The Path of Vengeance

“It’s late, Yami. You should try to get some sleep. You haven’t gotten any since all this started.”

Yami gave Ryou a tired smile. “I’m alright,” he replied.

Ryou frowned. “You’re going to make yourself sick. Yugi’s only been asleep for a little while so I doubt he’ll wake up anytime soon. And if he does its not like you’ll be gone. He can wake you up if he needs to.”

“Ryou and I will be here, Yami. If Yugi needs anything we can help him,” Malik added.

“I’d rather stay with him a little longer,” Yami admitted. “Why don’t the two of you go and get some dinner for the three of us?”

Ryou took the hint. It was obvious that Yami needed a moment alone. “Okay. Come on, Malik, let’s go.” He gave Yami a hug and the pair stepped out of the room.

Yami turned back to his sleeping light, grateful for the peace that solitude offered-however brief it may be. The guilt in his conscience had become almost too much to bear, nearly crushing him with the weight of it.

“Yugi,” he whispered, taking the teen’s hand. “I know you’ll make it through this. You’re strong. I’ve seen the strength that you carry. Everyone is rooting for you, Aibou. Joey, Tristan, and…and Tea all need you. I need you too. I’ve gotten to where I rely…on your presence to give me…my strength.” Tears were streaming down his face, his voice shaking with every heartfelt word. “You don’t…have to be strong right now though, Yugi. Everyone…needs help at some…point. We all want to be able to do…for you what you’ve done for us so often. You’ve got all of us…rooting for you.”

He let go of Yugi’s hand in order to untie the Millennium Puzzle from around his neck. “You need this more than me, Aibou. All of my power lies dormant in this item. Take as much as you need.” He fastened it around the neck of his hikari and stood up straight, drying his eyes.

“Hey, Yami?”

Yami sighed. So much for seclusion. He turned to see Tristan standing in the doorway. “Tristan? I thought you went home.”

Tristan shook his head. “There’s no way I could sit at home right now. He stepped into the room and sat in the chair opposite of where Yami was standing. “How is he doing?”

Yami sat as well. “About the same,” he replied. “I expect we’ll speak with his healer in the morning.”

“Healer? Oh, you mean his doctor.”

“Yes,” Yami replied.

Tristan took a deep breath. “I see his puzzle is safe,” he said, finding the perfect opening.

“It was left on the counter in the game shop. By Bakura I’d wager.”

“What about his duel deck?”

“Gone,” Yami replied. “I’m sure Bakura’s having a lot of fun with it.” He began to choke up again.

“So he had it when Bakura got to him?” Tristan pressed.

“Of course,” Yami replied. “You know my Yugi…he never went anywhere without it.”

Tristan froze. How the fuck did Seto end up with it??

“Here Yami, we brought you some of—Tristan.” Ryou halted in the doorway.

Tristan stood up, grateful for the opportunity to leave. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Yami.”

“Good night, Tristan,” Yami replied. He turned to the two in the doorway. “It’s okay, little one,” he said to Ryou.

“Hope you like fried rice,” Malik said cheerfully.

“That’s fine. Thank you, Malik.”

//Hey, Ryou.//

Ryou’s eyes widened. “Excuse me,” he said politely, stepping back into the hallway. /Bakura?/

//None other.//

/How are you? Where are you?/

//I’m okay. To be honest, I don’t know where we are exactly.//

Ryou raised an eyebrow. /How can you not know where you are?/

//All I can say is that we are on a plane. I said I’d check in so here I am./

/Okay,/ Ryou said. /Be careful, yami./

//Of course.//

Ryou felt Bakura close their link and he leaned against the wall, glad to know that the tomb robber was okay but upset at the same time.

“Marik will take care of him, you know.”

Ryou sighed. “So you know then?”

Malik joined him on the wall. “Yep.”

“I don’t know what to do. This is all so fucking hard.”
“I can’t give you any advice on this, Ryou. I’d die protecting my yami but then again I’m not sleeping with his arch rival.”

“I’m not sleeping with Yami,” Ryou said. “But I get your point.”

“Well mine is not to question,” Malik said. “You do what you have to. But don’t you fucking dare tell Yami that Marik is with Bakura. Everyone thinks that he’s still here.”

The threat in Malik’s voice was clear. “I won’t,” Ryou replied obediently.

“Good. I’ll be by tomorrow to see how Yugi is doing. Take care Ryou.”

“Sure,” Ryou replied. He watched Malik’s back until it disappeared through the elevator doors before returning to the room.

He found Yami in the chair next to Yugi’s bed, the former pharaoh’s head resting next to his light, his breathing even. He was asleep. Ryou covered him with a blanket and curled up in the chair on the other side of Yugi. It was going to be a long night.



“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We’ll be landing in the Newark Liberty International Airport in approximately ten minutes. Please make sure your seatbacks and tray tables are in the upright and locked position for landing.”

Bakura poked Marik in the side. “Hey Sleeping Ugly, wake up. We’re about to land.”

Marik’s eye cracked open. “Look who’s talking you albino freak.”

Bakura snickered, buckling his safety belt. “Strap yourself in, baby,” he said with a lewd grin.

“Thank the Almighty Ra! We’re almost there!”

“Not quite,” Bakura stated. “We’ve still got another flight to take.”

Marik moaned loudly and buckled himself in. “Fuck, Bakura, why’d you choose a place so far away?”

“What? Me! You’re the one who chose this place!”

“Don’t remind me.”

The plane began its descent, drawing a mutual groan from the pair. “I’m gonna be sick,” Marik mumbled.

“Fuck no you aren’t!” Bakura exclaimed. “Get the hell away from me with that shit.”

The plane lurched toward the earth once again. Marik turned a wicked shade of green. “I don’t feel so good…”

“I swear to Ra, Ishtar, if you vomit on me I will cut out your tongue, turn it inside out, and use it to loofah my ass!”

Marik raised an eyebrow. “What the hell, Bakura? It’s already licked your ass enough. If you cut it out then you’ll have to do all the work yourself.”

Bakura blinked, paused, and burst out laughing. “You got me,” he admitted. “It was an empty threat.”

The distraction did its job in taking Marik’s mind off of his stomach. The two exchanged lewd jokes and smart-ass comments, much to the dismay of the other patrons, for the duration of the landing.


They fought their way through the other passengers in order to be the first off the plane. Upon their arrival in the terminal they were stopped by a man in a blue uniform. “Good evening, gentlemen. May I see your tickets please?” They passed them to the man. “Going to Las Vegas? Good for you. You’ll need to go through Customs before proceeding to your connecting flight. Turn right at the end of this hallway and it will be on your left side.”

“Customs? What the fuck is that?”

The employee’s eyes widened at the vulgar language but he immediately composed himself. “First time traveling abroad?”

Bakura snickered. “Sort of,” he replied.

“Well don’t worry. They’ll just ask you a few questions, check your baggage, and you’ll be on your way.”

“We don’t have any baggage,” Marik said.

“Then it will be that much faster.”

The pair walked away from the man without offering their thanks and headed down the hallway.

“Oh hell,” Marik stated upon seeing the line beneath the U.S. Customs sign.

“We can try to sneak up front,” Bakura suggested.

“Does that mean we’ll have to get back on the plane faster?”

“Probably.”

“Then we’ll wait,” Marik said quickly, stepping up behind a rather large man with nine bags.

“Holy hells I’ve got to take a piss,” Bakura whispered.

“Right there with you,” Marik replied. “How long do you think this will take?”

“How should I know?” Bakura looked around. He spotted the international stick figure of a man on a solid oak door. “There’s the pisser,” he said with a nod of his head. “You hold our place, I’ll be right back.”

“Hurry up, I’m after you.” He shifted from foot to foot, stretching his sore legs and back. After a few moments Bakura returned, looking remarkably less peeved.

“Your turn,” he said. While Marik trotted off to heed nature’s call Bakura did a quick survey of the area. The place was crawling with police. Under different circumstances he’d have entertained himself in the long line by tormenting them but he didn’t think that would be wise.

“That was so utterly relieving,” Marik stated upon his return. He performed a similar scan. “Hey they’re asking for passports. That’s twice now that people have wanted to see these damn things.”

Bakura laughed. The pair had taken their hikari’s respective passports several months back to use as identification in case they got caught on one of Bakura’s nightly robberies. “Who knew they’d come in so handy?”

Nearly forty-five minutes later they made it to the front of the line and stepped up to the counter.

“Good evening, gentlemen. May I see your passports, please?”

“Sure,” Marik replied. They placed them on the counter.

“Mr. Ishtar, what is your citizenship?”

“My what?”

“Your country of origin.”

“Oh. Egypt.”

“I see. And Mr. Bakura?”

Bakura hid a grin. “England,” he lied easily.

The man nodded. “And what would be your purpose for visiting the United States?”

“Shits and giggles?” Marik suggested.

“We’re on holiday,” Bakura stated quickly, covering Marik’s indiscretion.

The clerk narrowed his eyes. “And do you have anything to declare?”

“Declare?” Bakura repeated. “Um, no.”

“And may I see your luggage?”

Marik shook his head. “We don’t have any.”

“You have no luggage?”

“Um, no,” Bakura interjected. “We’re on holiday to purchase clothes and necessities.”
The man raised and eyebrow. “And your final destination?”

“Las Vegas.”

“How fun for you. Next please,” he said loudly, sliding the passports back across the counter.

“Yeah, thanks,” Marik said sarcastically. He turned to Bakura. “So where to now?”

“I don’t know,” Bakura replied. They walked to the entrance into the body of the airport. “Hey look. There’s a TV that tells us where to go.”

“Oh sweet,” Marik noted. He looked at his flight itinerary. “We need to be on flight 760.”

Bakura struggled to read the screen. He, like Marik, was able to speak and understand English to an extent but reading it was another matter. “Alright I think I got it,” he said. “’Flight 760 departing from gate D6 at 7:30pm’. Seven-thirty pm? That can’t be right.”

“Boy did they fuck up,” Marik stated. “It’s after nine in the morning.”

“Either that or they jacked up our tickets.” Bakura led the way to the Customer Service desk. “Hey, when does our flight leave?” he asked the woman bluntly.

“Well I don’t know, sir. May I see your tickets?”

Bakura slapped them onto the counter. “Your television says that we are supposed to be on the plane at seven thirty pm.”

The clerk scanned the document. “Yes, that’s correct. You’d better hurry, your flight leaves in about twenty minutes.”

“Didn’t you hear what he said?” Marik interjected. He pointed to his watch. “It’s almost nine-thirty in the morning.”

The woman smiled. “No gentlemen. We are on Eastern Standard Time. It is now just after seven pm.”

“You’re trying to tell me that we went back in time? What kind of baka do you take me for?”

“No, no. There are many time zones around the world. Now you’d better hurry or you’ll miss your connecting flight.” She turned to help another customer.

“Well if that isn’t a major goat fuck,” Marik muttered. He reset his watch to match that of the clock above the woman.

“Let’s go,” Bakura said.

They found their gate and quickly boarded the plane, grateful to be out of the chaos of the airport. “I’m fucking tired,” Marik said.

Bakura yawned. “Me too. What do you say we use these last four hours to sleep?”

“Deal.”

They buckled their safety belts and leaned against one another, waiting for the horror of take-off to pass so they could get the rest they deeply desired.



Seto Kaiba sat behind the grand desk in his office at Kaiba Corp, furiously pounding on his keyboard. He had been up all night trying to decide what to do about the damned thief.

“Mr. Kaiba, a Mr. Freling is here to see you.”

“Its about damn time,” Kaiba growled, pressing the intercom button on his desk phone, cutting off his secretary.

The door to his office opened a moment later and Mr. Freling stepped inside. “Good morning, Mr. Kaiba,” he said.

“You’re late,” Kaiba replied.

“My apologies,” he replied. “But it took me awhile to find a parking space.”

“I’m not interested in your problems. I want to know how you intend to find the thief.”

“Well there are many options available to us,” he began. “I reviewed the video clip that you emailed to my office. The man does have a few distinguishing features so that will definitely aid in our search.”

“Do what you have to do,” Kaiba snapped. “But I want him found. You will find him, you will watch him, and you will report his every action to me immediately.”

“I understand. Is there any other information that you have that might help in our search?”

“I should think that if you were as good as you claim to be you would be able to locate him by sight only.”

Mr. Freling froze. He had been warned that Seto Kaiba was a hard ass but nothing could have prepared him for this verbal beating. It did, however do the trick. “I’ll find your man, Mr. Kaiba. But it’s going to cost you.”

Kaiba waved his hand in the air as if dismissing the topic. “Anyone of any importance in this country knows that money is not a concern of mine.”

“Very well, Mr. Kaiba. I’ll get right on it.” He turned to leave but stopped short at the sound of Kaiba’s voice.

“Mr. Freling.”

“Yes?”

“You have two weeks to locate him. If you have not found him in that time not only are you dismissed from the case, I will personally run your name into the ground.”


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And the drama goes on :). I warn you: we're nowhere near done yet :)