Dear readers, I apologize for the extremely long wait. This would have been up two weeks ago, but I've lost my internet. My dear sister is allowing me to use her internet to update this.
Disclaimers: Don't own Yu-Gi-Oh.
Warnings: Um . . . cussing.
Chapter Seven: Doggie?
It was a strange and peculiar scene the sun shone its light on early the next morning. As usual, the gang sat on one side, while Mokuba and Kaiba sat at the other end. The only difference to this table setting was the fact that Jii-chan was in the middle, with Ryou and Yugi across from him, and Yami was once again next to Kaiba. Dishes were laid out and breakfast was being eaten. Except: only one half of the table was eating. The other half sat frozen in various stages of shock, confusion, and freaked out looks.
Jounochi, for example, was sitting wide eyed and slack jawed with a fork loaded with scrambled eggs halfway to his mouth. Honda was the one with the freaked out look, his fork dropped on the table with his hand still hovering in the air where he had been holding it. Anzu was holding a spoon in her mouth, blinking rapidly in confusion towards the other end of the table like the rest of them.
Jii-chan seemed too wrapped up in searching through the tomes to notice the table scene although if you looked closely you could see the faint twitching of his lips. Yugi was oblivious to it all. He was having too much fun dabbing his hands in the syrup and licking it off and giggling. Ryou kept his head down, allowing his long hair to hide his grinning face. Bakura was laughing in his soul room. Mokuba was snickering in his glass of orange juice. Kaiba was steadfast ignoring the rest of them.
The main reason for this situation? Seto Kaiba was home again from work today. Of course, none of them realized it was the weekend and it was standard routine for the Kaiba brothers to spend Saturday morning at home and go in at noon, then come home before dinner and spend Sunday home from work. Or in Kaiba's case, work from his home office rather than his office at headquarters.
The other reason for the gang's mixed expressions? Yami was sitting next to Kaiba with his stuffed dragon in his lap. Well, that part was all fine and dandy. So was the strange sight of Kuriboh hovering next to him nibbling on an apple slice. The problem was the Blue Eyes White Dragon miniature perched on the back of Yami's seat, releasing puffs of smoke and swinging his tail along with the occasional flaps of his wings.
The gang had already been shocked enough when Kaiba had sat down to breakfast. Kuriboh floating in behind Ryou who had walked in with Yami and Yugi had been a slight surprise. It was ignored when Ryou told them that Kuriboh was Yami's Ka and could manifest itself into the physical world anytime it pleased because Yami was still connected with the shadows.
Then all of the sudden, a small dragon about the size of a medium-sized dog and resembling Kaiba's beloved Blue Eyes White Dragon had just popped into existence. The situation took a turn for the bizarre when Kaiba had glanced between the stuffed toy and the dragon perched on the back of Yami's chair and smiled softly as he rubbed the dragon's head, making it give out a pleased rumble with a fluff of its wings.
Kaiba smiled!
The gang nearly had a synchronized heart attack. That is, until Kaiba threw them an icy glare partnered with one of his trademarked sneers. The result which was a series of sweat drops from the gang.
The combination of shock, confusion, amusement, and ignorance (intended and unintended) led up the positions the occupants found themselves in at that particular moment. Needless to say, it was a very peculiar scene indeed.
However, when two of Kaiba's kitchen maids came to check up on them, neither of them took any notice of the strange sight. They simply took the empty dishes back to the kitchen and refilled their cups. Either they thought Kuriboh and the mini-dragon were holograms or they simply didn't notice them. Although the gang kind of doubted it was the latter. So it had to be the former, because there was no way Kaiba's staff would believe in magic.
The guy pretty much hand-picked them all from what Mokuba had told them. So the CEO would have picked people like him that didn't believe in magic or all that other "mumbo jumbo crap," to put it in Kaiba's words. Right? Heck, they wouldn't be too surprised if they all turned out to be a bunch of bodyguards in disguise with Kung Fu and Judo moves up their sleeves. Or something like that.
Silence reigned over the table for a long time before Anzu got enough coherence to speak. "You know, for being your handpicked staff, those people seem pretty ignorant of the things that go around here."
"What are you talking about? This is the best staff I could have possibly picked anywhere in this country," Kaiba snorted, not even bothering to glance at her.
"Um, hello? Blatantly ignoring the fact that there's a two Duel Monsters in the room and floating vases? Either they're really stupid or you just pay them to ignore any odd things that go on around here," Anzu persisted.
"Oh please. They know all about our little adventures with the Shadow Realm and the Millennium Items. They're not ignorant – they wouldn't be part of my staff if they were. They're seen all the odd things that have happened with their own eyes. Are you forgetting all the times I've involved my security teams when we were in a mess? Doma . . . Battle City? Is any of this ringing a bell in your silly little heads?"
"WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!?" There was a massive anime fall at the other end of the table.
Kaiba snorted and stood up from the table and leaving the room. Yami skipped off happily after him, Mimic and Kuriboh following in the air behind the adorable chibi. Mokuba was trying hard not to choke on his orange juice as he looked down on the frozen forms of Honda, Jounochi, and Anzu fallen from their chairs.
Yugi had climbed out of his seat was giggling like mad as he poked the cheek of an unresponsive Honda. Jii-chan's only reaction was to flip a page. Meanwhile, Ryou was having a conversation with his yami.
[[Hmm. I thought there was something fishy going on. Though now that I think about it, the fact that the bastard priest's slaves knew all about the magic isn't really that surprising]] Bakura mused.
[BAKURA! They're servants, not slaves. They get paid for their work. And quit calling Kaiba a priest, you know he hates being reminded of his past life.]
[[Hmph. It's not like he can hear me. Hey . . . let me take over.]]
[What? Why?]
Bakura didn't answer as he pushed Ryou into his soul room and grinned evilly. Mokuba watched him suspiciously as the thief dashed out of the room. Five minutes later he returned with a handful of . . . were those sharpies? Mokuba took another look. They were – half a dozen brand new sharpies each in a different color. What was a three thousand year old tomb robber doing with sharpies?
Bakura snickered as he stood over Jounochi, before uncapping the pink sharpie and smirking. Mokuba had to clamp a hand over his mouth to keep from howling in laughter as the thief went to work. Within minutes, the three stunned teenagers sported colorful lines and drawings on their faces. The majority of them were hieroglyphics that made Ryou sigh as he heard Bakura snicker their meanings.
His yami had written "dog" and other related names all over Jou's face in various forms of writing, which included Egyptian hieroglyphs, Kanji, Arabic, and Latin (which made Ryou wonder how the former tomb robber knew those written languages. Only royalty and nobility knew how to write back then.) Likewise, there were doggie bones, fire hydrants, and puppies all over his face. He had also drawn a dog collar around the blonde's neck with a tag that read "High Priest's Puppy" in Egyptian. The whole masterpiece had been done in the pink sharpie.
Anzu had been next, her face art done in red. Bakura had drawn broken hearts and phrases like "Friendship Sucks!" all over her face in Kanji so that she could read it. He had also drawn a noose around her neck accompanied the words "Death of Friendship" along with some unpleasant nicknames in hieroglyphics, which Ryou was thankful for. She would have exploded if she had read even a quarter of the names his yami called her.
Honda got the purple marker. His face mostly had pictures on it. The largest of these pictures was the outline of a monkey's face that encompassed his whole face. Bananas and coconut trees had been drawn around it. There was also an image of Shizuka and Otogi kissing. There were a few half-hearted names such as "dork" and "monkey-boy" but nothing quite as rude or insulting as Anzu's and Jou's had been.
Ryou face-palmed himself when Bakura shoved the markers into Yugi's hands and ran off, leaving the chibi to blame for the graffiti on the three teens' faces when they recovered from their shock. He was certainly giggling loud enough to be the culprit.
Mokuba shook his head and tried to keep from laughing as he picked Yugi up and vacated the room before they snapped out of their stupor. Jii-chan hummed as he gathered up the volumes and followed his lead. No one in their right minds would want to be within ear-shot of Jounochi when he discovered the markings on his face.
Sure enough, several minutes later, all movements stilled at the scream of rage echoing from the dining room.
Elsewhere in the mansion, servants looked up in confusion. Bakura sniggered. Kaiba growled something about "that baka inu" as he stabbed at his keyboard in annoyance, making Yami cock his head at him from where he sat on the floor assembling a puzzle. Mokuba was rolling around on the floor with laughter as Yugi watched him curiously.
Jounochi stormed through the mansion, leaving servants trying to stifle giggles in his wake. They all knew of the dog jokes their master directed at the blonde, and they were clearly amused to see a collar drawn around his neck. The blonde was on a mission. There were three people who could have done this, and he was going to find out which one it was!
Searching for Bakura was useless, so he opted for Kaiba. Yami was with him anyways, and knowing the chibi, it was probably him. So all he had to do was find that bastard's office. The only problem was . . . he had no idea where he was.
Jou looked around at the endless amount of doors and the hallways that stretched on forever. "DAMN IT! WHY DOES THAT BASTARD HAVE SO MANY ROOMS?!"
Yami cocked his head as Kuriboh cooed inquiringly in his arms. Kaiba watched him in puzzlement as the chibi ran out the door with Kuriboh in his arms. The miniature Blue Eyes remained curled up on one corner of his desk, releasing small puffs of smoke every time it breathed. Shrugging, he returned to his work.
Meanwhile, Yami wandered through the halls, peeking through doors and peering down empty hallways. The sounds of low muttering and angry growls caught his attention and he turned a corner, following the sounds. A second later he crashed into someone's leg with a squeak. He looked up into honey gold eyes and cooed as he latched onto the blonde's leg.
"Yami! Hey there . . . you wouldn't know how to get back to the others, now do you?" Jou asked, bending down, his face art temporarily forgotten. Yami blinked at him, Kuriboh hovering next to his head as he made soft Kuri sounds, before he pointed down the hallway and skipped off with his Ka. Jou had to race after him to avoid losing the chibi.
Yami ran into a half open doorway and Jou burst through the door and nearly fell flat on his face from the momentum. The first thing he aware of was a pair of ice blue eyes staring at him. Yami had led him straight into Kaiba's office. Kaiba's lips twitched as he surveyed the blonde.
Jou glared at him, "What the hell are you staring at?!" he demanded.
A smirk slowly spread across the CEO's face. "Have you looked in a mirror yet, baka inu?"
Honey gold eyes blinked in confusion before his face reddened in anger and embarrassment. He had forgotten all about the drawings and hieroglyphics on his face. He growled at the brunette before stomping out of the office to find the nearest bathroom in order to scrub the marker off. Yami watched him leave before clambering up his dragon's lap and onto his desk.
Mimic lifted his head and released a puff of smoke at the chibi, making him giggle. Kaiba resumed his work as Yami started playing with the dragon. He glanced at the clock several hours later and shut down his laptop after saving his work. He picked up Yami with one arm, and the dragon landed on his shoulder, rubbing his smooth angular head against his cheek affectionately. Kuriboh trailed in the air behind them.
He quickly located the dweeb patrol in the entertainment room to find Mokuba waiting for him. The Mutt seemed to have succeeded in scrubbing off the pink sharpie marker. He set a pouting Yami down onto the couch and the dragon glided off his shoulder and curled up in the chibi's lap. He turned away so the Mutt wouldn't see the soft smile on his face.
"Come on, Mokuba."
"Coming Nii-sama!" Mokuba called, running after his elder brother as he walked out the door.
Lunch time passed quickly, and Anzu was back in the dining room helping Jii-chan flip through the tomes. One of the security guards had retrieved the tomes from Ryou's apartments, and Ishizu had sent over even more. With the additional books, they weren't even halfway finished with the pile and it was just the two of them searching now.
Ryou had been helping, but the tomb robber decided it was too boring to watch Ryou flick through dusty pages and ran off somewhere after taking control of Ryou's body. Jou still wasn't allowed near the tomes. Honda had tried helping, but after he accidently tore a page and grandpa nearly blew a fuse, he decided he was safer helping Jou entertain the twins.
Anzu had once suggested that Yami could help them, but the chibi understood the hieroglyphics and thought it was more fun to cast the curses than flip through the pages looking for a blank spot. Jii-chan had shooed him out when one of those curses hit Yugi and made his skin turn a bright green color. Luckily, the counter-curse had been written under it and they were able to turn him back to normal.
Yami was in a nearby room, playing some sort of game with Yugi, Kuriboh and the mini Blue Eyes which Yami insisted was called Mimic. Jou kept well back from the group. He had said something earlier about Kaiba and his stupid dragons, and Mimic had chomped down on his arm. It had only left a red mark, but the blonde was wary of the Shadow Monster now that he knew it was smart enough to understand him.
Jou grinned as Yami chased a giggling Yugi around the room, only for Kuriboh and Mimic to pounce on him. Every time Yami nearly caught Yugi, the two Shadow creatures would leap onto his back and weigh him down long enough for Yugi to escape, then the chase would start all over again.
"GUYS!"
Jou nearly fell off the couch in shock as Anzu burst into the room, waving her arms frantically. Yami and Yugi froze where they were and stared curiously at her. Yami's head was cocked while Yugi's wide amethyst orbs were blinking slowly. The tip of his tongue could be seen poking out between his lips like a curious cat.
"Jii-chan . . ." she panted, "Jii-chan's got back troubles again. We need to go to the hospital." She paused for a moment, looking around, before taking a deep breath. "TOMB ROBBER! GIVE RYOU BACK CONTROL AND TELL HIM TO GET HIS BUTT IN HERE!"
For a moment, nothing happened. Then Ryou walked into the room, brushing feathers off his arms and his face tinted pink. "Ah, hello everyone. You were looking for me?" he asked, turning to Anzu.
The lone female of the group stared at him. "Do I want to know what the thief was doing . . . ?"
"No, not really," Ryou answered with a nervous chuckle and rubbing the back of his head. "Although I don't think Kaiba will be very pleased when he comes home . . ."
"Oh . . . right. Well then, I guess me and you should take Jii-chan to the hospital! I'm sure one of Kaiba's servants can drive us. You two can stay here and watch the twins!" Anzu said before grabbing Ryou's wrist and running out of the room. Jou and Honda stared slack jawed after her.
"Did she just . . . take Ryou with her . . . and leave us here . . . to be at Kaiba's mercy when he discovers whatever Bakura did?" Honda asked weakly.
"She . . . did . . ."
Both Jou and glanced at each other before they eyes rolled up inside their head and they crashed facedown onto the ground. Yugi blinked cutely as he stared down at Honda. He crouched down and giggled as he poked the unresponsive brunette's cheek. Yami leaned over Jou, tapping on the back of his head and looking up at his hikari.
Frowning, he glanced around the room for something that could help. His eyes landed on the small dragon curled up on a footstool and preening himself. A wide mischievous grin stretched across his face. Mimic's head turned towards him, as though sensing the chibi's thoughts.
Yami pointed to Jou and made a chomping motion with his own mouth. With a flash, Mimic shot towards the unwary blonde and latched onto his rear end. With a loud yelp Jou jumped up and lurched forward, stumbling over Honda who shot up in surprise and two ran around the room in panic before colliding with each other and sliding back down to the ground.
Mimic settled himself on Yami, back feet resting on his shoulders while his forelimbs flattened his hair and the dragon's head lay comfortably on the soft mass of hair as his tail curled loosely around the chibi's neck. Jou growled at the smug look upon the dragon's face. He stepped forward threatening, only to stop dead when Yami looked at him with wide watering eyes that screamed cuteness.
He turned away, muttering something about the unfairness of chibi eyes, unaware of Yami smirking behind his back. Yugi's giggling caught his attention and he glanced over to see the chibi had climbed up onto the coffee table and was hopping about in an energetic manner. He paused in mid step and looked up at something before he squealed "Doggie!" and held his arms up.
The smile dropped from Yami's face and he dived at Yugi, knocking his other half off the table a split second before something cleaved the table in two right where Yugi had been standing. Honda screamed in a high pitched voice and grabbed onto at the same time Jou grabbed onto him.
A second later Jou relaxed and snorted. "Yami, that's not funny. Quit playing around with your little prank illusions," he scolded the chibi. Yami stared at him with wide, frightened eyes before something invisible yanked him from his protective crouch over a crying Yugi and threw him on the couch. With a faint chink, his mother's necklace fell to the ground, its clasp broken.
"Oh shit! I don't think Yami's pulling a prank!" Honda launched himself towards Yugi only to smack into something hard. He groaned, before something grabbed him by the back of his shirt and tossed him across the room to slam into the back wall, dazed.
Yami leapt off the couch and grabbed Yugi's hand before dashing out of the room with him. Jou ran after them, leaving Honda to scramble after his best friend, still wobbling from his impact against the wall.
The chibitized Pharaoh had retreated into the kitchen with his hikari, both huddled against the cabinet below the sink. Yugi had his head buried in Yami's chest while the bigger chibi had his arms wrapped tightly around him and looking defiantly at the unseen assailant.
"YAAAHHHH!" Jou burst into the room swinging a baseball bat and praying that he would hit the invisible threat. With a solid whump, the end of the bat slammed into something and a stool sitting before the counter was demolished as the unseen attacker crashed into it.
Honda ran into the kitchen then, yelling a high pitched war cry as he brandished a large black umbrella. Jounochi would have laughed at the sight, except Honda's wild strikes hit something other than air . . . in two separate places . . . with the same swing.
Jou turned back to the destroyed stool as there was a scrape and pieces of wood started to rise into the air and then drop back down, as though something had been sitting in the mess and was standing up. "Oh shit! There's more than one of them!"
The blonde backed up, swinging the bat in a wide arch around him until he was standing in front of the twins, Honda copying his actions. A second later, something crashed through the window above the sink and Yugi shrieked as glass showered down on them. Yami's eyes widened as the front of his shirt was grabbed and he suddenly found himself shoved inside one of the cabinets.
"YAMI!"
The door was pulled open and Yami found himself looking up at Honda. He peered over his shoulder at Yugi on the ground, and gave a cry of alarm. Jounochi, hearing this, instinctively grabbed Yugi moments before the tile where he had been sitting was smashed into. Jou yelped and swung the bat in front of him. With a loud thunk, it connected, flinging their attacker back into the sink, causing the faucet to break and water to shoot everywhere.
Yami looked to his right and spotted a large bag full of flour. He crawled over to it, ignoring Honda's protests as he tried to keep an eye on him while swinging his umbrella to make sure nothing came near him. He was surprised when Yami tugged on his sleeve and pointed at the flour bag he had pushed over to him.
"Throwit!" Yami commanded. Honda decided not to question the strange order. He picked it up and hurled it across the kitchen. Jounochi, seeing movement out of the corner of his eye, reacted instinctively. The baseball bat slammed into the flour bag and white powder exploded everywhere.
"Honda!" Jounochi coughed, "What the hell were you thinking!?" The blonde was bent double, trying not to breathe in the flour that clouded around them. Yugi wheezed against his chest, the chibi's fingers digging into his shirt.
"Yami told me to throw it!" Honda defended himself.
"Why would he want to do an idiotic thing like t–" Jou trailed off the flour began to settle and strange shapes started moving about. He stepped backwards, his shoes crunching glass and splashing in the water that was still running from the broken faucet. "What the?"
"The water! It's making the flour stick to the invisible things!" Honda realized.
Jou grinned. "Great! Now we can kick their asses!" He lunged forward and smashed the bat against one of the flour covered things. The thing stumbled back but another one leapt in front of it and Jou ducked as a claw-like hand, it was hard to tell with the flour, barely missed his head by centimeters.
Honda grabbed Yami by the arm and pulled him out of the cabinet onto the ground. "Come on!" he shouted at Jou before running out of the room with Yami on his heels. The blonde took one last swing at one of the creatures and took off after Honda down the hall.
There was a crash behind them, and a section of the wall exploded into a million pieces. Jou chuckled nervously as he looked back. "Eheheh. . . Kaiba's not going to be too happy about his kitchen when he gets back."
"No shit, Sherlock!" Honda growled at him, making Jou bare his teeth angrily at him.
"Well, look on the bright side: we can blame whatever that thief did on these guys!"
"Jou, that's the stupidest thing I ever heard. Why were even thinking about that in the middle of all this?!"
"Dunno, it just popped up into my head," Jou answered, grinning like an idiot. Honda whacked him over the head with the umbrella, making Jou sputter curse words. Neither of them noticed when Yami stumbled with a small cry and fell to the ground.
Kaiba strode up the front steps of the Kaiba Mansion, with his brother beside him and his faithful bodyguard trailing behind. As usual, he ignored the security detail that followed him everywhere. Mokuba was chattering happily about the video game he had tested and how terrible it was that Mr. Mutou wound up the hospital again from back pains. Isono opened the door and he stepped through, before freezing.
"What. The. Hell."
"Eh? Nii-sama, what wrong?" Mokuba peered around him before his mouth dropped open. The foyer lay in ruins, like a battle had been fought there. Before he could take another step inside, he spotted whiteness floating in the air. "What's that?" he wondered, pointing towards it. His brother turned to stare at it, narrowing blue eyes at the strange sight. It got closer until it was in front of Kaiba, and part of the whiteness lifted.
"Kaiba, look out!" Jounochi burst out of another room and crashed into Kaiba, knocking him to him ground. Mokuba yelped as a large slash appeared on the door right where his brother's head would have been. Honda ran in a second later, Yugi in one arm and brandishing a battered and worn umbrella in the other.
All of them were covered in splotches of white and were injured all over. It was mostly bruises, but Honda had a cut on one arm, and Jou was limping, blood staining his jeans and dirty white sneakers. Yugi seemed the most unscathed, but he was trembling in fear and Mokuba pulled him out of Honda's arms and rocked him, trying to calm the sobbing chibi down.
"What the hell, Mutt! What do you do to my house!?" Kaiba demanded, shoving Jou off him and dusting flour off himself. "And what the hell are you idiots standing there f–?" The CEO had turned to address his body guards, but they were all collapsed on the stairs, Isono included.
"That's what happened to all your servants," Jou said.
Kaiba growled and grabbed him by the front of his shirt. "Explain, mongrel!"
Jou pushed him away just as a white thing swung down between them, and the blonde whacked it. "Sure, I'll explain Kaiba, but first!" He grabbed Kaiba by the wrist and took off as more of the white covered things came into the room. "Let's get out of here!" Mokuba yelped in surprise as Honda grabbed him and chased after Jou and his brother.
A few minutes later found them barricading the door of a small, windowless bedroom, panting.
"So what you're telling me is that there are invisible creatures after Yami and Yugi, which only they can see, and you have no idea what they are. You can only tell where they are because Yami had the brilliant idea to douse my wrecked kitchen in flour because they were soaking wet and he knew it would stick to them. On top of that, they seem intent on smashing Yugi to pulp and just now tried to behead me. And oh yes, and you think these things cast a spell that put my entire staff to sleep, but none of us are affected by it for some strange reason. Is that all?" Kaiba asked dryly.
There was a bang on the door and Jou grunted as he pushed back against it with the others. "Yeah, that's about it."
"Wonderful," came Kaiba's sarcastic reply. "Mokuba! Search around and see if you can find anything to use as a weapon."
"Okay!" Mokuba left the barricade and began wandering around the bedroom, trying to find anything useful. He checked under the bed, went through all the drawers in the dresser, and finally came to the small walk-in closet. The sight of boxes greeted him, all stacked up in jumbled up piles. They were all different sizes and colors. The only thing consistent with them all was that they were all rectangles.
"What's all this, Nii-sama?" he asked curiously, looking around the chaotic mess.
"Hell if I know. I might have put them there a long time ago, or it was Gozaburo's doing. Just be careful. If they are Gozaburo's, there's a chance there's a weapon in there somewhere," Seto answered distractedly, with his back still pressed up against the barricade alongside Honda and Jou while Yugi sat at their feet, watching them curiously.
Mokuba shrugged and picked one up carefully and peered inside the lime green box. They were . . . pictures? He didn't bother to look at them and moved on to the other boxes. They held a variety of things ranging from papers, notebooks, toys, cards, books, and videogames. He moved boxes out of his way and spotted a long and thin box.
When he opened it, he was pleased to find an aluminum baseball bat inside. "Aha! I found a baseball bat, big brother!" he crowed, half running, half tripping out of the closet. He would have to go back and explore through the boxes when they weren't in the middle of such a crisis.
Kaiba took the bat from him and stood away from the door, swinging it experimentally. "Hmm. This will do." The door cracked and Kaiba glanced back at it in time to see small splinters of wood fall from the door.
"Kaiba! Get your ass back against this door! They're breaking through!" Jou demanded, shoving harder against the barrier they had made from the chairs and the table in the room.
"Oh back away from there, you baka inu. The door's not to going last much longer. Mokuba, take charge of Yugi. I'll get . . ." Kaiba trailed off, looking around the room.
Mokuba looked curiously at him as he picked up Yugi. "Nii-sama, what's wrong?"
"I haven't seen Yami since we've arrived."
"EH!" chorused Jou and Honda. They leapt away from the door and glanced wildly around the room. With a loud crack, the door was ripped off its hinges and Kaiba leapt forth, swinging the bat.
"YOU IDIOTS! You weren't supposed to back away yet! Argh, that doesn't matter! Come on, we need to find Yami and get out of here," Kaiba growled, snatching Mokuba's wrist with his free hand and racing out of the room, clearing a path with his bat. Honda and Jou ran after him, calling for the CEO to wait for them, swinging their weapons as they went and feeling them smack against the flour covered things.
Ryou frowned as he stepped out of the car. Just what exactly was Kaiba's security detail and his errand runner, Isono or whoever, doing on the front steps? It looked like they had just stopped where they were and dropped down to take a nap.
He sighed. He had come back to the Kaiba Mansion because Anzu was getting worried when their friends wouldn't answer the phone. The girl had called all their phones and left voice messages, and no one had returned her calls. She had even gone as far as to bully the servant that had driven them to the hospital to call the mansion's land line, but no one had picked up.
Anzu didn't want to leave grandpa by himself, so she had demanded that Ryou went back to check on them. Her excuse was Bakura. If everyone else really was in trouble, the thief needed to be there. Ryou hated how true that statement was.
Ryou frowned again when he realized that the front door was wide open. Bakura hissed something in Egyptian. Before he could blink, Ryou found himself sitting in his soul room and the thief in control. (What's wrong?)
((Magic. The whole mansion is under an enchantment.))
(Magic? Do you think Yami's playing another prank?) Ryou asked curiously, splitting his spirit from Bakura and peering around.
"No . . . this isn't Yami's magic. Someone else cast this spell." The thief nudged one of the unconscious body guards. "Whatever this spell is, it seems to have put all of Kaiba's servants under a deep sleep. We won't be able to wake them. The only way they'll wake up is if the caster lifts the enchantment himself."
(Oh! You mean like Sleeping Beauty!)
((Who the hell is Sleeping Beauty?))
(Ah, never mind.)
"Er, thief-san. Shouldn't you be going inside and checking on your friends? Usually when there's magic involved someone's after the Pharaoh, right?"
"Huh?" Bakura glanced back and saw the driver standing a foot away from the stairs, fidgeting nervously. ((Oh yeah. I forgot about that guy.))
(You better stop him before he comes over here and goes to sleep himself.) Ryou told him, pointing his transparent finger at the driver. (Though I wonder why we weren't affected. And what about the others?)
((Who cares?))
(BAKURA!)
((Alright! Sheesh, you're such a nag.))
The thief glanced over his shoulder at the servant. "Hey you! Stay where you are unless you want to join the slumber party over here," he ordered before he stepped over the slumbering bodies and inside. Briefly ignoring the destroyed state of the place, he focused on trying to find. There was a loud boom somewhere further into the Mansion.
"Found them. They're up on the second floor, to the northeast," the tomb robber commented.
(You can tell that just by the sounds?)
"I am a thief after all," Bakura answered, dashing up the stairs. However, he took a little detour. He soon found Ryou's room and pulled a sword out from under the bed.
Ryou sweat dropped at the sight of it. Under the bed the whole time . . . and he had never noticed. (Where did you get that?)
"Does it matter?" Bakura questioned, running out of the room with Ryou trailing behind him in spirit form. There was another crash, closer this time. Bakura headed towards it, only to nearly collide with Jounochi.
"WATCH IT, MUTT!"
"You watch it, thief!" Jounochi growled before Honda came running around the corner with Mokuba. They crashed right into the other two and they all fell into a pile on the floor. Kaiba ran around the corner then, and barely managed to skid to a stop to avoid adding to the pile.
"GET OFF ME! What the hell are you running from, anyways?" Bakura demanded, whacking Jou on the head with the flat of his blade as he shoved Honda off his legs. Mokuba had already rolled off and was trying to get Yugi, who had bumped his head in the tumble, to stop crying.
"Hell if I know. We can't see them!" Jou said. He picked up a cracked bat that had a chunk of it missing on one side and slash marks all over it. Bakura raised an eyebrow. It looked like he had been using the bat to ward off some type of blade.
Bakura growled under his breath. Blades and unseen assailants . . . . If this was someone trying to get their hands on the Pharaoh or the Millennium Items in order to destroy the earth or become the supreme evil overlord of the world, someone was going to get their ass kicked. Hard.
Click. Clack. Scrape.
"What was that?" Bakura asked, before turning around. "Oh . . . that's, well, that's not good."
"So you can see them too. What are they?" Kaiba demanded.
"Jackal Fiends. They're monsters from the Duat. The jackal-headed god, Anubis, created an army of creatures called Jackal Warriors to do his bidding. Some of them went rouge and escaped into the human world. Some powerful magicians managed to round them up and send them back to the Duat, but not before one of them cast a curse on them that forces them to obey the commands of anyone who summons them."
"Great. So how do we get rid of them?" Jou asked.
"I have no idea. The mage that cast the curse was beheaded and the summoning spell was declared forbidden. All copies of that magic should have been destroyed. Hmm. Crafty fellow. Must have written it in a scroll or a tome and hid it away before the Pharaoh's guards came for him."
Kaiba glared at him in annoyance. "I don't care about all that, thief! Just figure out how to get rid of them!"
"Oh shut it, priest. Though I wonder why you can't see it, your past incarnation being Egyptian royalty and all . . ." he mused.
"BAKURA!"
"Eh well, here goes nothing." Bakura lifted his sword and charged at the Jackal Fiends. They growled and leapt at him, their rusted sickles raised to attack. Before any of them could reach him, they vanished into thin air. Bakura ground to a halt, blinking rapidly.
"What are you stopping for?!"
"They're gone . . . ?" Bakura frowned and glanced back at the others, only to notice something. "Where's the Pharaoh?"
Everyone looked at each other, and took off down the hall, yelling the chibi's name. Honda's foot hit the corner of a display table. It fell over with a loud crash, but no turned back to look.
Yami toddled through the hallways, utterly lost. He kept finding servants lying asleep on the ground. Sometimes he would hear crashes from elsewhere in the mansion. No matter how many hallways he took or doors he opened, he always seemed to get farther away from the sounds.
There was a strange tingling in the air. Some part of his consciousness recognized it as magic. And there was something familiar about it. But he couldn't remember how he knew it. It was nothing like the familiar warmth of his taneen's magic which he could sense the moment he stepped into the house.
He didn't like this magic. He could feel taneen's magic somewhere in the mansion, but he couldn't get to it. The new magic was distorting it. Every time he thought he found his dragon, he wasn't there. And now he couldn't find Mimic or Kuriboh. He couldn't remember when they had disappeared either.
There was a loud crash close by, and he brightened, dashing around the corner towards the sound. He crashed into white cloth covering someone's legs. Two tanned hands appeared in his vision, and he was lifted up into the air. Crimson eyes looked up the face of the familiar stranger.
"Hello my dear, sweet Atemu."
Yes, I'm afraid I left you with a cliff hanger. I'm sorry! But this is already thirteen pages long and I couldn't drag it out any longer or else it would have progressed to twenty something pages. Well, not really. Maybe fifteen?
Again, I'm terribly sorry for the long wait and I shall try to update sooner. But it will be hard. Between school and no internet, I will have to find a way to get my internet back or find an alternate solution. (I doubt my sister's boyfriend would be happy with me coming over at random times to update my fanfiction.)
Read and Review folks!