He really had no idea how he had gotten himself into this. Yugi leaned against the railing that ran around the deck of the ship trying to think back on how he had gotten here. The ship was taking them to a private island owned by Pegasus J. Crawford himself. He had been invited to the event not because he was a famous duelist like so many others here. And he recognized most of the faces from national and international Duel Monsters tournaments. No, he had been invited because of the puzzle around his neck.

Not for the first time, Yugi wondered if he would be better off had he never finished the puzzle. He certainly would not be traveling to a tournament in order to win back his grandfather's soul had he not. But he wondered if he would have had a grandfather to save if his other self had not been able to defeat Kaiba. He was not so sure that he would have had the courage to do so on his own. The spirit in the puzzle had been blessedly quiet since his birthday. There had been no more incidents of people going crazy or turning up dead, and he had actually gotten through the term with decent marks. But Yugi had a feeling that his other self had always been there, watching, learning. He had made it perfectly clear to his other self that it was unacceptable to hurt people just because you thought they deserved it. At least he had hoped he did. Occasionally, he felt the spirit stirring, wanting to be free to pass his judgment, but it had quickly subsided. Until, that is, Kaiba had hurt his grandfather. Seeing his grandfather in pain had allowed his other self all the reason he needed to deliver retribution. Yugi did not even try to stop him when he broke Kaiba's mind. Though he did feel a little guilty about it now, but only a little. After all, this was the guy who basically assaulted his sister. The memory of his visit to Industrial Illusions where he first saw Pegasus and Kaiba up close came roaring back to him.

"Had I known about that, Yugi, I would have done more to him." His other self told him from deep within. Yugi shook his head.

"It's fine, Other Me. He got the lesson he deserved."

"If you're sure." The spirit seemed skeptical.

"Hey, Yugi! There you are!" Joey called from the other side of the deck. Yugi waved him over as he felt the spirit retreat.

"What are you doing out here all alone?" The tall blond asked as he leaned back against the railing.

"Just… thinking." Yugi looked out over the wine-dark water. "This is all crazy." He admitted.

"Yeah. I mean, what happened to your grandpa and everything…" Joey trailed off, not knowing what to say. "I mean, Yugi, I… wanted to thank you for letting me tag along."

"You're welcome, Joey. Honestly, I don't know if I can do this alone." He smiled up at the taller boy. "And you have just as much reason to be here as I do."

"Yeah, but you're right, this is crazy. I mean, look at all these other guys. They're famous! And we're… well, we're nobodies."

"We have as good a shot as any of them, Joey. Better, I would say, because we have something to fight for." Yugi turned to look at the competition. Joey was right; the competition was going to be stiff, but he believed in his deck, his cause, the spirit of the puzzle, and most surprisingly of all, himself. He closed his eyes, and wrapped his hand around the puzzle. The spirit within made it feel warm to the touch and pulsate with power, but it wasn't the spirit for which he was searching. He used the puzzle's strength to springboard his thoughts around the world, seeking another to which he was joined.

"Umi." The whisper startled her from her contemplation of the stone tablet laying on the table in pieces before her. She had been tasked with scanning the pieces for digital recreation. She and a classmate had written the base program as a school project, and she was excited to put it to use. But it was still boring work, scanning everything. She looked around the room, trying to pinpoint where the voice had come from as she rubbed her strained eyes. She did not think that she had nodded off, but as she turned back to the fragments on the table and placed the next piece in the scanner, she could not be so certain. As her eyes drifted shut, she had convinced herself that she had dreamed the whisper. Until it happened again. But this time, she more felt than heard the small distant voice.

"Yugi?" she asked the emptiness, feeling her heart race. It had been nearly two months since she had reached out to him, and even longer since he had sought her out. The darkness surrounding his spirit had pushed back against her presence so strongly that she had nearly given up. And, the less she reached for him, the less she was bothered by Neferet. It seemed that the queen could only speak to her when she was focusing on her bond with him. But now, she felt her brother—felt his light shining though the darkness as pure and strongly as the son. She basked for a moment in his light. He was stronger than before, but she also felt fear within him. In the depths of her spirit, she could feel Neferet quicken, as if she wanted to touch the light as well, but the spirit shied away before the light touched her.

"Yugi, what's wrong?" Umi asked, knowing that her brother rarely reached out to her without reason. She felt him smile, but it could not hide his fear.

"Something's happened, Umi. Grandpa… I don't really know how to explain it, but he's… sick. Or hurt." She could hear his voice clearly, as if he was speaking to her over the telephone. He had never been as clear before. The strength of his presence shocked her as much as his words.

"Oh, Yugi, what…?" she asked, not entirely sure if she was speaking aloud or not.

"I really don't know how to describe what happened, Umi. But I'm going to try to help him."

"How? If he's sick, shouldn't he be in the hospital?"

"He is, but it's more than that. Someone… they took something from him. He won't get better unless I can get it back."

"You're sounding cryptic." She said skeptically. One of the other aides walked in then with another box of stone fragments for scanning. Umi looked up at the young man and smiled as he raised an eyebrow at her.

"Listen, ok? There's something going on that relates to the puzzle. I don't really understand it, but I have to… I don't know… battle for his soul or something."

"What are you talking about?"

"So I'm on my way to the Duelist Kingdom tournament."

"Tournament?"

Yugi sighed.

"It's a Duel Monsters tournament."

"And how is that supposed to help Grandpa?"

"You'll just have to trust me that it will. The organizer is Pegasus Crawford."

"Isn't that the guy who created Duel Monsters? Isn't he, like, one of your idols or something?"

A sardonic laughter rippled through his spirit.

"Yeah. He's the one who hurt Grandpa. Because he wants my puzzle."

"And he seemed so nice when we met him a few months back." She could feel his smile. She could also feel the spirit within her stirring at the memory of that day. Her heartbeat quickened as she recalled the day's events.

"Like you noticed." Yugi's presence chided her. "Oh, and speaking of Kaiba… I had to… sort of…"

"Had to what?" she asked.

"Nothing. Never mind." She got the feeling that he could not put into words what he needed to say. "I'll tell you later."

Umi got the feeling that he was hoping there would actually be a later, and that he would know how to tell her when it came.

"Anyway, Duelist Kingdom… I'm going to do my best, but if…" She felt his spirit pause, as if sighing. "If I fail, I just wanted to tell you that I love you, Umi. And I miss you, and that I wish we've been able to spend more time together." His light in her mind and heart still burned brightly but she could feel it being slowly engulfed once more by the shadows.

"I love you too, Yugi. And you are stronger than you know, little brother." She reached out to him, but already his light had been swallowed by the shadows. She sighed, wondering what he had meant about their grandfather's soul and what the puzzle had to do with it. She had heard stories all of her life about ancient artifacts being cursed, but she had never seen proof of it. So she had thought them just that, stories to scare graverobbers and little kids. The machine next to her beeped as it completed the scan of the tablet fragment. She switched it out with the next piece and was rotating the image on the monitor when her mother walked in with another woman.

"And my daughter here invented the device. She thinks that it could help to decrease the time it takes matching fragments, so we can get to translating them more quickly." Her mother explained to the younger woman. Umi turned to the pair as they approached her workstation.

"Such an impressive feat for one so young." The woman said as she looked in wonder at the scanner.

"I didn't invent it. We just modified an existing scanner with some new programming to search for hieroglyphs and interfaced it with the CAD software so we can reassemble things digitally." She said self-consciously.

"Do not discount yourself so much, young one. What you have done… it's like magic." The other woman said. "We have not been properly introduced; I am Isis Ishtar with the Council of Antiquities. Your mother is a wonderful colleague, and she has spoken highly of your work here."

"I'm just happy to help." Umi said, shrugging. While she was excited to see her project come to life and demonstrate its usefulness, she was itching to get out in the field with the rest of her mother's team. Spending her entire time in Egypt stuck in a lab was not her idea of a good time. Her disappointment must have come through in her voice.

"Umi…" her mother started.

"It just so happens that I need some help that I think your device might be able to provide." Ms. Ishtar said. Umi looked at her, with curiosity peaked. She had expected the woman to be much older than she was—at least as old as her mother. But she looked to be not much older than Umi herself, maybe she was in her mid-twenties. It surprised Umi that her mother was so differential to Ms. Ishtar, as if the young woman was her boss.

"Sure, what do you need?" Umi asked. Ms. Ishtar had the bronze skin and dark hair that was commonly seen in Egypt, but she held herself with a poise far beyond her years. While her dress was common enough, Umi noted a distinct lack of a headscarf worn by so many women here. Instead, Ms. Ishtar was adorned with golden jewelry, reminiscent of the reliefs of ancient princesses, though not as elaborate as the garb that Neferet preferred.

"Come with me please." Ms. Ishtar said as she quickly walked across the room to the door. Her mother followed quickly, speaking in low tones to Ms. Ishtar. Umi had to rush to keep up.

"Are you sure you want to do this? She is still a child." Umi heard her mother say as she reached the pair. Ms. Ishtar looked over her shoulder at Umi, smiling. She did not give an answer, except to continue on her path. She led them into a large storeroom, one that Umi had never been in before. The cavernous space was filled with boxes upon boxes of artifacts, stone pieces and various other bits found at excavation sites all over Egypt. Umi thought that each box was like a mystery waiting to be solved, and she was anxious to open them all. But Ms. Ishtar kept walking. Eventually she led them to a large stone tablet that hung suspended at the end of an aisle. Umi gasped when she saw it. It was not the first time she had seen it. She stared at it, her mouth agape.

"Umi." Her mother said, also recognizing the images on the tablet. "It's your drawing."

"You are familiar with the tablet of Gods and Monsters?" Ms. Ishtar asked, disbelief coloring her voice. Umi gazed at the large stone carving. The images were just like the ones she had drawn in her journal years before. She did not notice as Ms. Ishtar raised her hands to the eye at her throat; She was far too drawn to the image of a young man that looked suspiciously like her brother. Umi ignored the others as she walked to the enormous slab.

"I thought it was just me wishing he would come with us…" she said softly. "I had no idea that it was real."

The room filled with a strange light that emanated from the necklace for a brief moment. Once it had faded, Ms. Ishtar looked at Umi more intently.

"I see. It seems you have a greater role to play than I originally thought."

Umi cocked an eyebrow at her.

"Do you think your device could scan this tablet?" she asked finally, turning towards the carvings. Umi turned back to the carvings as well.

"Well, I've never scanned something so large. Most of what I get is fragmented."

"I'm specifically interested in this part here." She pointed out a section that had been damaged. Umi noted part of a cartouche that spanned into the undamaged area near the fracture.

"I could scan that section, sure. It will take a while to convert the scanner into a portable device. But without the fragments that are missing, I won't be able to make a reconstruction." Umi remembered what her mother had told her about pharaohs trying to remove the achievements of earlier rulers and wondered if the damage was part of such a campaign. "Is this damage recent or…?"

Ms. Ishtar seemed to anticipate her question.

"It is quite ancient. I believe it is the name of an unknown pharaoh. Perhaps one of the two young men depicted here."

"If it was intentional, Umi's device may not be able to do much, Isis."

"Perhaps, but there's no harm in trying, right? Besides, we have so many fragments that we cannot place. Perhaps some of them belong here."

Umi looked at the images on the stone edifice once more.

"It certainly is a mystery." She said, her eyes drawn once more to what she was convinced was her brother's face.

Yugi watched from the depths of his heart as his other self faced off against what he was told was the ghost of Seto Kaiba. Yugi did not believe it for a moment. Whoever the impostor was, Yugi did not sense the determination and drive that he had felt from Kaiba during their last duel—only duel, he corrected himself. Mokuba had told him that Kaiba had taken his defeat very hard, but Yugi could not imagine that he would take his own life because of it. And he refused to believe that he did. He admitted to himself that he did not know Kaiba well, but he did not seem like one who would succumb to defeat. Rather, Yugi believed that he would push himself harder to become stronger. And the opponent his other self was facing had none of the fire that Kaiba had.

Yugi could feel that his other self felt the same. At least until the first Blue Eyes White Dragon showed up on the field.

"I still don't believe that it's him, Other Me." He said to the spirit who was now brought to the forefront of their shared existence.

"Someone could have stolen his deck." He continued and was relieved to hear the younger Kaiba also denouncing the impostor. He could feel the unease in his other self, however. He had relied upon Exodia to defeat the powerful dragons in their last duel, but now that he no longer had those cards, he was struggling to find a strategy that would bring him success. When the dragon began to decay before their eyes, Yugi smiled, knowing that he was right. Kaiba was alive. His other self knew it as well.

Yugi thought back to the last time they had faced Kaiba. He was a little surprised that the other boy had not recognized him, but he also realized that Kaiba was a bit preoccupied at the time. While it still grated on his nerves that the young genius entrepreneur had been so taken with his sister, he could not really blame him. Umi was quite pretty, if he was to admit it to himself. But there had been a moment when Kaiba's attitude had shifted, he recalled now. It was like he had seen more deeply into who Umi was, that she was so much more than just pretty. Yugi wondered if Kaiba's heart would have been so hardened had Umi agreed to spend more time with him that day. The Kaiba that Grandpa had faced—and that his other self had… broken after that, he was different. He was all sharp edges, hardness and greed. Yugi had not seen any of the fascination that had arisen during the duel in California, and he was left wondering which Kaiba was the real one. Or maybe now, neither of them were real. In retrospect, Yugi wished that his other self had not destroyed Kaiba's heart. It seemed like too severe a punishment.

"You are too soft-hearted." His other self had told him at the time. Maybe he was right, but Yugi could not help but feel sorry for what was done, especially after talking with Mokuba.

The second Blue Eyes White Dragon was on the field, but it was standing strong and proud, not decayed like before. Yugi had hoped that Kaiba would have helped out once more, but it seemed to not be the case. Still, in the time that the real Kaiba had bought them, his other self had managed to devise a strategy. Now that he was certain that the so-called ghost was indeed an impostor, his other self felt free to fight with his full strength. And for usurping the name of such a determined duelist, Yugi was willing to let him do what needed to be done and to embrace the darkness within.

Once the impostor was dealt with, Yugi ascended to the top of the duel ring to retrieve Kaiba's deck. It was the first time he had held another's deck that felt as sacred as his own. Like his, it seemed to pulse with power, and he felt like it was calling out for its master. He tucked the deck of cards carefully into his jacket pocket, vowing to keep it safe until he could return it. Part of him, the part that was still angry about the incident with his grandfather, wondered if he should take one of the dragons as a replacement for his grandfather's since Kaiba had torn it. Yugi pressed the pocket close to his chest. Doing such a thing would be as bad or worse than stealing the deck as a whole. No, he thought, I will return it to him whole. It was then that Yugi and his friends noticed that Mokuba was missing.

Umi found herself staring at the stone tablet after her mother had left with Ms. Ishtar. She had been given access to the warehouse so that she could scan the tablet once her device modifications had been completed. She anticipated that they would take a day or two once she got started. But she could not bring herself to leave the tablet. It was as if the images etched onto it had paralyzed her. She touched the stone and was surprised at how warm it was to the touch, as if it had an electric current flowing through it. She touched the carved face that looked like her brother before turning her attention to the other images. Facing her brother was another young man who also seemed familiar. As she touched the carvings of the two young men, she saw flashes of memories in her mind.

Children playing in a harem.

Riding in flight from a burning palace in the middle of the night with her mother.

Eyes so blue that it hurt her to look at them.

The temple, in glittering splendor.

Monsters battling monsters, both in the temple and in the streets.

Violet eyes full of love one moment and then filled with anger.

Golden objects wielded by priests trying to hold the night at bay.

And darkness. So much darkness.

Umi jerked her hands away from the stones, only to hear Neferet's voice within her.

"That woman. She has one of the items."

"What items are you talking about?" Umi asked, backing away from the stone. She had a job to do, and standing here, staring at a giant rock was not getting it done.

"The Millenium items. Did you think his puzzle was the only one?" the voice of the queen said to her as she walked quickly back to the lab she had been given space within. She did not want to admit to herself, but the visions she had when she touched the tablet had shaken her.

"I don't know what to think." Umi whispered to herself as she passed through the doorway to the lab. She smiled politely at the other occupants of the lab as she passed them, hoping that they would not think she was crazy. At least someone would not, she thought. As she settled down to work on reconfiguring the scanner, she tried to ignore the chattering within her head.

"There were seven items created by my uncle; items made to hold back the shadows, but in their creation…" Umi felt the spirit shudder. "Their creation was as dark as the shadows they were made to defeat. Each of the items bestows a gift upon the one chosen to wield it."

"You're talking about magic. Magic doesn't exist." She said in a frustrated whisper. The scanner was being less than cooperative as well.

"Are you scared?" Neferet's spirit asked after a long silent moment. Umi groaned angrily.

"No." She replied. "Yes. I don't know. Ugh." She tossed the screwdriver she had been using to remove the scanner from its mounting across the room.

"I've been showing you this since you were a child, Umi." The voice, normally haughty and self-absorbed, had softened.

"You've said that, but in dreams, Neferet. I don't remember them. And now everything has come rushing back all at once… I… It's too much. I need some time to sort through it all." Umi leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes.

"I wish we had the time." Neferet said, her voice trailing off into the desert winds that whipped through Umi's ears. The blackness of her eyelids was supplanted by flickers of firelight. Umi felt as if she were a child again as she crept through the sleeping palace. She had not been able to sleep, and her mother had been summoned to her father's chambers. She moved stealthily past the guards as she made her way to the Pharaoh's antechamber. The door was cracked and a beam of light from the torches within spilled across the floor tiles. She could hear voices from within as she inched closer, men's voices. She figured that her mother must be in the sleeping chamber beyond. She sighed in frustration.

"We cannot let this go unanswered, my Pharaoh." Her uncle's voice boomed from the room.

"And we will not, Brother, but what you are suggesting… We already have enough problems. Doing as you ask will only further serve their cause. We will show our strength, but not at the expense of an entire village." Her father's voice was firm.

"But Akhenamkhanen, the people will starve anyway with the failure of the floods. They will resort to theft, to revolt if we do nothing."

"So we will do something, just not this. We will open the granaries, send the hunters out further…" the pharaoh said, convinced.

"And what of the armies at our borders, Brother."

"We will find another way, Akhenaden." Her father grew quiet. Umi, not content with just listening, peeked through the crack in the door. The pharaoh and his brother stood on opposite sides of a table. Umi could tell the pharaoh by the tired way he leaned on the table. It looked to her that the burden was weighing heavily on the man, as if he was running out of options.

"And what will you do when they break through and come after your son, Brother."

Umi could see the panic rock the Pharaoh's body. Neferet whispered to her.

"My brother meant the world to him. He was his only son among a sea of daughters. He would have done anything to protect him."

The door squeaked as she leaned against it. She scurried out of the light as best she could, but the two men inside had already turned toward the sound.

"It seems we have a little mouse listening in…" her uncle said as he pushed the door open. He smiled as he looked down at her small form.

"So it seems." Her father said beaming as he picked her up. She knew that her brother was his heir and that their father would do everything in his power to keep him safe, but there was a sense of playfulness that he had with her—his eldest daughter—that the pharaoh rarely shared with anyone else. "What are you doing out of bed, my little sunshine?" he asked her, carrying her into the room. He shot a look at her uncle that he thought she would not see; a look that said the conversation was over.

The vision faded as Umi opened her eyes to see that she was still in the lab. The stone fragments still covered the table. The screwdriver still lay on the floor where she had thrown it. She sighed as she picked it up and got back to work on the modifications.

The vision kept popping up in her mind as she worked.

"So there was some sort of conflict." She said under her breath. "But what does that have to do with the puzzle and the other items?"

"It wasn't just the conflict." Neferet said. "Throughout my father's reign, there had been many problems—the land was infertile, the flood failed repeatedly, people were starving. It was already a hotbed of unrest when the invaders came from up the Nile. The people were too disheartened to mount a defense. My father tried everything he could; negotiations had failed and we were on the brink. My uncle had come up with a plan, a way to harness the power of monsters and the Gods themselves to drive back the enemy. But it was a drastic plan, one that once set into motion led to uncontrollable evil."

"What was the plan?" Umi asked as the scanner came free from its housing. She then searched for a way to add some storage memory to the scanner. She did not want to have to lug the computer all the way to the warehouse, and she did not have access to a portable one.

"I… I do not know the details. All I know is that my uncle suggested it, but my father thought it was too extreme… at first."

"But things got worse." Umi assumed, noting the sadness in her counterpart's voice. She felt the spirit sigh.

"Yes. My father gave him permission to create the Millennium items, by whatever means necessary."

"And you don't know how he did it." Umi felt the spirit shiver in a way that she had come to associate with a negative response. Umi sighed, turning her focus once more to the scanner modifications. It was not a pretty job, but she was fairly certain that it would work… once she got everything hooked up.

Yugi looked around him, wondering why Joey was dressed like a Duel Monster's card. It took him a moment to realize that he too was dressed as a card—it was his favorite card, one that made him feel powerful, with a strength to which he hoped to aspire. The sky above was filled with darkness and giant versions of Bakura and… himself… no, My Other Self, he corrected, looked down upon them like Gods. He felt his heart race as he realized that he was actually a card on the field. Briefly, he reached out of the only other rock he had ever had, he reached for Umi, but the darkness blocked him. It was like mentally running into a stone wall. He tried again, but could not break through. He felt himself panic in a way that he had not felt in a long time. He was cornered, and it terrified him. He looked up to his other self. The giant gave him a smile of reassurance and he felt a blossom of courage trying to open. Yugi had wondered about the spirit, if it was really a thing separate from himself or if he had created it as a way to cope with everything that had happened over the years. Looking at the giant version of himself as he evaluated the game board that had become his world, Yugi thought it less and less likely that the spirit was his own creation. As he and his friends went through the motions of the game, he became more certain that the spirit was indeed something different from himself. The spirit—his other self—had a streak that ran far darker than he imagined, but he could also sense that it was growing in its light, and Yugi could not help but feel a bit responsible for it.

Tea asked why there were two Yugis. He did not want to explain right now. They had a duel to win. Besides, he was not sure he could explain it to the others. He barely understood it himself. He promised himself that he would explain once he knew how, but deep down, he hoped that they would not remember. He tried once more to reach outside of the darkness, but failed once more. He would have to stand on his own strength and he was not sure he could. When Bakura—or at least it looked like Bakura, if Bakura had taken a large dose of crazy pills, taunted him with the spell card he was about to play, threatening to turn him against his friends, Yugi felt his stomach flip. He was sure he could not stand up to it, not alone anyway. His instinct was to reach for his sister, to draw from the well of her strength, but she was blocked from him and he felt himself spiraling into despair. It was not until he felt the warmth of his friends surrounding him that he felt strong enough to stand. I might not have his sister, he thought, but I have my friends, and together we can overcome anything. When the card was played on the field, it had Bakura's face, the real Bakura—another of his friends, from whom he could draw courage. The duel was quickly over and everyone woke the next morning assuming it had been a dream. But the darkness had shook him to the core. It had frightened him in a way that he could not describe.

"Other me?" he asked as the watched the sky lightening into dawn. "What was that?"

The spirit seemed reluctant to answer.

"It was a Game of Darkness." He said eventually. "A Shadow Game."

"What would have happened had we lost?" Yugi asked his other self. The spirit was quiet for a long time.

"I am not entirely sure."

And suddenly, Yugi realized, the stakes of this tournament, of carrying the puzzle and its spirit became much higher.

Umi had set up the portable scanner on a scaffold that she had asked one of the employees to set up for her. She figured that it would be just as useful to scan the entire stele as it would be to scan the damaged portion. It could be used to help improve the program, at the very least. She sat at the top of the metal framework watching the blue light of the scanner illuminate the carved stone.

She wondered how Yugi was faring in the tournament. He had seemed very uneasy when he had contacted her, but she knew that he would do everything he could to save their grandfather. She still did not understand what he had been going on about—having to get back his soul and all that, but she figured that it would be a story for another day. She tried to reach for him, hoping to get a feeling for how he was faring. She could follow the thread that connected them easily, but right before she found him, she was blocked. It felt like ramming into a stone wall, but looked in her mind like shadows.

"Shadows." Her counterpart whispered fearfully. Umi felt as if Neferet had grabbed onto her and held her fast, like an anchor holds a ship against the flow of the sea. "Shadows are dangerous, Umi."

"Yugi's in there." Umi said, struggling against her.

"We have to go. Trust me."

Umi turned to the spirit holding her back, her green eyes flashing angrily. Neferet looked terrified. The fear in the usually calm and collected young queen caused Umi to pause, and in that pause, she felt Neferet slingshot her away. Umi sighed, feeling a queasiness growing within her as her worry for Yugi mounted. The beeping of the scanner brought her attention back to the tablet. She moved the scanner to the next section and set it to work.

"What are the Shadows, Neferet?" she asked. For once, the spirit did not answer her. Umi pulled her knees to her chest as the blue light mesmerized her once more.

The sound of swords clashing and angry shouts echoed through the streets. Umi—once again feeling small in young Neferet's body—clung to her mother as they hurried through the maze of corridors that led from the queen's quarters to the garden where her father had told them to go should they ever feel threatened at the southern palace. She cried, wondering why their trip—which was supposed to be a fun experience for her, meeting with the delegation from Kush and beyond, had turned to smoke and ashes. Her mother hustled her into the garden where a groom waited with a camel. Her father, armed and armored, waited with him. He stood arguing with her uncle. She could smell fire in the air and the night sky glowed red in the distance.

"If we wait any longer, Brother, we will be overrun. We cannot mount an army to defeat them." Her uncle said as they approached. Her father's shoulders slumped as he sighed. He looked from his brother to her and his wife.

"Think of your children, your son." Her uncle pleaded. Her father looked back to him and closed his eyes. He nodded.

"Do what you must, Brother." He said before striding toward them. He lifted her up and hugged her tightly. He pulled her mother close and kissed her fully on the mouth. The groom hurried her onto the camel; her mother followed quickly behind. They fled the palace under the cover of night and flames. She watched as he drew his khopesh and stormed back into the burning structure.

"Will Father be alright?" she asked her mother.

"He will if the Gods wish him to be." Her mother replied, her voice tight with worry.

"Where are we going, Mother?" she asked.

"To Mahad, and your brother. We will be safe there until your father returns."

"What was Father and Uncle talking about?"

"Hush now, child. No more questions. Get some sleep. We have a long ride." Her mother smoothed her hair and held her tightly. Umi wanted to ask more questions, to unravel the mystery that had been placed before her, but the camel's gentle gait eventually lulled the young Neferet to sleep, and Umi awoke to the beeping of the scanner echoing through the warehouse.

She repositioned the device and began the program once more.

Yugi sat quietly, waiting for the others to wake up. His other self's admission earlier about not knowing what would have happened in his duel with Bakura had unnerved him. Not being able to reach Umi while inside the Shadow Game also unnerved him. He reached out to see if he could find her. He worried that the block might linger. But she was there, easy enough to find. He released a sigh of relief. It was enough for him to know that she was there. He did not want to disturb her, as she seemed focused on something, but it eased his mind to just brush her presence.

"You seem relieved." His other self said. Yugi smiled. His other self had a habit of stating the obvious. It was as if he were an infant and learning everything anew sometimes.

"It scared me, the Shadow Game. The shadows were like a wall. I… I couldn't get out. I couldn't… reach her."

"Your sister."

"Yes."

"But now you can." Yugi chuckled as he again stated the obvious.

"Yes."

"I see." The spirit said, though Yugi had the distinct feeling that he did not actually understand.

"So, Bakura… he has that weird ring thing. It kind of reminds me of the puzzle." Yugi said, changing the subject.

"Yes, I noticed that too. Perhaps they are related."

Yugi held up the pyramidal pendant, scrutinizing the symbols held within.

"The eye is the same, and they both look to be made of the same material and… I wonder if they were made by the same person."

"Whoever made them imbued them both with some dark magic."

"Both?" Yugi looked longer at the puzzle that had become his light. "Can the puzzle… I mean, can you… Can you call the shadows too, other me?"

The spirit sighed.

"If need be. But, I have learned that using Shadow Games are not always the best solution." The spirit smiled at him. "Thanks to you."

"Is that what happened when I blacked out? Why I can't remember?" Yugi asked.

He felt the spirit nod.

Yugi looked out over the horizon and let the puzzle fall back in place against his chest.

"So, what to we tell the others?" he asked his other self after a few long breaths.

"About what?"

"About you, I guess?"

"Hmm." The spirit thought. Yugi got the feeling that his other self had had no intention of revealing himself to Yugi's friends, that he would have been content to sit in the background, at least for now. But Bakura's little game had changed everything; it had moved up the timetable. "Perhaps they will not remember it. Or perhaps they will think it all a dream?"

Yugi hugged his knees to his chest.

"You can't hide from them forever." Yugi said as the spirit faded into the puzzle once more.