'I don't know, I still think Ba-Khu-Ra was hiding something from us,' Meisa grumbled over the soul bond as she headed for their next lesson, still processing what'd happened as she went.

'She probably was. She normally is.' She could sense Imoto's mental shrug. 'But she did swear she was working to make sure we survive this and she did let us know about Ishizu manipulating Katsuya using Shizuka's soul and gave us a boost, so I'm willing to trust her.'

'For now.' The Pharaoh grimaced. Until Bakura gave them some of her magic and life energy, she'd felt like hell and she knew her twin hadn't been much better. She wasn't sure how long the boost would last, as they were both weakening as the day progressed and the venom and Shadows took more of a toll. She didn't need the uncertainty of whatever the Thief Queen was up to, weighing on her as well.

'I just…' She trailed off as she leaned against the nearest wall.

She understood why Katsuya wasn't talking to them. She just missed knowing if she needed him, he was only a call away. Knowing Ba-Khu-Ra had their back was a blessing, but as much as Meisa had enjoyed that kiss, she couldn't allow herself to contemplate renewing the relationship, or even completely trust the Thief Queen while Zorc was still a factor. Especially right now.

They'd won every game so far and she planned to continue that streak, but one loss or betrayal could end them and leaning on the wrong person would get them killed. This meant they had to continue from here, alone.

Meisa suspected that was the point. Ishizu had designed these lessons to isolate, exhaust and demoralise them. To push them to the edge and force them to become stronger.

Or fall.

If the Pharaoh couldn't push herself past her own limitations, if she couldn't handle the danger with a steadily decreasing supply of life energy, then the consequences would be her fault and she refused to let that happen.

As she pushed herself away from the wall of the Marine Museum, her eyes fell upon the poster hanging from the brick and grinned as she recognised the person on it. It'd been a while since she'd seen the ocean Duelist, Kajiki, and she couldn't help but wonder how he was doing.

'Maybe we can say hi after our lesson?' Yugi offered as they stepped into the facility, keeping their head up and their eyes on the crowds, unsure of who or what their next Challenge would be.

'If there's time. The sooner we get our lessons over, the sooner Ishizu can stop threatening our friends.' Meisa grimaced as she moved, not recognising anyone in the crowd.

The Marine Museum was attached to the Aquarium and was shockingly busy considering the festivities going on outside. She supposed not everyone was interested in Duel Monsters and had taken advantage of the time off to enjoy themselves elsewhere.

That fact had filled the hallways with people. This was frustrating because it meant they couldn't easily find their opponent, yet it was reassuring because it meant their foe would need to pull their punches, unless they wanted to out magic to the public.

Trying to sense her opponent amongst the masses was almost impossible. The Mementos didn't radiate magic until they were being handled and there were too many conflicting energies when in a huge crowd like this. Instead, she scuttled to the nearest wall and leaned against it by one of the employee-only entrances.

'This is ridiculous.' The Pharaoh grouched at her sister as she watched the crowds head for the exhibition areas, where the live water shows were due to kick off shortly, and tried to think, 'Maybe we should have checked outside before we…'

She trailed off as she spotted her next mark in one of the doorways leading deeper in, and suddenly wished she hadn't. Hirutani nodded down the hall he was guarding and, knowing they had no choice if they didn't want Ishizu to do something drastic to Shizuka's soul, she followed.

The corridor led from the busy areas and into the slowly emptying tunnels, where the various tanks of the aquarium were visible through the glass walls. Meisa shivered. The thought struck hard, that should one of the windows crack, the area would flood. As strong a swimmer as her sister was, the surge of water and the weight of the Duel Disk would hinder their escape.

Shadows crawled along the floor as she headed further into the deserted darkness, the water beyond the glass slowly turning to ice as the temperature dropped, until she trembled with every step. By the time she turned the first corner, the tunnels were deserted and hung with icicles that sparkled in the dim light from the ice diffused sun above the aquarium.

Before she could properly take in the new layout of the room, something seized her hair, yanked her backwards, sending her tumbling to the floor, and slammed a foot into her stomach winding her.

"Welcome to my world, bitch." Hirutani's chuckle made Yugi shudder as the Pharaoh glowered at him, "This is my game and my rules. You can't just nuke me with magic here."

Clearly violence was allowed in this Shadow Game, which was something Meisa always banned because she wasn't a physical fighter, which meant she was already at a disadvantage. Still, as she gazed around the room, trying to work out what the game was, she knew no matter how biased he'd tried to make it, the game HAD to be fair, so it'd be winnable.

Her eyes narrowed as she beheld the two double sets of icy tiles leading from the raised platform on one side of the room to the other and crossed a crevasse filled with sharp shimmering ice spikes.

"What's the… ack!"

She croaked as he seized her by the throat and dragged her off the ground. He stalked across the icy ground toward the hole in the middle of the room. Unlike last time he'd grabbed them, Meisa was ready for him and brought her knee up, slamming it into his groin.

The sudden pain made Hirutani release her and she scrambled away, back to the railing near the tiles. He was on her in a heartbeat, slamming her against the bars. As her head ricocheted off the metal, sending her world spinning, he grabbed her right wrist and a set of handcuffs he'd grabbed from an old contact and cuffed her wrist to the railing before backing up with a smirk.

"Wh… what?" Meisa scrunched her eyes closed and reopened them, trying to get the world and her stomach to settle.

"The game is simple." Hirutani chuckled, certain now he'd ensured his victory, "Ice stepping stones. Make it across your ice path before I get across mine, and you win. Fall or lose and, well…" He gestured to the icy spikes below.

Meisa's eyes widened as she realised what cuffing her to the railings had done. The rail went a third of the way across the path he'd designated as 'hers'. By attaching her to it, he'd ensured she couldn't complete the game.

"Cheat." She hissed, fury clear as Hirutani headed for his path.

"This time the game and the rules are mine. Not yours." The thug smirked over his shoulder at her, "So as far as I'm concerned, I'm not cheating. I'm just not gonna let you destroy my mind again."

The Shadows disagreed with him, the Pharaoh could sense it and she reached out to them, trying to see if she could utilise them to balance the game.

'Separate out, I'll protect her.' A male voice hissed to her in the darkness, 'If he gets to be loose for this, so do you.'

Meisa's lips parted in her shock, unused to the darkness speaking to her on civil terms and assumed it was doing so only because Hirutani had tried to bias the rules.

Then she nodded and turned her attention inwards. 'Imoto, I…'

'I heard.' Yugi breathed, biting her lower lip before nodding, 'I'll be okay. You go.'

The Pharaoh didn't like the idea of leaving her twin in the care of the Shadows, but she had little other choice. She emerged from her sister in what would normally be a spectral form.

Yugi's eyes widened as her twin took form in front of her in what looked like an actual body.

"A… Anesan?"

"Huh…" Meisa considered her solid-looking hand, having never considered that the magic she wielded so easily could do this, able to sense the vast amount of power the realm around her was spending to maintain it.

"What the…?" Hirutani's shocked question made her glare at him.

"You're challenging me, the witch who shattered your mind, right? Not my host?" She asked as she strode toward her ice tiles, "It's only fair that I compete without her."

"That's why she couldn't use magic when I broke into the shop." Hirutani breathed, staring between the Mutou twins, "You're a kitsune or something. You're the one with the magic."

"We both have magic now." Meisa smirked at him, letting the Shadows flow through her, giving her this corporeal form in exchange for trouncing the cheat, helping with the nerves wanting to eat away at her.

"But I've always been the strongest of us. And I'm the one who shattered your mind when you dared to hurt my twin and break into my home."

"Once you fall, I'll kill her." Hirutani promised as he took his first step onto his path.

"I won't fail her." The Pharaoh promised, glancing back at her sister, who was sitting on the railing, watching with a trusting smile.

'You've got this, Anesan.'

'I know.' The Pharaoh nodded, then turned to her pathway and took her first step.

The first three moves were easy and she quickly darted ahead of her opponent, wondering why he'd designed such an easy game. She was faster than him, lighter too, so as long as she stepped carefully and didn't slip, she could easily win without the cuff binding her.

Then she realised why there were two rows.

As she stepped onto the fifth tile, it cracked beneath her foot. Her eyes widened and she had just enough time to wheel around as the ice gave way and she was sent plummeting.

"Anesan!" As Yugi called for her, she managed to grab hold of the tile behind her, preventing her descent into the spikes below. Pulling herself up onto the ice was cold and slippery, and by the time she'd managed it, Hirutani had gotten ahead of her again.

"Oh, I forgot to mention there's fake floors." He snickered as he considered the tiles before him, then smirked and slammed his fist into the one in front of him, which held firm, "A little pressure and it tumbles and so do you, just like this."

With that, he slammed his hand onto the tile to his left and it crashed to the floor below.

The Pharaoh grimaced as she tried to work out a method to test the tiles. She was a lot less broad than Hirutani and didn't have the same physical strength. Hitting the tile did nothing to help her.

She couldn't afford to fall again. She'd lost too much ground.

She shucked her now wet jacket, shoes, and socks, ignoring the sting from the ice touching her feet as she tied one of her shoes to the jacket and swung it with as much force as she dared into the tile in front of her.

Which shattered and tumbled into the abyss below.

With the additional tool, she started catching up to her adversary. Behind her, Yugi watched with bated breath. Chained as she was, she couldn't assist her sister. She could only watch and wait, which she didn't enjoy. Especially with the Shadows swirling around her feet, taking a sample taste of the light within her soul as they passed, stealing fragments of the power she'd been given by Ba-Khu-Ra and making the ache from the serpent's venom that little bit worse.

A form taking shape before her chased the dregs of darkness away. Humanoid in posture and form, the creature's glowing red eyes made Yugi's breath catch in her throat, though she tried to clamp down any fear so it didn't distract her sister.

The male shadow moved behind her and rested his arms on her shoulders, pulling her into the weirdest hug she'd ever had in her entire life. The cold of it and not-quite solid feel of the arms was worth the cessation of the constant drain of energy pulling on her heart, but it still out-weirded the spectral hugs of her sister.

Yugi didn't resist though. Her sister couldn't be distracted now and she'd seen the eyes of the one hugging her before. On the figure that'd dragged an Eliminator screaming into the Shadows for trying to kill her.

Back then she'd been afraid. Now, she knew who he was, and he was on their side.

"Thank you, Atem Nii-san." Yugi whispered to him, her head spinning as she leaned back into him, though she wasn't sure if it was from a concussion or the drain on her mental and magical resources.

Still, she wanted him to know she knew who he was, appreciated the help with the cheat from their nightmares and that she recognised him as her brother as much as Meisa was her sister, and didn't want to pull away.

'Hold steady, my Lioness.' The male voice, so close to Anesan's and her own, but with a slightly deeper twist, whispered in her ear, 'This game will be over soon.'

The spirit of the Prince wasn't wrong. Hirutani was fuming when his opponent got ahead of him again, her strategy saving time on his, as she didn't have to lean down to check the panels. As she reached the last three sets of panels, anger surged through him. He'd designed this game to play to his strengths. He'd planned it all out carefully. And somehow she was about to win.

Not that he'd allow it.

He shucked his jacket and threw it at his opponent as she went to jump to her next panel of ice. It hit her in the back, startling her and making her lose her footing. She barely avoided skidding off the ice stepping stones, saved by the fact the next safe one was, to Hirutani's disappointment, directly ahead of her.

As the kitsune or yokai or whatever she was, carefully picked herself out of the gap between panels of ice, Hirutani pushed his advantage, pleased he'd thought to ensure that messing with your opponent was just as legitimate as any other strategy. He got ahead of her, sparing a moment to smirk when panic crossed her face before darting forward.

The kitsune would fall, her host would die and then he'd show Jonouchi her lifeless body and get his revenge on him, too.

Meisa swallowed as she realised he was on his last two ice stepping stones. She didn't have time to test the other panels if she didn't wish to be impaled.

She leapt onto the one she'd skidded across, leaving them with only one ice stepping stone between them and safety. Thinking quickly, she darted forward, trusting in herself, and leapt forward the moment she heard a crack underneath her feet, making it to safety just before the stepping stone tumbled into the chasm.

She rolled to her feet, hoping the sounds of collapsing ice meant her opponent had fallen, only to discover Hirutani had been close enough behind that he'd made it too and was bearing down on her.

"I win!" The Pharaoh protested, though she knew her enemy well enough to know it didn't matter to him as she darted behind a bench, out of his reach, before reaching for her own magic and raising her hand, eyes glowing like stars as the wadjet eye appeared on her brow and Hirutani staggered back.

"This time, fix yourself or stay gone. Mind Crush."

He crumpled to the ground as his mind shattered once more, but the Shadows weren't done with him. He;d lost and, more importantly, he'd cheated before the game had started. They desired their meal and while the Prince couldn't release his grip on Yugi for fear of her falling, the rest of the darkness called up by the game dove forward and wrapped around Hirutani's unconscious form.

The Pharaoh watched with pleased relief as the darkness dragged him over the edge of his trap for her, then released him, letting him tumble into the spikes waiting below.

As the ice around receded and the pit froze over, along with the dissolving form of the thug who'd attacked them, Meisa rushed to her sister, who smiled at her from the arms of the shadow holding her.

Meisa's first reaction was to hiss at the dark figure to let her go, but the eyes of the figure and the complete trust of her twin made her stop.

She knew those eyes, though she couldn't remember from where. "You okay Imoto?"

"I'm fine." Yugi promised as she slipped off her perch, "Thanks to… Oh, he's gone."

She'd turned to thank the spirit, but he'd faded away.

Meisa looked down at herself and grimaced as she realised she was beginning to fade back into her spectral form. She flooded the form with as much power as she could grasp, trying to stay solid as long as possible as she rushed over, snatching the keys to the cuffs, which were left behind when the game and its summoner had vanished, and darted back to her twin's side.

Only to get pulled into a proper, solid, hug.

Shock and delight pulsed through them both when they could feel the weight of the other upon them. Their hearts beating in unison as they clung tightly in the first truly solid hug they had been able to obtain outside of virtual reality.

Then the Pharaoh felt her sister slump. Though Yugi tried to catch herself, Meisa pulled away, guilt hitting hard as she took in the increased pain, pale skin and short breaths.

She'd pulled too much life energy from her twin to hold the form. They didn't have the strength for it, not right now, and she'd burned a lot of what Ba-Khu-Ra had given them. Not that Yugi would ever admit it, if this solid form was something Meisa wanted.

And she wanted this. She wanted it so badly. Now she knew it was possible, she was loath to give up the freedom of a physical form. However, she didn't want to hurt her sister any further by forcing her to channel more Shadow magic and burn more life energy while her soul was weakened.

"Sorry, Imoto." The Pharaoh breathed.

"I… It's okay." Yugi tried to reassure her twin as she unlocked the cuff around her wrist, freeing her from the railing, "I'm sorry Anesan. I'm just…"

'Now is a bad time to be trying something intensive like this.' The Pharaoh shook her head as she released her grip on the magic keeping her solid and slipped back into the Puzzle. 'We can try it again once we've gotten through this mess.'

"Sounds like a good plan." Yugi agreed, needing to sit. As she took a moment to rest, she tried to fire off a text message to Mokuba, letting him know the situation, but there was no signal this far down and she paused as she considered what to do.

Really, there was just one choice. Head upstairs and get her next lesson from Ishizu. Even if she felt too shaky to be ready for another Shadow Game right now.

She took down the handcuffs and slipped them and the keys into her satchel, not wanting adventurous children to accidently cuff themselves to anything.

She got to her feet, pausing to lean on the railing before she could move.

'This'll be over soon, Imoto.' Meisa tried to be reassuring as Yugi stumbled for the tunnel out into the main areas. 'We've still got this.'

'I hope so.'