all alright."

"Good thing the guys have dragons." Tea said.

"Where there's smoke there's a dragon." Tristan set down the unconscious load, followed by a smack in the arm by Joey.

"Speaking of which." Joey pointed at the KaibaCorp insignia on the side of the plane. The doors had just opened and Kaiba stood there. In his arms was the unconscious body of a teenager. Yami guessed it was one of Dartz men. Mokuba stood next to him, looking rather shaken up.

"Airi!" Mokuba jumped off the plane, running and giving her a hug. Over the boys shoulder Airi noted a slight twitch in Seto's face at the informal interaction. Honestly, he couldn't hate her more with a hug to his brother. Airi pulled out of the hug, looking Mokuba over for injuries. A Kaiba or not, he was almost a second brother. She noticed Mokuba had a blackened action figure in his hands. Noticing her confusion, Mokuba nodded towards the unconscious teen.

"It was Alister's." he said. "It was his little brothers. He gave it to me before he was soul snatched."

Airi hugged him again. How many more families would be ripped apart with this fight?

"Do you dweebs have to follow me around everywhere?" Seto had set the body Alister down in the dirt outside the smoking plane and was looking at them with his usual distaine. Airi's already frazzled nerves started to get worse. She stood, hands resting on Mokuba's shoulders.

"You're lucky we were here." Joey said. "Our dragons helped you not become buzzard bait."

"The sun must have made you delusional." Kaiba scoffed. "I piloted my brother and me to safety, with no help from you and your hallucinations."

Yami was obviously not in the mood for Kaiba disbelief. "Kaiba, you can't disregard the fact our meeting here is a major coincidence."

"That's all it is." Kaiba was fiddling with his cellphone. "No reception." he muttered. "Who was the planner for this desert."

"When will you stop lying to yourself, Kaiba?" Yami snapped. "You're in this fight against Dartz as well. It's your destiny to hold Critius and to fight with us."

"If had a dime for every time you said destiny, I'd have even more money." Kaiba shot Airi a look. "Tell your brother to mind his own business."

Airi stiffened. If only she could talk to Yugi right now. Honestly, he couldn't tell the difference either? Was she the only one? The others gave her a worried look, but she managed to hang on to her temper.

"Mokuba, use the satellite phone in the plane to give our location to Roland." Kaiba gave up and shoved his phone into his pocket. "and ask if they've had any updates on Paradius."

Yami and Airi looked at each other. Airi grabbed Mokuba's arm before he could move to far. "Mokuba, what's Paradius?"

"It's the company trying to buy out KaibaCorp." he said. "That's the reason we're out here, is to make sure they don't."

"Mokuba!" Kaiba said.

Mokuba hurried to his brother and disappeared inside the plane. The rest of the group and picked up on the urgency of Airi and Yami's actions and guessed it had something to do with Dartz.

"Hey, Kaiba, can we get a lift with you?" Tristan said.

"No."

"Come on." Joey said. "You can't leave us out here."

"Yes I can. You have feet, you can still use them can't you."

"You can't." Tea said.
"Give me a reason to bring you along." Seto gave Tea a look. "and no talk about friendship."

Airi thought for a way around his stubbornness. She couldn't use her and Seto's friendship or relationship, that was terminated. Reason sounded like a badly written anime when they talked about their adventures. Coming to fight with winged dragons for a soul Seto didn't even think was lost wasn't going to persuade him. All he knew was dueling.

"You need us to take down Paradius." Yami said. "Our enemy Dartz runs the company. Your enemy is our enemy."

"I don't need your help." Seto gave Yami a hard look. "Especially not yours, Yugi."

That struck a nerve. Airi glared at her ex. Seto didn't need their help, but Yugi did. They had to get to Yugi. That stuck up piece of work wasn't standing in the way of her and her brother. This had to be resolved now.

Yami opened his mouth to answer Seto, but Airi stepped in front of him.

"Seto Kaiba." she pointed at him. "I challenge you to a duel."

Silence. Everyone stood stared at Airi. She stood, arm still extend toward her ex, other fist clenched and shaking. What was she doing? Challenging Seto Kaiba after everything? But she knew it was the only thing he couldn't excuse.

"What?" Seto seemed even more stunned then the rest of them, a change for him.

"If I win, you let us accompany you in your fight against Paradius."

Seto's shock slowly changed to a smirk. "Are you being serious?"

She nodded. "And if I lose, we won't bother you anymore."

"Strange that your challenging me instead of your cheer squad." Seto said. "Afraid they can't beat me?"

Airi folded her arms. "What's your excuse? Afraid you'll lose?"

Seto's smirk disappeared. Airi saw Yami smile, and she inwardly laughed. She still knew which buttons to push.

"I accept." Seto activated his duel-disk.

Airi pulled her own duel-disk out of her bag.

"Are you sure about this?" Yami said, taking her bag.

"Oh, I'm sure." Airi activated her duel-disk. "This duel is long over do."

The two of them took positions on the desert floor, eyes locked.

"Yu-Yami?" Airi heard Tea say behind her. "Do you think Airi can really beat Kaiba?"

Airi realized they had never seen her duel before. Stage fright threatened to advance, but Yami's answer drove it away. "I wouldn't want to be the one facing her right now."

"Seto?" Mokuba stood in the doorway of the plane, stunned by the sight of his brother and his old girlfriend drawing their first five cards in the middle of the desert like an old western movie.

"Take a seat, Mokuba." Joey said. "You don't want to miss the Battle of the Exes

Tristan groaned. "Come up with that on your own?"


A/N AIRI AND KAIBA DUEL . . . Wait, i have to write another duel? :p, why do i do this to myself.

Anyway, I'll try to update soon, but like i said, time is crunched.

Thank you again for reading. Take care, and be safe.