Witch!Yugi. Think Charmed, only with Shadow Magic.

A cloaked figure hovered over the terrified chicken in the basement. There were a few boxes in the corner, which were used to hide the small alter. On it were several pagan symbols, all correctly placed and carefully set up for a proper sacrificial ritual to honor the gods.

Next to the alter was a kitty condo, one that was well used and maintained by the lone feline that sat upon it. It observed the entire thing with great interest, and for good reason. The one performing the ritual usually gave it meat once they were done.

One the figure spoke the usual prayer, it sharply sent the dagger into the chicken's heart, killing it instantly. The candle flickered briefly, and the eyes beneath the cloak glimmered with hidden power, before dimming back to their usual hue.

With that done, the cloaked figure removed the hood, revealing a girl with deep red hair and golden bangs.

"Alright, now that that's done, time for the boring part," she said cheerfully.

The chicken was calmly moved to a different table, having been placed on a serving tray so as not to spill the blood onto the table. The girl swiftly went to work with the ease of long practice, occasionally tossing the inner guts of the chicken into a small dish on the side. The cat calmly jumped down from it's perch to begin feasting on the fresh meat.

In short order, the now dead chicken was properly dismembered and the meat drained of blood. Not a scrap of that was wasted, as the cat happily lapped that up along with the goat's milk offering.

"Grandpa, dinner will be ready in an hour!" she called out, once she was back upstairs. The door to the basement was close to the kitchen, which meant that she wasted little time in prepping the food.

One of the deals about her...hobby...was that any animal sacrifices had to be domestic animals meant for human consumption, and that once they were done serving that purpose she was to butcher them for dinner so as not to waste them.

Considering her grandfather could have reacted any number of ways (most of them poorly) to the fact she had become a practicing Wiccan, she counted herself lucky that he only asked she clean up after herself and not waste meat.

Once she got used to the act, it had become second nature. Besides, clean up had become considerably easier since she rescued Bazz after her monthly meetings with the coven.

"Your monthly meeting is tomorrow, isn't it Yugi?" said her grandfather. He had met the girls, and they were all good kids who had an unusual hobby.

"Yup!" said Yugi happily.

She would take Bazz with her as usual, since the girls loved her cat and spoiled her rotten every meeting. Plus, their spells seemed to have more effect with the cat there.

No one at her school would ever believe that timid, geeky little Yugi was a practicing Wiccan. She bore the title witch with great pride, because it was the first time she had felt she belonged to anything.

The next evening...

Yugi had Bazz on a leash, mostly to keep her safe and because she disliked having her in a carrier. Bazz accepted the leash with quiet indignity, mostly because it was temporary.

She turned a familiar alley, and found a quiet bookstore. Without any hesitation she walked around the back and up some stairs.

"Coven leader, you're here!" said Anise.

"Grandpa says hello and that he doesn't mind if we hold the next meeting at the store, so long as we clean up after," said Yugi. Next month was the Harvest Moon after all.

"You're so lucky your grandpa is okay with the rituals. My parents still think it's a phase," pouted Akari. "They won't let me do any proper rituals at all in our house."

Yugi made a face.

"To be fair, I also had to learn how to butcher the animals after and use them for dinner," said Yugi. "On the plus side my ability to cook shot up because of it. Fish are the worst though. I'll never look at sushi again."

From there, the meeting went as it usually did...girl talk, schoolwork, and the occasional discussion about what the bigger covens were up to. Once the usual gossip was done, the girls went to work on their own little projects, as they only did the big rituals during the right times of the year. Yugi would help out here and there, mostly because out of the girls she had the most free time and her grandfather didn't mind her 'hobby' that much. He even tracked down some of the better books written by people who knew what they were doing, rather than get anything mass produced at a bookstore. Most of Yugi's bookshelf had books that were of limited circulation and were in multiple languages.

Which she would openly admit was probably why her grandfather got them in the first place. She was proud to admit she was a bit of a polyglot thanks to her hobby and having nothing but free time to translate her books. She could speak in seven languages and read in at least ten. Her grandfather was tickled pink that she was fluent in ancient Egyptian and could read hieroglyphs.

Once the meeting ending, as the girls all had curfew, Yugi clipped the leash back onto Bazz and they walked home.

Thanks to her hoodie, no one recognized her as she walked along the main roads. Which was great, because she didn't want to meet any of her schoolmates and ruin her good mood.

As she walked into her home, her grandfather greeted her. Once the usual pleasantries were done, Yugi made dinner before going back to her room. She had a new book to translate after all. And when that got too tiring, she always had the puzzle her grandfather had given her.

She could sense great potential from it, but the thing was being incredibly stubborn.

Yugi was in an utterly foul mood, and really who could blame her? It wasn't her fault most of the school mistook her for a boy... that was the only uniform that would fit her! She glared down at her chest...it sucked that she was so flat that she didn't really need to wear a bra.

Still, every time she had to deal with Jounouchi's stupid attempts to get her to 'man up'... it always pissed her off.

Today was worse than usual though. She didn't know how or why she attracted Ushio's attention, but she knew it was bad news all around.

That was proven correct the next day, as she saw the prone forms of Jounouchi and Honda on the ground.

Her temper flared, but she kept her cool. Ushio was bigger and stronger than she was. He was a thug, short and simple.

So when she offered to let him beat her up instead of the two idiots behind her, she waited for the perfect moment to strike.

Ushio didn't see the swift (and surprisingly painful) knee to the groin she gave him. He didn't have much time to react, as Yugi used the limited martial arts training under her belt to lay him flat on the ground.

Jounouchi and Honda watched dumbfounded as the tiny Yugi promptly did an elbow drop into Ushio's solar plexus, causing him to cough violently. A sharp kick to the head finished him off, knocking him out cold for a bit.

"What. The. Hell. Since when could you do that?" said Jounouchi, in disbelief.

Yugi brushed off some nonexistent dirt from her hands.

"If the school thugs knew I could fight, they'd never leave me alone," said Yugi dismissively. She also neglected to add that they were lucky she wasn't allowed by her grandfather to carry her blades.

When she first expressed an interest in being a Wiccan and making sacrifices, her grandfather had taken one look at how she was holding the blade before signing her up to learn how to use one.

And not just for cooking. Yugi was proud to say she was an intermediate when it came to blade fighting, and a blue belt in martial arts. She was due to take the test to ascend to the next level in two weeks.

Ushio, when he woke up, was absolutely pissed that the 'weakest' student in the school had gotten the drop on him.

At the game shop...

Yugi's foul mood carried on to when she got home. Fortunately her grandfather could read the mood, so he gave her some space to cool down. He knew she would talk once she did.

So you could imagine his surprise when one of her classmates showed up, soaking wet with a golden puzzle piece. Normally this wouldn't bother him, except there wasn't a cloud in the sky and the boy mentioned something about 'returning a favor'.

Solomon walked up and handed his granddaughter the missing piece she was frantically looking for.

"What's this?" she asked, surprised.

"A classmate of yours came to the door and brought this with him. Funny thing, he was dripping wet," said Solomon.

Yugi thought back to who could have gotten this piece...then remembered Jounouchi had opened her puzzle box in class. He must have really fast fingers, because she didn't notice him stealing it!

Still, with this final piece she could complete the puzzle which had frustrated her for five long years. She would be lying if she didn't want to see what it looked like completed.

She knew Ushio wasn't likely to let her ability to fight back laying down. He would almost certainly try to get back at her, and this time with friends. She would need to bring her blade with her to school.

As she was plotting on the best place to hide her blade so that the teachers wouldn't find out she had one, she placed the final piece into the puzzle.

The moment she did so, the eye glowed and Bazz let out the strangest yowl she had ever heard her cat make. A surge of power filled her, more than she had ever gotten from her spells when casting them.

It was so strong it overwhelmed her at first, but she managed to maintained her awareness. Barely.

However she found herself putting the puzzle on, and her body moving outside of her own control. Something or someone had taken over.

There was a surge of magic and she blacked out, only to wake up in her own bed.

Alarmed, she immediately went through a check of her body. There weren't any odd injuries, her chastity was untouched, and she didn't feel hungover. She might have assumed nothing had happened once she finished the puzzle...except her magical core had swelled to almost ten times what she remembered.

Even more shocking, her spells now had a decidedly dark feel to them...it wasn't a malevolent one, thankfully, but she knew by instinct and experience that just because it wasn't out to get her that it didn't make using it willy-nilly safe. Far from it...she was going to have to upgrade her usual spells and relearn all her old control exercises just to be safe.

Seeing her cat, she stroked the top of Bazz's head.

"Things just got complicated, didn't they Bazz?"

Bazz meowed in response.

When she reached school, it was to a very unusual and disturbing sight. Ushio had clearly lost his mind and was playing with leaves, as if he thought they were money.

Something had told her not to bring her blade to school, so she didn't. She was still on guard for the rest of the day.

Another unusual occurrence was that Jounouchi seemed to respect her a bit more and asked to be her friend. Only time would tell how that would turn out, but he had always given her a 'abused puppy' vibe.

"No way, you actually finished it?" said Anise in shock.

Yugi had taken to wearing the bulky gold pendant around, and no one said anything. Since it was made of solid metal, it was somewhat heavy and threw off her balance, but she was getting used to having it on. She felt oddly uncomfortable not having it on her for some reason.

The girls all clamored to look at the puzzle. It was only natural after all, their leader had spent five years trying to solve the thing, and it was solid gold.

Once the gossip was out of the way, they all got to work. They would need to prepare for the harvest dance next month.

"I've secured a wooded area, and the required permissions. We'll have to wear the special shifts, but there should be no problems with it," said Akira.

Officially their group was a 'special dance' club, where they practiced dancing from around the world during special times of the year. That was how some of the girls phrased it to their less than understanding parents.

"I wish An-chan was interested in pagan rituals. She'd be a great addition to the coven," sighed Anise. "Then again, she's only interested in going to America to study ballet."

Yugi, who had been half-paying attention to Anise's crush, blinked. That sounded oddly familiar.

"Who's An-chan?" asked Akira.

"Masaki Anzu. She's in my advanced ballet class," said Anise.

Yugi stopped cold.

"Brown hair, blue eyes, takes no shit from the boys and is about yea tall?" asked Yugi. Anise blinked before nodding. She grinned. "Anzu is my only real friend at school and is in my class."

Anise grinned at that.

"Any chance she's available?" asked Anise.

"She's straight, sorry," said Yugi, shaking her head. Anise pouted in good humor. "Maybe I can convince her to join for the harvest dance, though."