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Vacation Blues	By : Shi_koi Category: Yu-Gi-Oh > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 2202 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own YuGiOh! or Harry Potter. I do not make any money from this story.

Chapter List
- 6
- 7
::

Chapter Seven

(wish upon a falling
star)

::

Mokuba was tired. Not
physically, his head hurt from staring at the small screen of the
borrowed laptop in front of him. The black-haired teen had resorted
to scanning the newspapers for mentions of his exotic-looking
friends. Yami and Yugi both being distinct enough to garner at least
some attention wherever they went. The last sighting placed them in
Cornwall three weeks earlier, which meant they would be long gone
from that area by now.

*Dammit Yugi! This
isn't like you. Why haven't you phoned or emailed us? You must have
sensed the odd power in the air, and if not you, than Yami at least
would have contacted Nii-san simply as a precaution! So where in
Kami-sama's name are you both?*

Mokuba sighed, shutting
the laptop down into sleep mode, closing the lid with a tiny click.
He placed it beside him on the bed, falling backwards and tucking his
hands underneath his head.

Five minutes later, he
sat up, snatched the laptop and carried it to the study across the
hall. He connected it to his brothers' network, setting off a search
and analyser before he made a detour to the bathroom, grabbing a few
tablets and heading back to the room. Mokuba knew there was nothing
he could really do yet, so taking a quick time-out couldn't hurt.

With that thought in
mind, Mokuba stripped down to a t-shirt and his shorts, curling up on
the bedstead and staring at the ceiling as he tried to relax enough
for the tablets to work. Fifteen minutes later he was asleep.

::

Mokuba felt something.

Sleeping in the
mid-morning quiet, dreaming soft warm dreams, he felt it.

Something was waking up.
Something was -screaming-howling to the black night- aware. It
pulled him, pulsing through the blood in his veins, seizing him,
dragging him into the waking world with -sharp bitter hunger-
a need so primal he knew it would haunt him well into the night.

Mokuba fell out of the
bed, tumbling to his knees on the hard wooden floor. He found himself
staggering upright, his loose hair blinding him as he tried to find
his balance. He fell down once more, gasping for breath, his limbs
trembling with the utter -frightening-burning-help
me-screaming- terror that comes from nightmares.

Except, he was awake.

Mokuba found himself
walking blindly, desperately seeking the earth until he ended up in
the woods outside his house, his fingers -pale-fragile-tiny-against
Her majesty- scrabbling against the soft soil, his fingers
burying themselves in the just barely dew-moist dirt, his knees
muddy, his forehead pressed against the grass.

I'm here. He
wanted to say, but his lips couldn't find the words. He dug deeper
into the loosened soil, unearthing grass, moss, roots from flowers
and smaller plants. Tears he didn't know he was shedding fell in
silent platt-platt drops.

He could taste something,
not with his tongue, but with his senses, the same senses which
called him here.

He could taste
-Oniisan-brother-pain-not alone-Seto- something undefinable.

“Sir? Kaiba-san?”

Mokuba blinked, drawing
himself together visibly. “Y-yes?” he asked raspily, his
mouth feeling dry.

“Is something wrong
sir?”

Mokuba paused, pushing
himself up until he knelt, fairly steadily, on the disturbed earth.
He could hear the hesitation in the bodyguards' voice, the
uncertainty. He couldn't have been around them long if he was unused
to odd happenings and the weird moods which often seemed to strike
both Kaiba siblings sporadically.

“Nah, I'm fine.”
Mokuba said eventually, brushing the dirt off his hands. Some of it
was still under his nails, but he didn't really care about that right
now. There had been something about that energy which scared him, it
was big,
and very, very worrying. Mokuba frowned for a moment, he would have
expected it to come from Yugi and Yami, except for the small fact
that the magic felt
unerringly akin to his brother.

In the same way your skin
prickles when you feel someone is in the same empty room, so he had
felt the presence of his nii-san at the last moment.

::

The waiting was bad,
drawn, time pulled and stretched, seconds lasting for hours.

Yami sat on the heavy
brocade sheets beside his light, watching as the flickering firelight
cast dancing shadows across his light's pale face. The knock at the
door, when it came, was a relief. He called enter and was utterly
speechless when a white and red berobed grey-haired dynamo bustled in
and seemed to take over the room.

“I take it you are
the Mr Yami that our Mr Weasley informed us about?” She nodded,
continuing before Yami could even draw a breath to answer. “Good,
good. You can tell me exactly what's been going on around here.”

She took a moment to lean
over the bed, her hand feeling the clammy skin on Yugi's forehead.
“Hmmn. Not good, not good at all.” She muttered, shaking
her head and turning around with a flick of her robes.

Arthur stepped in,
worried at the sight of a small frown and slight narrowing of Yami's
crimson eyes. “Yami, this is Madam Poppy Pomfrey. She's the
best medi-witch of our era, and possibly the best around in her
field.”

Yami gave him a nod of
acknowledgment, his eyes fixing on the man in long black robes,
watching as the lady spoke to him in rapid, hushed tones. The man
looked up, and for an instant, Yami caught the tiny flare of
suspicion and horror in the other's black eyes when their gazes met.
His face though, remained blank as Yami studied him.

“That's Professor
Severus Snape. He's a Potions Master. Poppy will probably need
potions brewed specifically for Yugi. He was needed.” Arthur
explained softly.

“I see.” At
least one thing about all this was familiar then. A Potions Master
along with a medically trained witch he could accept. Alchemy and
potions were a great part of his life as Pharaoh, and great honors
were bestowed upon those with the talents and power to create elixirs
and craft spells. Seto Kaiba's previous incarnation had been such a
man; and an extremely powerful one at that.

This he could understand.

“Mr Yami,”
Madame Pomfrey suddenly stepped into his line of sight, “Arthur
here has filled me in on what he can and what he knows of
this...situation.” Her distaste at the circumstances
surrounding Yugi's injuries seemed almost personally offensive to
her.

“But?”

Her lips tightened. “But
that doesn't explain Mr Yugi's current condition. Arthur has said
that no-one has been allowed contact to heal the poor boy. You
yourself have no wand, nor can I detect any use of potions. Just how
exactly were Mr Yugi's obvious and physical injuries healed?”

“Why?” Yami's
eyes narrowed.

“Because, MR
Yami, I have no wish to inflict greater injury upon your friend. That
poor boy has probably had enough to deal with thus far. If I do not
know what I am stepping into, I do not know how to help and will
therefore be working blind.” Pomfrey paused drawing in a deep
breath. “Some of the spells I use will become harmful if used
with another spell, ad some potions loose potency when combined with
certain treatments. Now do you see what I mean? I could inadvertently
harm your friend irrevocably without meaning to if you do not provide
me with the information I need.”

Yami thought for a
moment, gaging the woman's intents, finally deciding to go with his
instincts. “As you wish, Madame.”

::

Professor Severus Snape,
Death Eater and spy for the Light was rarely ever surprised. His
grasp of events was highly developed, and he had a tendency to
accurately predict the possibilities of any situation, a talent which
had saved his life on far too many occasions while serving dual
masters.

In this case, he'd felt a
thread of niggling doubt, the unwelcome clenching of his stomach that
always preceded a bad situation, and it was a gut feeling he had
learned to trust, no matter that his mind was telling him that the
possibilities of the patient he was accompanying Madame Pomfrey to
see was nothing more than another unfortunate victim of the Death
Eaters pleasure.

He entered the room the
youth was in after Madame Pomfrey, staying in the background, his
experiences teaching him that it was better to assess before drawing
attention to himself. For once, Severus found himself extremely
grateful to his paranoia as he caught sight of one of the two muggle
boys on the other side of the room.

One of the boys, the one
laying down was completely unremarkable to him, except for the
atrocious hairstyle that could have come straight out of one of the
Weasley twins prank boxes. Thin, pale, barely breathing and with
virtually no magical aura to speak of, the youth was nothing more
than a muggle.

But the other one...

Severus found himself
swallowing suddenly, tightening his hold on his wand, a reflexive
action he'd thought he'd already trained out of himself years
earlier. For some odd reason, the second boy, while looking almost
identical to the one lying down, gave off the richest, deepest and
utterly terrifyingly magical presence he'd ever been near. The heavy,
cloying feel of his magic hung in the very air itself, and seemed to
curl around his body, seeping into Severus' lungs, tightening,
gripping, sliding cold, icy fingers into every part of his magical
center before dissipating when the youth turned his gaze, -oh
Merlin-crimson eyes-his Masters' eyes-death-blood-pain-burning
eyes-power-threats-can't breathe- hard red eyes assessing him.

A chill ran down his
spine as he found himself unable to move, barely able to hold tight
to his blank mask, pushing down the shudders he could feel trying to
shake his body.

Not muggles, Severus
couldn't help but think, not even human, that presence,
there's no way that child is completely human.

When the youth turned
away, Severus suddenly found himself able to draw a harsh breath,
gritting his teeth as he tried to control the weakness in his limbs.
Dark times were already upon them, but this time, this time he didn't
know which would be worse. His self-proclaimed Dark Lord master, or
the threat this boy represented. The greater danger, Severus
knew, lay in the fact that this duo didn't look evil, and that
he'd learnt from experience, was far worse.

He would have to keep a
sharp watch on this pair if he wanted to survive what was coming, and
if there was one thing Severus Snape was, it was a survivor.

::

“I just don't
understand it.” Madame Pomfrey muttered to herself, a frown
pulling her brows together. “All the signs point towards
magical exhaustion, but there's no response from him at all to the
spells.”

“Magical
exhaustion?” Yami asked. “How do you mean?” There
was no way Yugi could have become so tired that his body would have
put him into a coma to heal. Not without at least leaving a sign that
Yami could follow, or heal. The coma Yugi was in had completely wiped
away his presence, magical and mundane. There was simply no
consciousness left in the shell of the boy on the bed.

It was as if his very
soul had fled.

“Each magical being
has a limit to the amount of magic they can channel. We each contain
our own reserves of magic, but someone with a weak connection inside
themselves, or with a weak will tend to find it harder to control
their magic, and an overuse of magic will put them in a coma as their
body tries to recover.” Pomfrey said in explanation, her wand
waving over the still motionless Yugi.

“I've seen this
before with aurors in battle.” Arthur said quietly. “But
the 'Revive' series of spells always
worked,
and there were supplementary potions to keep their strength up while
they healed naturally.”

“Which aren't
working here.” Yami said. “So it is possible that Yugi is
not in a magical coma then?”

Madame Pomfrey shook her
head. “Honestly, I don't know. The symptoms are all there, but
there has to be something else that I'm missing. I know you are not a
typical wizard Mr Yami, so perhaps this is a result of his magic
mixing with our type?”

Yami shook his head in
dismissal. “No. That is not right. I have been inside him and I
have found no trace of his presence, his personality. It feels as if
his soul has fled his body. And as for his physical form...before I
healed him, the trauma he went through was undeniably painful, but it
would not have been enough to drive him so thoroughly from me.”

“Inside him?”

Yami gave the woman a
sharp nod. “I am connected to him. We can, in essence, see into
the other's mind.” Yami looked down, brushing a hand tenderly
over his light's face, debating how much he needed to let the healer
know. “I looked for his mind and I could not find it. There is
nothing inside him. It is as though he is an empty shell.”

Madame Pomfrey looked
both horrified and curious. “I've never...! That's not
leglimancy!” She leant forward, curiosity obviously winning.
“You're telepathic?”

Yami snorted. “No.
It only works with Yugi.”

“You mean, like a
familiar bond?”

Yami shrugged. “I
have no idea. I do not understand many of the terms and peculiarities
of your world.”

Madam Pomfrey looked
suddenly pensive. “Do you think you could, er, connect with Mr
Yugi and watch from inside as I scan him, tell me what you see, if
there's any reaction?”

“Yes.” Yami
nodded slowly. “Why?”

“The reason I
cannot heal him, may be because there's some sort of barrier that
being connected to your mind provides. If you are on the other side,
you can tell me whether or not the magic of my spells is actually
penetrating through to where his magical centre should be located.”

“Isn't that
dangerous?” Arthur asked.

Yami turned towards the
redhead. “Dangerous? To whom?”

“Uh, well, I
suppose, to you really. I mean, Yugi is in trouble either way, but if
something were to happen to you...” Arthur looked pensive, his
brows drawn together. He gave a sigh then, shaking his head as he
gazed at the still form on the bed.

“There are
risks.” Madam Pomfrey asserted, “but they are not
great. There's only a 2% chance of your being harmed in any
way.”

“I see.” Yami
frowned. “But this should clear up any discrepancies in your
diagnosis, right?”

“If there is
anything to clear up, then yes.”

Yami turned to look at
his light, the pale skin clammy to his touch and quite visibly in bad
shape. “Do it.”

::

It was free. It floated
in the void of absence, completely submerged in the grasp of
something which Was, and which Was Not equally. It had
life...once, but in this place, where time had no rule, where nothing
existed but Its' own Law; life, and It's previous existence didn't
seem to matter any more.

It had once had a name, a
family. It had once treasured those It had loved, would still love,
if It could remember them. But It couldn't. It had fled to this place
to escape the torment of Its' soul.

Except...

Something was missing. It
was not complete. There was still something preventing It from
merging completely with the Void It resided in.

Something...not-human,
but still, important.

The entity which was both
the incarnation and current form of Yugi felt a sluggish call of
power rouse It from Its' rest. It was torn in two directions. That
fraction which was Yugi felt the Call and tried to follow it
home, but the parts of the soul which belonged to the entity It had
been before souls were in existence baulked at the feeling It
received.

Yes, Yugi and Yami shared
part of their soul, but, where did they expect that soul to come
from? For all of his power and wisdom, Yami had never thought to
question just exactly where his power had originated from, and
thus Yugi's power. Combined, they held but a fraction of their true
life-force, an existence which was far greater than their
understanding could ever anticipate.

Now part of It had found
one of Its' missing pieces. It had long guarded part of Its'
reincarnations, of which the Pharaoh had been, as well as the much
younger light. It was too powerful to fully merge with Its' children,
but Its' power had been siphoned into them when they needed it, even
without their knowledge.

Until the Young One
consciously searched for It, reached for It, accepted It and
willingly given himself up to Its' power.

Now, It wasn't about to
give him up, It was not willing to lose Its' missing piece. When It
had been whole, many millennia ago It had been more than a god, but
It had split Itself apart to survive a war which had torn the
Universe asunder. Fragments of It's energy had separated and evolved,
each part needing the Whole, but not understanding that need. The
larger fragments becoming entities, Gods and other creatures as
influenced by the reality they ended in, each alive in their own
right, until It had claimed them back. It let them exist until They
called for It again, until They called for the merging, just as this
one had.

And yet. It didn't feel
right.

It could feel the other
fragment searching for the part of Itself which was known as Mutou
Yugi, the part of the mortal which was not human, the energy which
the body had pulled inside itself while it had been but a gestating
bundle of cells without proper form or coherence.

That part of Itself...it
was not ready?

Understanding hit It
bluntly, painfully, and It knew what it had to do.

Slowly, gently, It
untangled the threads of It's existence from the youth It had so
recently joined with, reluctantly freeing the fragment which was Yugi
until only one last thread connected them.

Self-awareness began to
return to Its' second fragment, his memories returning, first as a
trickle of random experiences, until it seemed as though a floodgate
had been opened and his entire life poured renewed into his very
being.

The Call came
again, stronger now than before, and this time It could taste the
magic behind the other's call. It backed away, unwilling to call back
the last thread that connected It to It's newly released fragment. It
hid the thread in the youths' life-essence, hidden from all eyes and
senses but Its' own.

He was not ready, but It
was lonely, and until It was called again, It would wait.

Even if the wait was
another eternity.

::

It didn't take as long as
Yami thought it would for the spell components to be prepared. Some
things, like an anchor, were harder to arrange, although a quick wave
of Arthur's wand soon solved that problem once Yami chose his medium.
A small crystal orb about the size of his fist had been transfigured
from one of the chairs, and Yami set about filling it with enough of
his energy for it to be able to guide him back if things became
tough.

Without knowing exactly
what was wrong with Yugi, both Yami and the man he'd had introduced
as Professor Snape were leery of using any sort of potion to aid the
spell. They couldn't take the chance that Yugi's body would fall out
of the precarious coma-like state it had fallen into and lapse into a
true death.

When they were done, Yami
settled himself on the bed beside his light, entwining their fingers
carefully before closing his eyes and reaching out into his others'
mind. As he drifted into the white expanse of nothingness which had
taken the place of their usually manifested 'Soul Room' Yami could
hear the faint sounds of the medi-witch starting her spell.

Then, after a long
moment, there was just silence.

//Yugi...? Bright
heart? Can you hear me?//

There was no answer,
although, somehow, by this point, Yami was half expecting the awful
emptiness left in the shell of his light.

//Yugi! Please! Answer
me!//

Still nothing.

A terrible crushing
loneliness enveloped the dark spirit, wrapping him in an icy cocoon
of hopelessness.

//Please my bright
heart. Please. Come back to me.// Yami pushed forwards, the lack
of a physical form completely un-noticed.

//Yugi, I have nothing
but you. You are everything to me. You are the air I breathe, the
life in my veins. Yugi. Please. Come home to me.//

For an instant, Yami
thought he felt the briefest flash of life. His senses flared, and he
found himself hurtling forward to the tiny flicker of life, pulling
on the alien power behind him, consuming it, draining it from the
woman who was trying to heal his light. The power boosted his own for
a nanosecond, but it was enough, barely, for Yami to react.

He lunged forwards, his
consciousness leaping towards the small flame which he knew
somehow, housed what was now left of his light. Of Yugi.

The tiny fragment of
light seemed to dance just out of reach, pulled towards the opposite
direction in a decidedly skittish manner. Yami paused, extending a
fraction of awareness outwards, as he would have extended a hand had
he still a body or form.

//Yugi?// He
called softly into the bare expanse, aiming lightly towards the other
presence. //Yugi, please. Come back to me. I need you.//

There was a small flicker
of -recognition-fear-hope-anger- something, a tiny pulse of
energy, before it faded back into itself.

Yami tried again, slowly
floating forwards, using everything he knew to coax the other back to
him. //Yugi. I don't know if you recognise me anymore. I can't
even tell if that's you I feel. Demo, Yugi, I think that you are
there. I need you Love. I need you back so badly I can feel the
terror scratching my throat with every breath. I cannot exist without
you. I do not want to exist without you.//

The energy flickered
again, and the sense of Yugi that filled the expanse grew a
fraction.

//Yugi. We promised
each other, remember. You and I, Light and Dark, Zutto. Zutto Yugi.
Please. Come back to me.// Yami paused, something had tugged
briefly on the outer edges of his consciousness. It had to be one of
the Wizards, he thought dispassionately, his entire focus
slipping back to the light which was beginning to resemble the energy
pattern he'd come to associate with his light.

The response, when it
came, was more than Yami could ever have hoped for.

/...Ya...mi.../

If Yami's head could have
shot up, it would have. //YUGI?! Yugi, stay with me, please bright
heart, that's it, it's me, Yami. Please koibito, come back to me.//

Yami could feel the
foreign magic trying to pull him back, and there was a sense of
urgency in it. With a sudden start, Yami realised that he was only
supposed to be a conduit, he wasn't supposed to be in this deep.

Not that he cared now.
Resolve strengthened his decision, and the dark spirit tore away the
other magic, slicing it out of his essence, in effect, cutting off
the rope which tethered him to the outside world. The tiny orb which
contained a trace of his magic was virtually un-noticeable from where
he was, but there was no way in the seven hells of the underworld
that he was going to leave the only chance which promised him a
reunion with his light.

//Yugi, listen to me,
please. You went through something bad, something very bad. You went
to sleep, and I thought I'd lost you. Please Yugi, if you can hear
me, come back to me. I know you're trapped here because I didn't
protect you, please give me another chance. You are everything to me,
my light, please, I'm begging you, come back to me Yugi, come home.//

The light flickered
again, the pulse of magic which felt like Yugi suddenly filling the
area, as though a switch had been flicked, Yugi was just...there.

Caught between joy and a
desperate, desperate sense of urgency, Yami gently surrounded the
small ball of energy with a few tendrils of his own, wrapping it
securely against him. Yami could feel his hold on his own personality
fading, seeping away into the nothingness around them, he didn't want
to even try to imagine how on earth Yugi had survived here.
For some reason, part of him wanted to just let go, as though he was
finally home, but the greater part of his sense of self was
determined not to waver from his path.

Utterly stubborn, and
with a will that surpassed even the Pharaohs, Yami struck out towards
the aura he could feel in the orb, using it as a traveler would a
will-'o-wisp, and it was equally hazardous.

There were different
degrees to the emptiness which surrounded Yami and his precious
light, shades and tones of nothingness and horrifying, debilitating
voids which promised oblivion.

The small orb of energy
never seemed any closer, but Yami pushed forward, a desperate,
trembling need in him to get back to the 'real' world.

Onward. Onward he went.

::

Madame Poppy Pomfrey
frowned, then swallowed the lump in her throat, her wand flashing
into a complicated series of movements. Sweat beaded on her brow, and
her face was screwed tight in concentration.

“Severus..”
she whispered hoarsely, “hurry, I'm losing him. I need you to
scan his mind, find out if he's close.”

Snape clenched his jaw
and steeled himself. It took barely a moment to find himself at the
forefront of the boy's mind. But that's where the similarities to
every other mind he'd ever encountered ended. Some minds were
glaringly open, like the twit, Lockhart's, some were locked and
shielded tightly, like Albus Dumbledore's and others were slippery in
their traps and concealed deceit, like Lord Voldemort's.

But none were like this.
On one half of his mental plane there was a small corridor leading
off to nowhere, a few objects scattered around that had no meaning.
On the other side a vast grey stone maze stretched out. Crumbled
slabs of rocks vied for floor space in a few visible passageways.

Snape blinked, and the
room changed. A scene worthy of M.C. Escher himself greeted him.
Staircases leading off into mist, spiraling off into all directions
competed for weirdness and contrasted sharply with a few scattered
teddy bears and cards. There was even a comfortable-looking pile of
large fluffy pillows beside them.

A few seconds later the
landscape changed again. And again. It was always some mix of
impossibility, some odd abstract creation, offset with a child's
toys. The constant flux was better than any lock or key at keeping
Snape, a powerfully gifted and trained Leglimancer, from gaining any
sort of purchase on the true paths of the youth's mind.

There was a sudden pulse
of energy from somewhere deep inside the maze which shimmered into
being, knocking Snape back and driving the breath from him in the
real world. A second later there was another pulse, stronger,
thicker, and Snape could see the thickening of the wave of air around
him.

He quickly pulled himself
back to his own mind, gasping from the intensity of the relief he
felt shudder through him.

“Professor Snape?”
Madame Pomfrey called questioningly, “What happened?”

Snape drew in a deep
breath and forcibly steadied himself. He turned his black eyes to the
medi-witch. “That...child,” he ground out through a jaw
that he was having difficulties unclenching, “is not human.”

Pomfrey frowned at him.

“There's nothing in
that mind but madness.” Snape said, stepping back from the bed.
He turned in a swirl of robes and retreated to a safe distance. “I
believe that whatever ails them will soon be over,” Snape
crossed his arms over his chest, looking for all the world as though
he were back in his classroom, safe, “I felt something
returning. I want nothing more to do with them.”

Arthur looked down at the
faces of the twin-esque youths lying beside each other on the bed,
the pallor of their skin belying Snape's words. He sighed and sat
down on the edge of the cover.

Madam Pomfrey shook her
head and raised her wand again, setting a simple spell on the two
boys, before she too moved back. “Very well,” she said
flatly, “since there's nothing much I can do 'til they wake,
we'll have to wait for them to return.” Her face softened a
minute fraction, missed by both men in the room. “If they
return,” she murmured to herself.

All three adult occupants
could feel the life ebb away from both bodies, and Poppy had to
restrain herself from throwing herself back into familiar routines
and spells, her wand hand itching to let loose with everything she
knew. She restrained herself, knowing that if the two were truly
finding their own way back, whatever spell she cast may be
detrimental to their progress.

She wasn't going to be
the one that killed them.

It took a few more
nerve-wracking minutes before a slight change could be seen in the
two youths. First their breaths became slightly deeper, then their
skin begain to lose it's parchment look, slowly colouring with a soft
pink on their cheeks. After a few more minutes they started to stir,
and Yami sat up suddenly, gasping in a raspy breath.

Yami's hands fisted in
the heavy brocade covers of the bed, his ruby eyes wild and
unfocused. With a sudden cry he twisted sideways and knelt above the
other boy, placing his hands on either side of the still sleeping
boys' face, resting his forehead against the other.

“Aibou,” he
whispered softly, with so much emotion none would dare name them, “my
Yugi...my bright heart. Wake up little one, please, open your eyes
and return to me.” He paused for a moment, as though he could
hear something they could not.

Then he sighed. “I
know aibou, I know it hurts. But we aren't meant for that light yet,
you aren't meant for the next world yet Yugi. Please my bright
heart...open your eyes?”

The room filled with a
sudden rush of energy and magic so powerful the air in the room
changed colours. Light streams of multi-coloured light exploded from
the two boys, forming a solid manifestation of their combined magic,
hundreds of ribbons of clear energy swirling in dizzying patterns and
thick eddies around their bodies, before they were drawn back with
the speed of a snapped elastic band.

Then Yugi opened his
eyes.

::

It
took almost seventeen hours for the figure on the stone floor to
awaken. His body having long succumbed to the cold, shivers coursing
down his lithe frame.

It
took another two for him to reach the point where movement became an
option.

“'K'so...”
Tanned arms pushed upwards, a low moan suddenly accompanying the
expletive as the figure tried to lift himself upwards. Taking a quick
stock of himself, Seto groaned.

There
was a smudge of ash around his body, the tools he'd used for his
casting scattered and broken. The salt had disappeared, leaving a
faintly gritty feel behind to the stone. Seto brushed off a few
granules which still clung to him, standing unsteadily and shaking
off the ash on his robes. He lasted long enough to climb slowly,
laboriously up to his bedroom and collapse onto his bed before sleep
over took him. He didn't wake up until a day later.

Something
nagged him about his casting, something he couldn't quite
remember...or place his finger on.

Flashes
of an empty void, of faceless terror...indistinct mutterings and
heavy breathing from a creature so massive he couldn't grasp it's
size.

More
flashes, of spinning through an empty space, filled with the scent of
decay. Panic. Loss. The vague remembrance of throwing his magic
forward into that chasm to try and escape.

...And,
Mokuba?

Seto
clutched his head as a wave of pain coursed through him. He stumbled
unsteadily to his en suite bathroom, dragging his hand through
the cupboard under the sink for the large box of medicine he kept in
there, beside the first aid box. He swallowed as many of the
different tablets as he dared to, drinking the water from the tap,
before sliding to the floor in a heap of scorched robes and and ash
smudged skin.

He
dozed off while the tablets started to work, waking suddenly with a
dry mouth and aching eyes. On the plus side, the headache and pains
were down to a manageable level.

Seto
stripped off the torn and burnt robes, discarding them on the cool
floor of the large bathroom, turning the shower on and waiting for
the settings to regulate the temperature of the water before stepping
inside under the three-sided spray of relaxing heat.

He
moved slowly, washing himself as carefully as he could manage, and
wishing he could trust himself to have a bath instead, but there was
no way he was going to dare when there was a good chance of him
drowning, he was so tired.

Once
clean, he pulled his bathrobe on and grabbed a few extra towels for
his head. The bed was a mess, streaked with the dirt from his clothes
and flaked with dried blood from his face, so Seto walked to the
closest guest room, one hand trailing against the wall for extra
support. The closest room was decorated in shades of cream, which
hurt his eyes, but it had a large, comfortable double bed. Seto
collapsed on the covers and just managed to drag himself underneath
them, bathrobe, towels and all, before he succumbed to sleep once
more.

Seto
slept fitfully, odd, half-formed images teased the edge of his
consciousness, vying with old memories of a time when he was young
and vulnerable. When he woke up, nearly six hours later, the feelings
remained.

::

“Sir?”

Mokuba
craned his neck around to look up at the large bodyguard. “Yes?”

The
bodyguard looked slightly uncomfortable. “I think you need to
see this, Sir.”

“Okay...”
Mokuba stood up and placed the book he was reading on the small table
by the patio chair he was lying on previously. “Lead the way,”
Mokuba said.

The
man lead him to the small area of dislodged earth he'd been
scrabbling in early that morning. When he moved out of the way,
Mokuba's eyes widened.

“The
groundsman said that it just sprouted suddenly,” the bodyguard
explained, “and it grew at a fantastic rate, finally stopping
when it got to this size, which took less than three minutes.”

Mokuba
stepped forward. In the place where he'd thrust his hands into the
earth, in the same place his tears fell, there was a magnificent, if
slightly ominous-looking, plant of some sort, one that he'd never
seen before. Standing at more than eight feet tall, and with long
pointed leaves in a deep bluish-green, it was the strangest thing
he'd seen, apart from the covers of his dueling cards and games.

The
plant had a thick main stalk, which was like a tree-trunk, only in a
very dark blue-black, and tiny vines criss-crossed the entire trunk
and trailed under and around the leaves, delicate ice-blue buds
peeked out from the entire plant-like growth.

“It's
beautiful...” Mokuba breathed out softly, stepping forward and
reaching out with a hand to stroke his fingers gently across the waxy
surface of the nearest leaf.

“Careful
Sir,” warned the bodyguard. “You don't know what that
is.”

Mokuba
nodded. “I know,” he said, his back still to the man,
“but I don't feel threatened by it.” Mokuba stepped even
closer, and leant forward to breathe in the oddly intoxicating scent
he could just barely tell was there, his face brushing against the
downy softness of one of the flower buds. The flowers in front and
all around him opened suddenly and Mokuba blinked, opening his mouth
to warn the bodyguard, when a sudden spray of a glittery, sticky
substance caught him face on, filling his throat and lungs when he
inhaled on reflex.

The
last thing he saw was the black of the suit the bodyguard wore before
he succumbed to the darkness calling him.

::
- 6
- 7
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Vacation Blues