Sorry for such a long wait for the chapters… but 2016 was brutal with … everything, I moved, I went to a new school, new program, new jobs… it was a bit messy… but I believe I found my footing again and with almost a year in the making… I bring you guys some epic story chapters… seven of them… total word count across all of them was almost 14 500 words… so I hope you enjoy!

Chapter 14

Light and Shadow

"Yugi!" Seto raged loudly as he got off his horse and Link flinched. Whatever the issue was, it was obviously way beyond his understanding, only that Seto was showing more emotion than what he had seen all day and the man was very, very angry. "What the hell is going on here?!"

"I don't-" The spikey haired male started but Seto cut him off.

"I don't want to hear that you don't know; I want an answer!"

"He can't give an answer if he doesn't have one," the white hair male started passively only to have the tall man turn on him.

"I wasn't addressing you. Stay out of this, Bakura." The man growled darkly turning back to Yugi, glaring and grabbed the collar of his shirt. "You're not the one who was supposed to be protecting my sister."

"I know more about this than he does and I'm telling you I don't know either!" Ryou Bakura replied back. Link heard a growl behind them. He turned to see that the serpent was starting to move again. "But I have a working theory."

"Spill."

"Enough." Link growled drawing their attention away from the argument. This wasn't the place to have any chat, no matter the importance. "You can resume your discussion later, we have company."

Seto muttered something that he didn't catch as Link turned around and noticed that it wasn't just the serpent that they had to worry about. The castle was apparently no longer a target for the creatures as they were starting to be surrounded by several undead monsters, Bulblins and Lizalfos. Link drew the Master Sword and Hylian Shield and clenched his jaw realizing how heavy they were. He looked behind at the two scrambling teenagers trying to pick up the two girls and tsked. Hopefully, they would be able to make it out alive, even with his minimum strength left. A bright light appeared for a second and he turned to it. Zelda held a gold bow and a quiver of arrows sat on Epona's saddle bag.

"Maybe it was a good thing that I did come along." She said smiling down at him. He smiled back slightly. "There are quite a few of them."

"Better them than someone else." He replied back holding his breath. He didn't want to push his luck.

"Someone else?" Ryou asked, but Link didn't answer him as he went towards the nearest monster, which happened to be a Bulbin.

He swung, disarming the club from its hand and then slashed downwards slitting its head. It fell and took a while to disappear like the dead monsters have been since the Faron Woods Battle. He went to the next monster just as another monster appeared out of nowhere, catching him off guard. Suddenly, a woman with blue skin appeared out of the ground and snapped the invasive monster's neck with a loud crack before it could rush him. The woman's gold eyes gave him chills and went to defend himself against it, but it disappeared back into the shadows. He heard a snap come from behind him and he turned to see a Lizalfos drop dead at his feet. He looked up to see the blue woman glaring down at him.

Seto ran between them with his glowing sword and went against a Redead. "Ignore her, she belongs to Bakura."

"Where did she come from?" Link asked and Seto sighed.

"I don't have time to explain, now fight or die."

Link answered by defending Seto's blind spot from another Bulblin. A screech cried above them and Link covered his ears from the noise as it flew overhead. It looked like the serpent was a light blue color as Zelda shot it with light arrows, but he didn't know why his tired mind thought knowing the color of it was important to staying alive. It screeched as it turned and dive bombed them. Link tackled Seto as the creature flew by where they were, taking several monsters with it. Link quickly got up before it was completely back in the air, slashing at the snake's tail. It hissed, turning around to fight him dead on, which wasn't what he had in mind, at all. But, it was probably the most obvious reaction. Too bad his brain wasn't working properly to let him know that before making that stupid decision. He rolled out of the creature's ram with a bit of ease. He turned to where it should have been for another attack, but stopped. A glowing tip of energy was ripping through the center of the serpent's body as it flew passed. It crashed into the ground splitting into two pieces showing its entire top half and bottom half for all to see. He cringed, it was a bit disgusting, even for him. Blood squirted out of some areas and some organs plopped themselves on the ground in dramatic slosh noises that his sensitive ears picked up. He swallowed down the urge to gag, he hated not having monsters just, disappear. He turned to its death-dealer and saw Seto had a smirk on his face and blood etched across his blade.

"Thanks for the distraction." Seto started and Link nodded too quickly as he wasn't finished. "But if you ever tackle me to the ground, I will kill you. This outfit is worth more than your life."

"I don't think clothes are worth leaving you to die." Link replied with annoyance.

"I don't think my clothes are worth my life either, but I already saw it coming, well, heard it. Regardless, don't do it again."

"No promises."

Seto rolled his eyes, apparently it wasn't the first time he'd heard that response. Another snap came from behind him. He turned to it to find another lifeless monster form fall to his feet as Ryou's … creature… just looked down at him, less angrily, or at least he thought. He sighed at it disappeared again. He couldn't wait to dive into his bed and sleep for… only a couple of hours. Why did the goddesses put him through this… shit! He swore, in his head, bedtime for sure.

They went back to fighting and before he knew it, which he was grateful for, the monsters had been cleaned up and they all stood with the horses with the blue woman and a swordsman with a white coat that he didn't see until they met back up.

"That seems to be all of them." Yugi said, he didn't look good. "Why were they all here?"

"The monsters were preparing to raid the castle." Zelda replied. "But when they saw you, they got distracted on their mission for an appetizer."

"What was that light?" Link asked, throwing the last subject out the window. "I've never seen or felt something like it before."

"That was an aura shield." Ryou stated. "Regan and Nile created it together to defend against the Fiery, a flying serpent from biblical stories, I guess the amount of energy required to repel it was more than what they could handle."

"Aura? That was mentioned early with Seto's sword."

"Aura is the essence of every living thing, like you and I, trees, animals and even rocks have a bit of aura to them. Kaiba can only use the same kind of ability with his blade as the catalyst. Regan and Nile are natural Aura users, being able to manifest it with little difficulty and sensing it."

"I see… so it's a magical ability?"

"Not exactly. You can't learn it and only a handful of people can actually use it back in our world, but without training, it becomes rather useless and the trait can go without even being noticed."

"Sounds like a shame, an aura user on the battlefield would be very useful right about now." He sighed before turning to the two unconscious girls on the horses. "Are they going to be alright?"

"Perhaps…" Seto started looking over at Nile before his sister and back to Link. "Regan's ability has a bit of a catch to it. Her item allows her to be stable, because her aura isn't actually complete due to events thousands of years ago caused by Nile. There is only one item that can stabilize her aura, but now there are two of them that require it…"

Seto visibly looked like he had swallowed a bee, alive. Link looked at the two girls and tried to think of a solution to the problem, but he couldn't. He never had come across something like it before, which shouldn't have been a thing after all this time. Maybe, this one time, Dark Link had something to offer as a solution. He had lived many lives, there had to be something similar to this problem.

"Yugi, Bakura…"

"Kaiba?" Yugi asked in confusion.

"How did you two keep Nile stable up to this point?"

"A woman who helped us and Shadow Magic. Though, I'm not sure how efficient it will be if we have to fight…" Ryou answered trailing off as he stumbled forward slightly, but Yugi caught him. He stood up on his own again nodding what Link guessed was thanks. "Whatever happened, it took a lot of shadow magic to get to where we are now."

Link gritted his teeth. None of them were fit to fight let alone be outside of the castle walls. He looked up at Zelda and the same expression was on her face that he was deducting. They could help them, but not in their current condition. But even if they could help them, not only would they have to be fed, which was a weighty discussion on how that was going to work out in the long term, but they would bring in unwanted attention. They had someone from their world that they were dealing with, and who knew if their three main issues were going to take interest in using their abilities for taking Hyrule. He sighed, this was a mess.

00000

After a quick trek back to the castle, the monsters were gone from the walls and pieces of Redead were being thrown into fires. Link nodded at a few of the soldiers as they went passed and grimaced at how badly brutalized they looked. Bleeding, bruised and covered in dirt and smut. They trotted pass the soldiers to gates where two soldiers stood with blood stained armor.

"What are the damages?" Link asked coming to a stop in front of them.

"About a fifth of our army is either dead or seriously injured, but other than that, no civilians were killed, Sir Link." The soldier reported turning to Zelda as well. "Only a few minor fires which were easily put out as well."

He looked beyond the gate seeing a still standing town. A fifth of their army was gone, not that there was much of an army to begin with, but that was one fifth that they could have used. The raids were taking their tolls. "Where is Electra and the shadow?"

"At the castle. Lady Delilah and Sir Jason along with the other world man are also there."

"Thank you."

They rode passed and through the gate into the wet city. Water dripped down the sides of buildings with a few of them charred from what he figured was the fires that the soldier had mentioned. At least they managed to avoid a catastrophe for another night. A few moments passed as they rode through the streets, splashing through the puddles as they went, and eventually made it to the castle's stables where his allies were waiting.

"Did you find her?" Electra asked before he even could get off his horse and he nodded hinting behind him.

"We need to get them to the medical ward." He told her as he helped Zelda down. Several of the knights heard him and came to his rescue, taking the two girls into the castle ahead of him. At least that was one thing he didn't have to worry about, now it was just the hell meeting awaiting up that he was sure that Zelda's council was already seated and awaiting their arrival. If only he could sleep through their chatter that would probably only form into arguments. Unfortunately, he doubted anyone in the room would approve of his actions if he had.