Ah, screw it! It’s my fic and I’ll write incest if I want to!

Disclaimer: Yu-gi-Oh! Belongs to Kazuki Takahashi. I make no profit off this fanfiction, and it belongs to me under international copyright laws. Don’t steal and don’t sue. Thank you, *Phantomness bows*

Notes: Yeah, we assume Yami dueled Pandora, same as anime/manga

Chapter 10

 

            The first duel had gone fine. The second duel was more troublesome. If not for Yuugi and Seto barging in, Pandora would have lost his legs. As it were, he just had some very nasty cuts and some blood vessels that had to be put back together.

            “Yami, that was dangerous!”

            Yami scowled. “He cost my mother her soul! I’ll be damned if he doesn’t get punished for it!”

            “Your Mother?” Seto raised his eyebrows.

            Yuugi sighed. “He thinks that the Dark Magician is his mother.”

            “He thinks-.” Seto felt as if he were going to start laughing. He’d wondered if Yami was a bit off in the head, but this took the cake!

            “Better her than the whore our father bedded for you!” Yami shot back viciously.

            Yuugi bared his teeth and reached for his Deck. Yami did the same. Seto sighed, and decided that an argument right now in this creepy place would do neither of them any good. He was about to suggest that when the floor they had been standing on collapsed beneath their feet, sending them and a badly bleeding Pandora tumbling into the cellar below. They landed with a muffled thump on something not too hard.

            Good thing too, as they were almost fifty feet down, give or take ten feet.

 

            Yami looked around, already ready to summon, before he realized that his Mother would probably be weak from the earlier Duel, so he decided against it. Something else would do just as well though.

            Still, they needed some help getting out of here.

            A groan from Yuugi and Kaiba showed that things had not gone so well for them. Yuugi was wincing, and he looked like he was injured. And Pandora really was going to die if he didn’t do something. With a sigh, he drew a card and activated it. Might as well – he could always punish Pandora later…

            “Mystical Elf, we need your help…”

 

            The Elf was more than happy to help them. She healed both Yuugi and Pandora’s wounds without a word, before she vanished in a glitter of green dust. Yuugi and Seto both stared, but said nothing.

            Yami looked around, calculating. Why on earth was there a trapdoor under Pandora’s building? Well, it mattered little.

            Kaiba was already dialing up some other high-tech item of his. Yami ignored him and began debating what monster to call out.

            Yuugi looked at Yami warily as he helped a shaken Pandora stand. Maybe Yami wasn’t a terrible person, but he wasn’t Yuugi’s friend – or brother – by a long shot.

            It was just something he couldn’t explain. Perhaps he was jealous. He had liked the Dark Magician Card – it had been his favorite, until that disastrous duel with Yami Bakura in the Shadow Realm.

            Yuugi wished it had never happened.

 

            “The helicopter will be arriving in a few minutes.” Kaiba said. Yami idly wondered why there was a helicopter, but ignored the thought. He idly traced the glittering contours of his pyramid, before he turned to Pandora. “So. While we’re here, lets figure out why you were trying to defeat me…”

            The man frowned. “I told you that he was going to help me get my Catherine back!”

            “You never said how.”

            Pandora glared. “He said that if I killed you, I would have the money to pay for plastic surgery.”

            “Ohh…” Yami nodded, finally understanding. Pandora made so much sense when he wasn’t ranting or raving. Maybe seeing real magic had knocked some sense into him. Good. But he still wasn’t quite ready…

            Then again, he had forgiven Pegasus for what Relinquished had done to Mother.

            But that was physical injury. This was different!

 

            They had finally sensed the arrival of Kaiba’s helicopter, a rope ladder had been lowered, and Kaiba had kindly allowed them to return to Kaiba corp., when something – or rather someone – appeared, startling Yuugi and Seto and Pandora.

            Yami almost fell off the ladder as he recognized her. “Mana, what are you doing here?” the Black Magician Girl looked worried.

            Yuugi stared.

            Seto stared.

            Pandora felt a bit annoyed – after all, she was the monster who had led to his defeat. Damn that Black Magic Curtain!

 

            “Yami! Your Mother, she…”

            “My mother?” Yami froze, one hand still gripping the rope ladder. “What’s wrong with my Mother?”

            “She-she won’t wake up…”

            That was all the incentive Yami needed to open a portal to the Shadow Realm and jump through. Could he help it that he overestimated the area and accidentally brought the other three back with him?

            They faded into view in the Castle. Mahaado was laying on a bed, with Mystical Elf and Dian Keto the Cure Master hovering over her anxiously. Her wrists had been cleaned and wrapped in clean linen, and overall, she looked fine. The rest of the injuries had faded with the right Healing spells, but…

            She wouldn’t wake up.

 

            “Is she breathing?”

            “Yes, Master.” Mystical Elf said quietly. Black Magician Girl looked around nervously, before she began to do her own scan. A wave of light pink magic passed over the Queen’s prone body.

            Yami frowned. “But she won’t wake up.”

            “No.”

 

            He nodded. Perhaps it was some side effect of the Ring… wait a minute… she wasn’t wearing the Sennen Ring?          

            He let the power of the Puzzle shine around his neck – he heard Yuugi’s surprised cry as it visualized… oh, he still thought the fake one was real, didn’t he? And watched as the Ring flared into being on her chest…

            The pointers were bloody. That was not a good sign. And she was not stirring either. In fact…

            He felt his eyes glaze over as he reached across their Item-Item bond and into her mind. It was a severe breach of privacy, but if it helped him locate her, well, it mattered little! There…

            He reached into her mind and found her asleep there as well, no, not asleep…she was dying, it looked like, bleeding profusely from the mouth, curled in upon her self. He had to admit he was surprised, but then again, she had shattered the bonds between her soul and self to save him – that was it!

            No wonder. Her Ka and Ba had been split. After centuries of being conjoined, no wonder she was going through problems. Now, he just had to figure out how to put her back together.

            “Mother….”

            She turned to look at him, and her eyes widened. “Yami… how?”

            “Never mind. Tell me what’s wrong.”

            She sighed. “I let my Ba free to protect you, Yami, you know that… now… I’m not sure where it went.”

            Oh dear.

 

End Chapter

Completed 5/1/06

… Mahaado can be a bit of a ditz, occasionally.

I don’t like Pandora, and I thought my explanation for plastic surgery was slightly better than… hold on a second. Who the heck is running the Ghouls, now that I’ve removed Malik and Marik? Guess it’s time to create a generic stupid villain. Aiyah…