Yami couldn’t sleep. He knew he had to, he had told Yugi as much many times over the course of their adventures together.
Knowing that didn’t make sleep come any easier though. He was too worried about Yugi’s safety for that. Every time he tried to close his eyes and get a couple of hours of sleep he was woken by nightmares.
He finally gave up on sleep when the fourth nightmare of finally locating Yugi only for it to be far too late, woke him up. Instead of wasting his time staring at the ceiling again, he slipped out of his assigned room, locking it behind him, and wandered the corridors, trying to clear his head.
He was fully aware it was a waste of time, but then so was trying to sleep. The ship was, unsurprisingly, almost silent. Most of the Duellists had given up for the night and where trying to get some sleep before the beta kicked off.
That was fine by him. While he was trying to keep his temper and not snap at people, he was fully aware that he was walking a fine line. Yugi was, and always had been the key to his sanity. He remembered all too well how crazed he had been when he had first ‘awoken’ in the real world after his long imprisonment in the darkness and how Yugi’s light had soothed his wounded soul and how the boy had helped him maintain his sanity by refusing to let him fall to his dark desires.
Without Yugi around, it was much harder to control his emotions and powers. Without the lighter half of his soul, it was all too tempting to just give in to his rages and destroy everything that was stood between him and what he wanted.
His friends were trying to help, they really were, but he didn’t have the tolerance he needed to be able to deal with them. He knew Joey and Tristan had been playing up because it helped them not go out of their minds with worry for their friend who was gods only knew where right now. However when they started brawling in the corridors, that was the point he had to walk away, purely because he knew that if he snapped at them, he might lose his fragile control over his magic.
There was a surprising lack of crew members roaming the ship as he headed up onto the deck to get some fresh air. Though he wasn’t sure whether it was because there was only a skeleton crew on during the night or whether there was something else going on, it put him on edge.
He wasn’t the only one moving around he discovered as he tried to find his way onto the deck only to end up in the dining hall. There was someone else there. It took him a few moments in the dim light to recognise the person.
The young woman with bushy brown hair that kind of reminded him of Hermione’s, was sat at a table, tapping something into a computer and working with her deck as she did so. He recognised her easily as the reporter who ran something called a ‘website,’ one that was officially known as ‘Digital Duellist.’ Both he and Yugi had given interviews with her before after tournament wins, both under the same name of course.
He was ready to just carry on walking and not in any mood for getting caught by a reporter, no matter how reasonable D.M.G. had proved herself to be in the past. However the sound of her talking to someone made him curious. He glanced around trying to see if he could see anyone else around that she might be conversing with, but there was no one and she didn’t appear to be on the phone to anyone.
He edged forwards cautiously, not wanting to disturb her if he could help it. When he got close enough he realised that she was chatting to her cards and she seemed to think they were talking back to her.
Suddenly she stiffened and wheeled around, brown eyes resting on him for a moment before she let out a startled squeak, closed her laptop and started gathering up her cards. “I’m sorry.” She apologised, “I didn’t realise there was anyone else here.” She moved too quickly and knocked some of her cards onto the floor. “Oops...”
“Let me.” Yami chuckled, his mood lifted a little by the sudden insertion of normal. He bent down and was just picking up the Dark Magician Girl that had fallen, only to hiss with pain and pull his hand back quickly when it gave him a short, sharp electric shock. “What...?” He demanded of Dani as she bent down to join him in picking up her cards.
“Sorry, Maddie’s always been a bit...temperamental.” She looked sheepish as she picked up the card, “She’s one of a kind. Pegasus made her card for me specifically when he first released Dark Magician Girl to the public.”
Yami nodded. He remembered Yugi reading that particular article. It was one of the only things that he would read that was in English and he had been excited to see the new magician cards that were being released. D.M.G. was a huge fan of them too. She had spent time and money gathering Dark Magician cards of all the hues available. She’d shown off every time she had managed to get her hands on one. Giving her the unique green Dark Magician Girl had been both a good publicity stunt for the booster set, one that Yugi had chased like mad to try and get a Dark Magician Girl for his own deck, and a good way to earn the girl’s loyalty.
“Maddie?” He couldn’t help but ask, amused that she had named her cards.
“Madelyn,” Dani corrected herself, “I call her Maddie for short and why am I telling you this? You’ll think I’m nuts and never give me an interview again.” She quickly popped ‘Maddie’s’ card into her deck holster with the other cards that had hit the deck, and backed up, “Ignore me, I’m just tired and babbling.” She gave him a sheepish smile.
Yami just waved her off with a slight chuckle, “I’ve known Duellists with weirder habits than naming their cards. If you want to go back to work I can find somewhere else to take my walk.”
“Now it’s fine. My deck’s settled, I’ve got my post up about what’s going on so far, and there’s not much more I can do for now. At least not until I get to speak to some reps from Dimension or SharpShade.” She shrugged, turning to leave, “Oh, Yugi?” She asked, glancing back over her shoulder at him.
“Yes, D.M.G.?” Yami, who had been about to try and find his way back to his room, frowned at her.
“I don’t know what’s going on, and something must be because you’re you...I mean the other you and you’re not normally the other you unless you’re duelling or something’s happened, but be careful, there’s more going on than you know.” Dani warned, turning to leave once more.
“Wait.” Yami grabbed Dani’s arm, startling the girl who turned to look at him, worried, “How do you...?”
“Everyone knows.” Dani snorted, “You and the other Yugi haven’t been very subtle about it. People think you’re possessed or have a twin brother or something. Personally I’ve had a run in with the Shadows before so I can sense the difference between you two and the magic you have. Your aura is much darker than his. Plus I’ve never seen Little Yugi have a temper as foul as the one you were running earlier.”
The only part Yami actually took away from that was that Dani had had a run in with the Shadows before and she thought something was going on that was related to them. “How do you know about the kidnapping?”
“Kidnapping?” Dani asked, confused, “I don’t know anything about a kidnapping. Though the people I’m chasing have taken sacrifices from their homes before.”
“Sacrifices?” Yami demanded, angry now, worried that that was the fate the kidnappers had planned for Yugi.
Dani frowned, glanced around and then made up her mind, “I don’t want to talk about it here. I don’t like talking about it in general, but if you meet me in room 42 in about twenty minutes, I’ll tell you everything.”
Yami nodded and gave her a head start. He had to go and get his friends. They would need to hear this too. They already knew they were probably walking into a trap, but if DMG had details of what that trap was, they needed to know them.
Tristan and Joey had camped out in Joey’s assigned room, while Ombre and Tea had joined Kari in hers so it didn’t take him long to gather his friends and reach the reporters room. When they knocked on the door, they could head someone trip over something and DMG swore before opening the door to them.
“In.” She hissed sharply, glancing up and down the corridor. They piled into the room, which was swiftly overcrowded, and Dani looked a little lost as she took in the sight of all of them. Finally she looked at Yami and asked, “I thought I was just telling you about it.”
“They know about everything.” Yami informed her, realising that part of her hesitance to talk was her lack of wanting to look like a lunatic.
“Okay...” Dani nodded, pacing the small section of floor by the door, “First off I had no idea a friend of yours had been kidnapped. So I’m sorry to hear about that.”
Yami just nodded. They had been very careful not to let it get out about Yugi’s kidnapping. Mostly because they didn’t want the bad guys to realise they had the wrong Mutou and that it was Yami who was on the boat, not Yugi, just in case they decided to enact their plans for Yugi before they could rescue him.
“Secondly Dimension Software, the people running this VirtualNet demo, are financially supported by SharpShade.” She continued.
“We know that already,” Kari frowned at the girl, “I work for Kaiba Corp so...”
“What you wouldn’t know, unless you’ve looked deeper,” Dani glanced at her, interrupting Kari’s officious comment, “Is that SharpShade are a front for a group of Mages who call themselves the ShadowSwords.”
“The who?” Joey asked.
“No that’s a band.” Dani snorted. “Sorry, sorry, when I get nervous I make bad bad jokes.” She took a deep breath, “Right, as I was saying, they’re called the ShadowSwords. They’re a group of mages who can summon monsters from their cards and create illusions using the Shadows.”
“I thought you needed to have a Millennium Item to do that.” Joey asked Yami and Ombre, looking confused.
“A what?” Dani asked, just as confused.
“Apparently not.” Yami growled, “Please, go on.” He gestured to Dani.
“Okay, but I want to know what a ‘Millennium Item’ is later.” The reporter informed them, causing Ombre to glower at Joey. “The thing with the ShadowSwords is that they have this Grand Gathering every other year where they get together, battle to prove which group is better and at the end of it all they sacrifice a powerful Duellist to the Shadows in order to keep their powers.”
“Which is why they kidnapped Yu...Yami.” Kari realised, turning to Yami, “If they have him, then you’ll do whatever they want and they obviously want to sacrifice you.”
“Actually...” Dani interrupted before Yami could agree, “They have a problem. Four years ago I interrupted their ceremony and rescued the sacrifice before they could commit their ritual murder. Two years ago it was held on Duellist Kingdom during a certain tournament and they were going to sacrifice the winner of the tournament, except their plans fell apart when Pegasus refused to hand you over.”
“So they want this year to go right?” Yami asked, thinking.
“This year they’re not just planning on sacrificing one person. You,” She looked at Yami, “Might be the main attraction, but they’re planning on offering every Duellist on this boat to the Shadows.”
Dani winced at the noise that statement earned and she quickly tried to hush them.
“Do you know when? Or how?” The Pharaoh asked, thinking that maybe he should have tried harder to make the others stay at home.
“Sorry, no.” Dani admitted, “Pegasus sent me to try and find out their plans and steal back the data stolen from Kaiba Corp. He promised me that backup was on the way for when things went bad. An expert or two in Duelling and Shadow Magic who would be able to halt their plans.” She paused and considered, “I’m guessing he meant you lot.”
“Wait, why would they be behind the break in at Kaiba Corp?” Tea asked, confused.
“It drew Kaiba here, didn’t it?” Dani pointed out.
“She’s right, he’s taking a private helicopter over to the island tomorrow morning, but he thought there was a link between the break in and Dimension’s sudden readiness to beta their systems.” Kari winced, “There were hints, apparently, in the code that linked back to their network address.”
“So they wrecked Kaiba’s systems and kidnapped Yu...Yami in order to get the two best Duellists in the world on the island for their ritual thing.” Tristan grimaced, “Plus they have about twenty something other Duellists on this boat and us.”
“And if I don’t work out when and where this ritual thing’s going to kick off, everyone’s dead.” Dani nods, looking rather nervous.
“We’ll save our friend and then we’ll help.” Yami promised, seeming more in control now he had a better idea of what their enemies where up to and what they were walking into.
“Still it would have been nice if Pegasus could have given us a little warning.” Joey grouched, glowering at the floor.
“Do you guys have mobile phones?” Dani asked. When Tea, Tristan and Kari all nodded, she took down their phone numbers. “Right, the moment I know anything, I’ll pass it on to you guys, okay? Maybe I’ll be able to find Yami while I’m looking for clues about their ritual.” She paused, “One question, who’s Yami?”
The others glanced at Yami, looking as if they weren’t sure how to answer her. Yami on the other hand grimaced slightly. “You remember those rumours going around that I have a twin brother?”
Dani nodded. She had decided that that was the most likely one, above Yugi being possessed or abducted by aliens every time he duelled.
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