A/N: I'm writing this directly after the last one and so have no idea if anyone's reviewed! But I have another pressing concern, could I have some reviews telling me whether or not I'm keeping the characters in character? Because I have a feeling that I'm overcompensating and making Kaiba even more of a jerk...

~Ava

~XxX~

"Why do you people keep doing this to me?" I asked, panting slightly as I came to a halt at the side of Yugi, standing at the side of a decorative pond.

"Sophie!" The surprised look he gave me was enough to confirm my suspicions, I rolled my eyes at him.

"You were talking to him again! For the love of god Yugi, if I'm supposed to be following you around until I believe you, you can't go running off and leaving me behind every five seconds!" Yugi sighed at me, looking like he was going to, once again, launch into telling me that his card-game playing alter-ego was real and if I just hung around for long enough I'd see, when a man walked over. That, in itself, isn't strange, what made it strange was the glowing eye on his forehead and the fact he was dressed like a mime. With piercings.

"We meet again Yugi Motou, I will not lose this time." The mime spoke and as he did so the eye on his forehead glowed brighter, I froze, my mind catching up with my eyes while Yugi turned to the mime and began to ask him something. I didn't know what because my attention was soley fixed on the mime. I made a strangled sound as I took a step backwards from both males.

"His mouth isn't moving." I hissed at Yugi, "he's speaking without moving his mouth. Yugi, how do you know this guy?" I turned to my friend for an answer, Yugi didn't turn back to look at me as he answered, preferring to keep his eyes trained on the mime.

"Sophie, that's not him speaking, that's Marik controlling him with the power of his Millennium Item." I snorted at his explanation and looked out over the pond, collecting my thoughts.

"I hope you realise that you're making no logical sense." I said, sighing at his refusal to either explain what the hell a 'Millennium Item' was or who the mime was, I was about to ask my inital question for a second time, but froze at the sight of the Deus Ex Machina infront of me.

"YOU AGAIN? SERIOUSLY?" I yelled at the man who was now standing at my right side, I looked wildly around to see where Yugi was, but he seemed to have disappeared. "There's no way he could have gotten away that fast..." I muttered, barely audible until I looked back up at the man, raising my palms in an 'I Give Up' gesture, "Okay, fine, you win...Yami was it?" Using the name Teá had given me as his a few days ago, I sighed, deciding that I would just give up fighting for the moment, the taller Yugi doppleganger nodded at me before turning back to face the, apparently controlled, mime.

"The last time we dueled you had stolen Joey's Red Eyes, what do you want now?" The dopple -sorry- Yami also had a far deeper voice than Yugi but at the very least I now had an answer to how Yugi knew this guy.

"I don't want your friend's card Pharaoh, I want the source of your power, your Millennium Puzzle!" I'd already gawked when the mime had said 'Pharaoh' but now gained some ground back by thinking of a retort.

"I can just hear the melodramatic organ..." I sighed and felt a chill run up my back when the mime looked at me, there are three things I am petrified of: clowns, helicopters and doors that are left open or slightly ajar, this guy's blank, brainwashed stare made me think about adding mimes to that list. I decided it would be better for me if I just shut up.

"You will never get my Puzzle Marik! It's time to Duel!" I almost broke my 'shutting up' policy at that tagline. Everyone seemed to say it before starting a Duel, I didn't see what was so wrong with saying 'start' or 'go'.

~XxX~

"Hahaha Pharaoh! You appear to have walked right into my trap!"

I had been watching the ensuing duel with something akin to anxiousness up until this point as Yami yelled back at Marik's statement. I now believed wholly in Yugi's story, after seeing the mime float several feet off the ground and the eye on his forehead glow in a rainbow-like manner.

"What? What do you mean?" Yami steeled himself visibly for a trap card, what happened instead made me freeze inside.

"I SUMMON SLIFER THE SKY DRAGON!" A frown crossed my face for a second, before being wiped away by pure, animalistic fear as the red and gold dragon rose out of the card Marik had summoned, Yami took a step backwards as I did the same, every instinct screaming at me to run away from the 100 foot long monster. That was, until all other thoughts were shattered as my brain registered loss of ground support.

I had stepped backwards into the pond.

My arms pinwheeled madly for a moment before I plunged under the surface, gasping as my head went under at the coldness of the water, I opened my eyes underwater and thought for a moment that seeing Koi from this angle wasn't nearly as relaxing as watching them from above, glancing upwards at the light which signalled which way was up I pulled at the water around me, kicking y legs and swimming to the light. I broke the surface mouth first, gasping at the air, the first breath went down laced with water, by which point my upper body was clear of the water, I coughed and sucked down another breath, choking at the sight in front of me.

"Kai-cough-ba..." I hacked from behind the white-coated git, he half-turned and looked down at me, now treading water, red hair plastered to my face and still spluttering slightly, he regarded my current predicament for a moment before speaking.

"Callaghan, this isn't the time for a swimming session. Get out of there." Turning back towards the duel that hadn't halted in my absence without another word, I spluttered my disapproval at him.

"Well, if someone could help me out that might be nice. It's not like I wanted to take a dip in a fish pond." I snapped back at him, swimming over to the edge and bracing my hands on the ledge, pulling myself up with a little help from Mokuba, I smiled politely at him. "You're more like it." I said, looking down at the younger Kaiba brother as I got to my feet, dripping steadily. I glared at Kaiba, daring him to say something as I stringed out several strands of seaweed from my hair and threw them behind me, back into the pond, the -plip-plip-plip of the water that soaked my suit and myself through punctuated my next sentence like full-stops.

"So. What. Happened when you'd. Arrived.?" I looked back at the duel, Yami was in a cage while some kind of blue...thing was being attacked and coming back to life each time. Kaiba returned my glare and didn't answer, but it appeared that he couldn't suppress a smirk at my dejected appearance, instead Mokuba answered my question.

"Yugi's been played into a corner, Strings' Revival Jam keeps letting his God card attack whatever card Yugi draws, as if that wasn't bad enough Revival Jam let's Strings draw three cards everytime it get's attacked." Mokuba shook his head slightly at the problem, I had several comments of my own to make on that sentence.

"Okay, God card? Secondly, even if I wasn't a Law student back home I would still be able to see the weak link there." Kaiba looked back at me before speaking.

"And what weak link can you see?" He asked, for once not sounding rude, more, mildy curious. I nodded towards the duel, or more specifically, Yami.

"The same one you saw I suspect, and the same one he's seeing now." Yami played a magic card, Mind-Conrol, which allowed him to control Marik/Strings' Revival Jam, Slifer's effect made it attack it the moment Revival Jam was on Yami's side of the field, causing Marik/Strings to draw three cards each time. This repeated in a loop for a few moments, during which I got several more strands of seaweed out of my hair and brushed a little algae off my right cuff, still soaking, I was thankful that it was Summer, otherwise I would have been chilled to the bone by now. I spoke to Kaiba while watching as Yami claimed victory and therefore Marik's God card. "You know, you could have helped him instead of just, standing here and watching." Mokuba looked up at me from my left side.

"We did! Seto gave Yugi advice when he was about to give up..." He trailed of at my raised eyebrow and incredulous look, I turned 180 degrees and stared at Kaiba.

"Oh really? And what advice would that be? 'Get on with it?' Perhaps? Or how about, 'don't screw it up?' Somehow I don't figure you for compassionate advice." There was no visible reaction to my taunt, but he answered anyway.

"I told him to exploit the glaring loophole."

"Oh." I said, conceeding, "that's startlingly helpful coming from you..." He sniffed and turned away from me, towards Yami.

"You've got a God card of your own now Motou and you won it by exploiting a loophole in the opposition's strategy. I respect you as a Duelist, but the next time we duel, I'll claim your God card as mine." I rolled my eyes at his monologue, frowning at the 'respect' aspect of of it. I was unaware that Kaiba could respect He turned to Mokuba, gesturing for him to follow and glancing at me. "Get cleaned up Callaghan, you smell like fish." I froze mid-hair-wringing.

"You know, I don't remember ever calling that truce off." I said, glaring at him for the insult.

"I don't remember ever agreeing to a truce." He smirked, I growled at him and turned fully towards him, ignoring the puzzled look from Yami.

"I hate you." I hissed, jabbing a finger at him.

"Apparently you love me." Kaiba smirked once again as my eyes bugged, my face flushed and I choked on my next words.

"GAH! That was misconstrued! That's a British saying, we say it all the time back home without this kind of problem!" I waved my hands in the air, exasperated suddenly, "I can't help it if Japanese people don't have the same subtlty as British people!" Yami cleared his throat and moved into my space, saying something about 'leaving it', I was too busy seeing red to take any notice of him though.

"That's not correct in any sense." Kaiba retorted, folding his arms and turning to fully face me also.

"Oh really? Then why's it called 'Chinese Whispers'?" I hooked my fingers around the words and lowered my voice conspiratorially, Yami sighed next to me, obviously giving up with getting through to me and was now just standing with a rather amused Mokuba, Kaiba raised an eyebrow.

"...That's borderline racist and makes no sense." I scoffed at his answer, in too deep to take any of my insults back and instead deciding to go for the gold.

"It makes ten kinds of sense, Mr 'I-Play-A-Cardgame-That's-Centred-Around-Loud-Bangs-And-Flashes'. That doesn't sound too subtle." I folded my arms, mimicking his stance to piss him off and raising both my eyebrows to invite a retort, I wasn't disappointed.

"The Japanese people can be very subtle and Duel Monsters is a test of skill and character." He looked at me stonily after I'd insulted Duel Monsters, it appeared I'd found a sticking point.

"Well I suppose you're just a bad example of Japanese people then, because unless your character is Scrooge McDuck, it's just a cardgame." I unfolded one arm and splayed my palm in the air, pointing one finger at him to accentuate the 'your'.

"Oh? And you're the pride of Britan are you?" I bunched both my hands into fists by my sides, looking at him and wanting to slap the smug look off his face, at the very least the blush I'd gained around the beginning of the argument was fading along with my creativity in my insults.

"...I hate you.." I repeated, Kaiba smirking at his verbal victory.

"I thought we'd already covered this?"

"GAH!"

~XxX~

A/N: OOOooooOOOOOoooo SOPHIE GOT BURNED! Ahhhh, I had SO much fun writing that XD If you've noticed a few YGOTAS references every now and then, you're right! It's too good for me NOT to quote it and some of the more sarcastic put downs suit Sophie so well XD

~Ava