Together We Make Shadows

Chapter Three

He was woken up during the night by one of the intruder alarms activating. Normally when the intruder alarm went off he'd be up in an instance, armed, alert and making his way to his brothers room and keeping his brother safe. Worse thing was that he didn't have enough strength to get out of bed, he couldn't even feel him arms and legs to be able to move to get up in the first place as much as he tried to will himself to move, he couldn't. He watched the light filtering between the curtains of his room trying to detect what had set of the intruder alarm annoyed that he had to wait for either a member of his staff to inform him what set it or, or the intruder themselves finding him.

Time seemed to tick by slowly and he couldn't hear any commotion outside his room, yet he also couldn't hear any staff to inform him what had set off the alarm. He'd very slowly managed to get himself to the edge of the bed and was about to attempt to roll himself to the floor when the quiet footsteps where heard coming down the hall towards his room. He identified the footsteps as those belonging to Roland immediately; there was no urgency in his steps.

He heard a knock as his door and the familiar voice of Roland apologizing for disturbing him. "We have two wizards here for Ryou Bakura. I've kept them held up for as long as possible, they're in the main foyer as we speak."Seto knew that his employee would have other members of the security guard watching over the unwanted guests, those strangers didn't know what they were in for if they attempted to get to Bakura. "Mister Bakura was able to be resuscitated and is currently sleeping. I've managed to get a hold of Miss Ishtar, she's currently out of the country. If we need her assistance in person she's happy to arrange a flight."

Ishizu was probably in Egypt with Bill and Fleur visiting Pharaoh Set's tomb securing the site before they attempted to open it. Without asking, Roland understood that his young boss needed help getting out of bed and helped his young boss into his wheel chair.

KC

"You'll have to excuse my attire, I wasn't expecting visitors at this hour" he told the two uninvited guests in a cold uninviting tone. One of the strangers was Japanese and the other was European. The European man was probably here because the case had to do with Death Eaters and if anything even in his pyjamas his attire looked a lot more respectable then the crazy outfits the European man was wearing. The Japanese man was wearing the type of clothing you'd expect from a priest at a local shrine. In fact he was sure that he'd seen the man on several occasions before working at the shrine during the new year's celebrations which was usually the only time he visited the shrines. Mokuba loved going and it was so busy that he normally was just another face in the crowd. A quick glance at the clock told him it was only 7.30pm and not that late at all, his sleep earlier had made it feel later than it actually was.

"Sorry to disturb you sir, we've come to collect the body of the young man that was killed in the park earlier. I'm not sure of your reasoning's for taking his body, you should've left it for the authorities to handle." The Japanese man said to him after introducing himself.

"I can assure you that there are no dead bodies here" he replied to the men in a cocky tone. At least not of anyone who died recently he thought to himself wondering if anyone of the people that Gozaburu Kaiba made disappear where here somewhere, he never had located the bodies of the people he knew his step father had murdered and it bugged him to this day that old man had secrets he'd taken to his grave he was still yet to figure out. It was like he was mocking him. "And the young man from the park is a" He paused for a moment thinking of what Bakura was to him before answering. "friend, and I assure you that he isn't dead." Even though he had accepted Ryou Bakura as a friend, he'd never voiced it out loud to anyone before and wasn't sure if the white haired boy considered him the same way. He wasn't use to having friends. Thinking of friends he really wished that the person he considered his second friend Luna had a phone or the internet so he could contact her, or even a letter box.

After much discussion he finally managed to get the two men to leave his house without seeing Ryou. It wasn't the first time he'd had people do as he'd suggested and a part of him wondered if it was true what he'd once been accused of. Subconsciously using the power of mind control. It was after all the power the Millennium Rod had, the item that was once his in a past life. Maybe he really had killed his abusive step father. He'd always wanted to kill him, and if the coward hadn't jumped out of the window he probably would've killed him in the near future. It would've been a long painful death as well, he didn't deserve the quick and easy death he'd received. He wanted to make the old man suffer for every single wound ever caused by him. They wizards had attempted to oblivate them at the end of the meeting, seeing them pull the wands out he suspected what they were going to attempt in which he had to inform them that he was already aware of magic and that wasn't necessary.

Just having magical adults in his house had made the room he was in feel like Malfoy manor, it wasn't a pleasant feeling, as it was this house wasn't a pleasant home.

KC

He had a headache and wanted to go back to sleep, but knew he wouldn't fall back to sleep due to how sore he was. He had Roland take him in to see Bakura where he found Yugi, Tea, Tristan and Joey sitting at his bedside. The machine Ryou was connected to beeping slowly in the background. The four friends were chatting quietly as Bakura slept and hadn't yet noticed that Roland had wheeled him into the room. He was glad to see that the Weasley siblings and Duke where nowhere in sight, though he wished that Wheeler had followed, he was the one person in the room that was guaranteed to make his headache worse than it already was.

"We just had some unwanted guests looking for Bakura, I've sent them away for now." He informed everyone, seeing no sight of the spirit who'd been around before. The machines besides the bed beeping away quietly, indicating everything was okay with the recently attacked teenager. "Have any of you eaten yet?" He'd startled the other teens with his final question, they were still getting used to the fact that he didn't always have ulterior motives when he was being thoughtful and kind.

"We had dinner with Mokuba earlier" Tea informed him. That didn't surprise him, his brother had always been a good host.

"Kaiba, have you had dinner yet?" Yugi asked with concern.

"Not yet, I'm going to get some dinner now" he replied.

"I'll come, there's something I want to discuss with you. Can you three please stay with Ryou and tell me if anything changes?" Yugi asked them.

"Sure thing Yug" Joey smiled weakly at the shorter teenager.

Tea and Joey both looked exhausted, and returned to chatting quietly. Light snores where coming from Tristan who'd fallen asleep at some point.

"I'll wheel you to the kitchen if you like Seto" Yugi offered.

"Roland, can you arrange rooms for our guest." he asked his employee.

"Right away sir."

"Yugi will make sure I'm fine." He informed his employee. His dedicated employee needed a break of his own, especially with all the extra work he'd been doing recently. "I don't think we will have any more intrusions tonight. Goodnight Roland."

"Of course sir. Good night Seto." Roland smiled re-entering Ryou's rooms. The guest rooms where kept made up at all times so there wasn't much to do besides telling there unexpected guests which rooms that could use.

KC

A meal was already prepared which the kitchen staff set out for the young president, they were used to serving his meals at odd times during the day so something was always ready for him. His stomach rumbled slightly reminding him of the fact that yes he was human and needed food just like everyone else. The kitchen staff also bought out a hot drink and some snacks for Yugi. He was disappointed that he didn't have any coffee. Some of the staff had got it in their head that his shaky nerves where from too much coffee and had refused giving him coffee with every meal. The woman who was in charge of the kitchen was one of the few members of staff left from his step father's days. She'd always been kind to himself and Mokuba and the kitchen staff would quiet honestly be lost without the elderly woman.

"Who were the people that came for Bakura?" Yugi asked his voice laced with worry and concern.

"I'm assuming they were both from the magical community, one from here and the other from Europe since Bakura's attack is related to the person who kidnapped me at Christmas who's name you can't say since he put a blasted tracking charm on his name." he told him calmly, as if he was discussing the weather and not the recent attack on a classmate.

"When Tristan and Joey arrived here they didn't remember why they had ran to the spot we found Ryou, they couldn't remember the green skull floating in the air or the fact that Ryou was already dead when we found him." Yugi was quiet upset as he was talking.

"The wizards modified their memories" he sighed. "They tried to do the same to me. It seems Bakura was targeted because of the Millennium Items. We need to do something about the remaining Millennium Items, they're not safe at your house."

"I agree, I was going to ask Ishizu to take the necklace again and for you to carry one of the items on you at all times. You're already a target to these people because you can use the items, and you're much safer carrying one then without an item."

"I was going to ask you if I could borrow one of the items so that I could catch up on my workload for Kaiba Corporation. The only time I feel like myself is when I'm touching one of the items." He admitted. "I'm thinking that I should take the ankh, it will be easy to hide compared to the bulky rod and scales. Who had the eye as the moment? Last I heard Pegasus had lost it."

"We're not sure what happened to the eye" Yugi sighed. "What are we going to do with the rod and scales? Pegasus and Marik are the only other two that I know of that can wield the items and even though I they are friends ..."

"Store both the items separately for now, one in the safe at my mansion, and the other in a vault at Kaiba Corp." Seto told him. "We'll also store the necklace in the vault until Izhizu is back in the country again. Once she is back, we need to use the puzzle, rod and the necklace to find out as much information as possible about the magic guarding the Millennium Tome." His speech was starting to slur again.

"We need to move the items tonight" Yugi told him, which he agreed with especially considering Ryou had been attacked earlier in the day, even though the criminals had left the park it didn't mean they had left Domino City.

Yugi fussed over him for a while, forcing him to touch the puzzle since his voice was slurring asking if he was well enough to leave to mansion to move the items.

"If I knew that touching the items helped I would've made you carry an items sooner, or at the very least had you touch the puzzle while at school to help you get through the day."

"Honestly, it makes the school day go faster. I already know everything the teacher is trying to cram into our heads."

Yugi smiled before running back to Ryou's room to let the other's know they were going to secure the items and asked them to stay behind. It was hard to convince Joey, but in the end he'd agreed to stay.

KC

He stayed in the car while Yugi went inside and grabbed the items and updated his Grandfather on the situation. He was on high alert the whole time the younger boy was in the house. Yugi's mother came out for a few moments and fussed over him. It was nice to have someone fuss over him in a motherly fashion. He hadn't had a motherly figure in his life since his own mother had died. He'd always hoped that his aunt's would become that motherly figure to him after all his mother was their sister or sister-in-law but neither woman had, the woman in the orphanage had so many children they always felt more like teachers then parents. Yugi's grandfather had also warmed up to him in the last few months and now treated him the same way he did with the other boys Yugi was close friends with. Yugi's mother even insisted that she call him Aunt Yuki, Joey was the only one to ever call her that, she was just Mrs Moto to the rest of the group.

Yugi gave his mother and grandfather a quick hug and he stiffened as he was also hugged by the elderly man and young woman, he no longer flinched when they hugged him so he'd come a long way.

Once they had left the shop he reached into the bag and glanced over the items. The ones that Yugi had where all accounted for. Even though he said he'd take the ankh he was drawn to the rod, it was intoxicating how much he was drawn to the item. As soon as the golden item was in his hand the warmth returned to his hands and feet, the pain slowly falling away, his head clearing of the fog.

Once the pain was fully gone the items lit up, dragging both boys into a vision of the all too familiar past. It was interesting watching the event from a different angle then how he'd witnessed the event when it had happened. Even when he'd re-watched the event on the surveillance footage it looked different than it did now.

"Do you think it will work?" Yugi asked him with hope gleaming in his eyes.

"I believe it should Yugi" the spirit replied to his young reincarnation. "If it wasn't going to work the items wouldn't have shown us the vision."

"We'll try it as soon as the other items are locked up and secure and we're certain we're safe from interference." He told the other teenager. He hoped that it would work, he hated how he was at the moment, he didn't feel like himself when he was so physically weak and mind clouded.

KC

It didn't take long for the items to be locked up in the locations they had decided on yet it was still late when they'd returned.

"When Ishizu is back in the country we'll need to ask her what protective magic we can put in place along with the high tech security already guarding the items." Yugi told him.

They walked back to his bedroom after a quick check on Ryou to make sure everything was still okay and a check on Mokuba to make sure he was in bed. A walk past his brothers room showed the young teenager had fallen asleep in front of the television. He picked his brother up and tucked the young boy in before turning the television off. He swore that his brother fell asleep away from his bed on purpose.

"Are you sure you want me to do this Kaiba?" Yugi's second personality asked one they were back in his room.

"I've been through this before so I know what to expect, besides my soul is already in fragments from my recent capture." He replied. "I'm ready."

Yugi looked at the confidence in his eyes, and the trust that he'd never really shown to anyone else. It was a privileged that Seto trusted him enough to place his life in his hands. Yugi nodded with confidence and Yami placed his hand on Yugi's shoulders which only helped Yugi's confidence. It was a new experience for Yugi to perform the magic that Yami normally was the one to perform. He held up his hand and shouted out "Mind Crush." Even though he had never performed the mind crush before and only had vague recollection of Yami performing the spell his body seemed to remember the spell and the feeling and helped guide him through the magic.

Yugi watched as the slightly younger boy fell, running forward to catch him before he completely collapsed and dragging him back to bed. If the vision they both had held true when he woke up his mind and soul should both be repaired by the shadow magic running through his veins and no longer suffering from the crucio curse which had caused the long lasting damage in the first place.