Ba-Khu-Ra cursed as she turned the corner into the cemetery.
The bomb of Shadows that'd gone off halfway across the city told her that she was nearly out of time. Ishizu was going to overwhelm the Pharaoh and everything she'd fought for, everything she'd died for time and time and time again, would be lost.
She was angry at herself and Amane. They'd spent too much time calming the relatives and picking off Duelists while they hunted, to ensure they could reach Hekigan.
But she was furious at Marik too. She didn't know how he kept dodging her. It should've been impossible for him to avoid the Millennium Ring's tracking, but he'dsomehow managed to evade her all day. She suspected he'd been constantly on the move, and she'd just never caught up with him.
Now though, she could hear him as she picked her way between the tombstones and headed in the direction her Ring was guiding her. She turned a corner to find the teen in question crowing over his victory over three teens, two of which looked like they were going to jump him, rather than hand over their Map Cards.
With no time to waste on them, she unleashed a sleep spell that dropped them where they stood, making Marik flinch and turn to face her. She stepped around the fallen fools and glowered at him as he raised his hands.
"I have spare Map Cards. How many do you need?"
"One."
"Let you have it in exchange for letting me go?" Marik tried, giving her a hopeful grin.
"You know that's not what I'm here for. Give me the soul." At her words, his hand went to the red and black dragon bracelet around his wrist. He pulled it close to his chest and gritted his teeth as she demanded, "Now."
"I can't."
"Do you want Yugi or Jonouchi to die? After everything they've done to make you feel welcome? I thought you were their friend?"
"I am!" Marik protested, his stance straightening as anger flooded then flinched back, "But I won't let Ishizu get killed either! If the Pharaoh doesn't kill you, we can't be free and she won't do that until she understands that sometimes there's no choice but to hurt those you love!"
"You're a family of hypocrites."
"What?!"
"You lecture her Highness about having to hurt the ones she loves and how she has to sacrifice everything to follow your precious plan, but ask one of you to do the same and suddenly you're willing to do anything but that."
"We're not the ones who started this war," Marik dared to growl back at her.
He had a point, but still…
"Neither were Yugi or her friends, but your sister is doing her best to kill them." The Thief Queen pointed out, "Or didn't you know she poisoned Yugi's soul?"
"What?" Marik's eyes widened. "But we need Yugi…"
"So do I, so give me the damn soul before your sister kills her and this world ends."
"I…" Still Marik hesitated.
He'd sworn to Rishid he'd keep the bracelet safe and giving it to the Thief Queen was the opposite of keeping it safe. Instead, he'd be handing control of both the Pharaoh and her boyfriend, to the one being on this globe that had every reason to want the Pharaoh dead.
"Duel me."
At Ba-Khu-Ra's challenge, his head tilted, confused.
"You win, you get the Ring. You take ME out of the picture and you don't need to let your sister kill your friends. You lose, I get the soul and that last Map Card I need."
"You're on."
The relief on Marik's face as he activated his Duel Disk, shuffled his deck and drew his first hand without hesitation, told Ba-Khu-Ra he was honest, at least, in that he didn't really want either of Ishizu's victims dead.
"My move first."
"Rude but go on." The Thief Queen allowed, not wanting to waste time arguing with him.
"I summon my Whirlwind Prodigy in attack mode and set a card face down. Then it's your move."
Marik seemed to be in as much hurry as she was as a small smug looking boy with brown hair and in rough clothes that looked like peasant wear, appeared on the field, his attack points flashing at 1500.
Thankfully the deck Ba-Khu-Ra had built with Amane, was determined to set up quickly.
"I set a card in defence mode, a card face down and activate The Dark Door."
As the magic card set up, Ba-Khu-Ra felt a sense of relief.
"Now you can only attack me with one creature per turn." She explained, "And vice versa. Your move."
Marik scowled as he drew, having hoped to get this over with and present the Ring to his sister. Possibly melt it down so they didn't have to worry about it any more. "I summon Wind Effigy, in attack mode."
"In response," Ba-Khu-Ra called as the 1800 attack point tornado of feathers twirled on the field, "I activate Destiny Board!"
A ouija board appeared in the air above Ba-Khu-Ra's head. The planchette moved of its own accord, resting over the letter D, which appeared below it, glowing red and slightly dripping.
"At the end of each of your turns, it will pick a new letter and when it spells Death, you'll meet yours."
"I'm not scared. My Wind Effigy attacks your face down card!"
The tornado swept forward and slammed into the monster in question, who emerged from the ground as a huge, grey, skinned zombielike creature with no eyes and swatted Marik's monster back, taking 200 life points from the Effigy's summoner.
"Your turn."
With that, the planchette moved again, settling on the letter E, which joined the D in the air.
"I set a card in defence mode and…"
"I activate Icarus Attack!" Marik butted in, irritating Ba-Khu-Ra as his trap card flipped up. "I sacrifice my Whirlwind Prodigy to destroy both your Dark Door and your Destiny Board."
Both cards shattered, causing Ba-Khu-Ra to let out a hiss as her D and E vanished. "I guess that ends my turn."
"Then I draw." The smile on his face as he beheld what he'd drawn, didn't reassure the Thief Queen. "My Effigy counts as two tributes for a Wind monster, so I sacrifice it to bring forth my Simorgh, Bird of Ancestry!"
A huge golden, multi-limbed bird appeared on Marik's side of the field, letting out a screech at its enemy. It loosed a burst of wind that blew away Ba-Khu-Ra's two defence monsters, and their cards flew off the Duel Disk, forcing her to catch them.
"When Simorgh is summoned, it can return 2 cards you control to your hand." Marik explained, practically bouncing. "He attacks you directly!"
The burst of wind that slammed into her took her breath away for a moment, but wasn't anywhere near the worst she'd been through. She let out a huff as 2900 life points drained away.
"Next turn I win!"
She drew, smirked and shook her head, "No, you won't. You are nothing compared to me. My Dark Hole will decimate your field."
With her field empty, it didn't matter that the spell card destroyed every monster on the field. Instead, she got to watch as the golden bird was sucked into a black hole and crushed, leaving Marik's side of the field wide open.
"I summon my Headless Knight and use Monster Reborn on your Simorgh, giving me more than enough attack points to end this duel now."
With Simorgh returned to the field, but on Ba-Khu-Ra's side, and a knight in silver armour with gold detailing and blue gems inlaid taking the field, even without a head, Marik knew he was done.
"They attack you directly!"
The knight's sword slammed into Marik first, piercing his stomach in what was thankfully for him a holographic strike, rather than a Shadow one. Then the stolen Simorgh's great wings flapped, driving a powerful gust at its former summoner and knocking him off his feet.
The combined attacks took 4350 life points, ending the duel and the Thief Queen didn't waste any time before stepping towards him and holding out her hand.
Still Marik clutched the bracelet as if his life depended on it.
"If you were ever their friend, you'll hand that to me before someone dies. You've already got blood on your hands. Do you want to add theirs too?"
At the Thief Queen's question, Marik winced and pulled the bracelet off. As he dropped it into Ba-Khu-Ra's hand, she could sense the magic binding the soul to it and internally grimaced.
Shizuka hadn't just had her soul ripped out. It'd been the cost for a lost Shadow Game and that meant that if Ba-Khu-Ra wanted to put it back, it was going to cost her a LOT of power, because she would have to break the Penalty.
Unwilling to waste any more time or energy considering that, she turned to leave, only for Marik to grab her arm.
"All I want is my sister back. She Fell and… I can't fix it."
"And you think I can? I Fell a long time ago, and I'm not a healer." The Thief Queen snorted, "Neither is the Pharaoh. We're warriors. If you want your sister back, truly, you'dbetter hope Yugi survives this mess. Because if she dies, your sister's lost for good."
"Tell her… tell them… I'm sorry. Please…"
"Tell them yourself, if you can."
With that, Ba-Khu-Ra stepped through the Shadows and emerged through the other side, into the bedroom where she'd left Shizuka, only to nearly blast someone when she was startled by a shocked shriek.
"How? What? Where?"
"Easy, Kawai-san." Sugoroku tried to calm Katsuya and Shizuka's mother as the Thief approached the soulless body on the bed, taking a deep breath.
"Easy? She appeared out of nowhere!"
"And I'll disappear again in a minute. Now if you want your daughter back, shut up."
Ba-Khu-Ra could feel her sister's flinch but didn't bother to apologise for the rudeness. Instead she placed the bracelet containing Shizuka's soul on the girl's arm and took a deep breath.
This was going to suck, and if it wasn't for the dire situation, she wouldn't be doing it. Not right now. Breaking this Penalty now would ruin their magical reserves for days, leaving them weakened and ill and giving Ishizu the chance to counter them.
But she needed Yugi, Yugi needed Jonouchi, and the only way to break Jonouchi free from Ishizu was to free his sister's soul. So she had to do it.
She placed her hand over the bracelet and directed her power into it, using it like a crowbar to less than carefully pry the soul loose from its storage and wake it up. It felt like trying to move an elephant through the eye of a needle to start with and her head was spinning as a ball of light rose from the bracelet and hovered in her hands.
"I…Is that…?" Kawai stammered.
"Yes. I've got her." Ba-Khu-Ra snapped back, pouring everything into moving the soul from its container, back to the body despite the drag from the Shadows.
It would be so much easier with assistance from the original caster and if the soul wasn't caught up as the blackmail for both an Oath and a Shadow Game, but she was determined to outdo the bitch who thought she could move in on her turf and cause chaos.
"Now let me… got it!"
As the soul reentered the body, Shizuka's vessel gasped like it was coming up for air and the darkness recoiled and faded away, leaving the bracelet nothing more than a pretty trinket. Ba-Khu-Ra slammed a hand into the bed as she tried to keep herself upright, her world swimming and her limbs shaking, only to get shoved aside when Shizuka's eyes slowly opened.
Sugoroku caught the Thief as Kawai pulled her daughter into a tight hug, giving her support long enough for her to find her footing.
"Are you alright?"
"Yugi owes me." She grumbled in return, trying to hide just how exhausted she was and wishing she hadn't let the Pharaoh drain so much of her strength earlier in the day. "But I gotta go. And I need the little one to come with me."
"She's not going anywhere." Kawai clung tighter to her daughter, "And I'm taking my son out of this insanity too and moving back to Tokyo."
"Your son will be dead if she and I don't go. Now." Ba-Khu-Ra hissed out, too tired to argue.
"Kaasan, if Oniisan needs me, I need to go." Shizuka pulled free of her mother's arms, shaking but unhesitating.
"If you're going, I'm coming with you." Her mother responded, shaking her head like she thought that would stop them leaving.
"Fine. But you're walking back." The Thief snapped, glancing at her phone, to find Anzu's number had let her know that they were gathered at the docks, and that Honda had lost his phone, before calling the Shadow so she could move between patches of darkness.
"What the…"
The shriek Kawai let out as the world around them was consumed in pitch black nothingness was distracting and Ba-Khu-Ra nearly lost her grip on the magic, but Amane surged up and helped, allowing her to solidify their route.
"Let's go."
