Bakura stands behind Joey. Not that the mutt can see him of course. Spirits do have that nifty little trick called invisibility. However…there is a far different problem at hand. Even with the Pharaoh's goon as a buffer, the wind caused by the influx of power still causes Bakura's hair to whip back. Feelings of ice blast across his transparent body, and he frowns at the sensation. One isn't supposed to feel temperature in spirit form.

The wind dies as quickly as it formed. The complete stillness ringing in Bakura's ears as the ice storm ceases to scurry across his skin.

Even in the wake of the silence and with his spiritual bond to Ryo nearly closed, there is a certain…tingling throughout Bakura's body. Almost like a chill, but not quite. The coolness is strongest in his hands, the copies of the same ones Ryo had used to channel his white magic. Frowning, Bakura stares at them while ignoring the floor visible beneath his palms.

Light and Shadow magic generally don't mix.

A flash of movement causes Bakura to look up in time to see Tea staring at the corpse lying in the doorway. He smirks coldly as he waits for the inevitable horror of realizing her precious Yugi actually killed someone, but… Tea ignores the bodies. Certainly both of them caught her eye for a moment, but then her attention turns to the Pharaoh, who she envelops in a hug. Joey, apparently missing or ignoring Tea's dismissal, rushes towards his friends and quickly kneels besides Ryo.

"Tea, what happened?!" The panic spikes high in Joey's voice.

"I'm, I'm okay." The words seem directed more to herself than anything. Eventually, though, she seems to remember the one she is holding and pushes the Pharaoh away by few inches.

"It's okay." She says even though no obvious fear or anger glint through the red eyes that meet hers. "I'm okay." As she hugs him tightly again, the Puzzle Spirit looks past her shoulder and towards the other two. The lack of emotions in his gaze doesn't change, but the tense shoulders encased in Tea's arms loosen

Bakura stiffens when those red eyes appear to focus on him, but then lets out the tension in a hiss as he notes the far away look. Unseen by all, he glares, but his eyes widen when he feels Landlord's connection waver.

His light half slumps against Joey's shoulders.

"Ryo!" The mutt lets out in a panicked bark.

The boy has enough energy to keep himself from falling completely, but when he looks up to Joey's face, green eyes are glazed over with exhaustion.

"It's alright. I'm…just tired." The words are low and the voice a murmur. Neither quality stops Tea from breaking her hug and turning to Ryo, nor do they stop Joey from bracing his arm against the boy's upper back.

Bakura lets the connection open wide between Landlord and him, wincing as the coolness in his hands turns to ice. At least they haven't disintegrated or any of the other, more unpleasant, reactions he was expecting.

The glare of before returns as Bakura notices the Pharaoh scrutinizing his Landlord.

"He'll be fine after he rests." Come the Pharaoh's words after Tea has already begun to fuss over their friend.

Oh, and you're such an expert, your Highness.

Unfortunately, Bakura's scowl remains unseen by the silent group.

"We should leave." As he speaks, the Puzzle Spirit stands. "The one that escaped may bring others." He offers his hand to Tea.

It is still stained dark, but unlike Ryo, Tea's eyes are not caught on it. Instead, she stares right at the Pharaoh's face. Without any hesitation, she takes the hand and pulls herself up with ease. Uncertainty flits across her features and her free hand rests over the hole in her shirt.

"Can you stand?" Joey stares at Ryo, who slowly nods. The motion appears more like someone's attempts to stay awake rather than an actual confirmation, so disbelief resides in dark eyes. Yet, just as Joey's about to encourage Ryo into letting himself be carried, green eyes focus on the mutt's face.

"I can stand." The voice is steadier than before as it comes out of a neutral line of a mouth.

In the back of Bakura's head, Landlord's awareness slips into the unconscious. His now corporeal limbs weigh down heavily, and it takes most of Bakura's will to keep himself upright.

This isn't right. I have far more than enough power to be able to stand.

But Bakura cannot. Somehow, the control he tries to exert over his limbs brings about the sensation of sliding on ice, and it takes far too much effort just to keep a hold of the body and to not slip back out into spirit form.

"Hey, Ryo, let me help you up." And that offer forces Bakura to keep the growl from clawing out. Joey, inattentive as always, fails to notice the frown on his "friend's" face.

It takes a minute, but they make it past the obstacle in the doorway and eventually to the bottom of the stairs. No one pays much attention to the evidence of what happened. Tea's too busy wrapping her arm around the Pharaoh's and grasping his hand. Joey has to steady "Ryo" from every stumble on the steps. Bakura, for his part, is studiously ignoring the offensive arm against him. Well, at least the ice is helping to numb the sensation.

Until reaching the bottom of the stairs, everyone remains silent. But that changes when the ajar door bursts open from the blurred form of Tristan. A few feet inside, he stumbles to a halt when he catches a glimpse of his companions. Behind him, Miho staggers to the house and then leans against the doorframe, gasping for air.

"Hey guys, what hap-" Tristan's words catch when his shoe slides forward. While placing a hand for balance against the wall, his stare at his four companions breaks into a glance at the floor by his feet. The splotch under his shoe draws his eyes to the next splotch behind him and soon he sees the imprint on the outside door handle. The red handprint holds his stare for one long moment before he tries to turns back to the four. The sneaker in the living room doorframe stalls his attention though.

Bakura stomps on the urge to smirk as glee runs through his system. While Joey is a loyal mutt and Tea is too enamored with the Pharaoh to let a little thing like blood splattered on the walls ruin her perfect image of him, Tristan…Well, good, old reliable Tristan is a little less blinded by his own shortcomings.

"What the hell happened?" Tristan looks forward towards his friends again. The tone of his voice, far steadier than his first few words through the door, draws a quick glance from Miho. There is something in that tone. An undercurrent of knowledge that also darkens his eyes.

Tea still seems too dazed to react right, so it is Joey who speaks before the rest of them.

"Tea got attacked, and-"

"She was shot." And the Pharaoh's voice slits Joey's words and nicks everyone in the room. "Ryo healed her." Those next words slice off the panic growing in Tristan and Miho's eyes.

Tristan's panic that was cut short twists into anger. "Wait. Did that guy shoot her?" The anger in that voice presses down on the air.

Miho stares with wide eyes while stepping closer to Tristan's side. Tea tries to give a comforting smile, but it is barely an upward twitch of the lips before it dies on the tension. Joey looks from Tristan to the Pharaoh, his eyes shifting back and forth as he stares at the dark spirit's face, searching for something.

Bakura nearly frowns at the way Tristan is so easily distracted (he really shouldn't have gotten his hopes up), but then the faintest of noises, a small hitch of breath, catches his attention.

It appears that the Pharaoh noticed Joey's search.

The irony of it, if this was an opponent desperately looking for the Pharaoh's humanity before the guillotine fell, the dark spirit would have merely stared straight ahead, his crimson eyes blank slates where any human emotion had sloughed off long ago. Now, a friend showing a hint of doubt…

Well, that's a different story now, isn't it?

A red stare flickers from Joey to Tristan and back again before uncertainty grows in the Pharaoh's eyes. Now, they almost look soft enough around the edges to be mistaken for Yugi's.

"No," The Pharaoh glances once to each of his friends. "The one who did is upstairs, as is his companion." The voice does not slide through the air with the same smoothness of before, but instead lingers with hesitation over each word.

"Are they-" Tristan steps forward before his words are interrupted.

"They're dead. They and their other two companions misstepped in their Shadow Game and lost." Quiet although they may be, those words bring a certain stillness to the room.

From his spot leaning against Joey, Bakura watches and waits for the first reaction

Tea's sharp intake of breath precedes the flick of her hair as she turns to look at her friend. For only a mere moment more, there is silence.

"I was merely…They had hurt Tea, I couldn't tend to her if…" As if the cold of the room chills them, the Pharaoh's hands shiver almost imperceptibly. "I used the Puzzle's power to make their inner selves appear as illusions on the outside…" There is a little weakness in the tone.

Tea gasps, eyes round with horror as she throws her arms around her smaller friend. "Oh, Yugi, it's okay."

The one she called Yugi doesn't move, doesn't even seem to breathe as his gaze flickers back and forth between the others. Joey stares back, not saying anything until the Pharaoh's gaze settles on him.

The boy who's spent most of his childhood on the rougher side of Domino gives his friend a grim nod. "There's not much you could have done, Yug'. They had guns."

From the bottom of the stairs, Tristan rubs his hand across his forehead and eyes. "Damn…" Something in the adolescent deflates.

As Miho nods pointlessly, Bakura closes his eyes so as not to witness the visible relaxation of the Puzzle Spirit.

"What about Yugi?" The thought strikes him, sudden and unexpected, but completely obvious in hindsight. Tea, the lovesick fool. Miho the groupie. Tristan and Joey, twin examples of Domino's finest ghettoes. Of course none of them would react to this appropriately. But kind, little Yugi who goes out of his way to befriend any down-trodden weakling, who shows such horror at even a little violence.

"Does he… Did he see…?" With a quiet, soft tone, Bakura shoves down every little bit of glee that threatens to seep into his voice.

The ease in the Pharaoh's eyes evaporates.

Oh, you kept him locked in a box, didn't you? Naughty Pharaoh, I thought only I was supposed to do that.

As Bakura hangs his head, half-feigned exhaustion an excuse to hide his eyes with his bangs, the Pharaoh steps out of Tea's hold. Even as they widen, the softness around his eyes is still there.

"He's asleep." That voice is so thin compared to the thick velvet of the Pharaoh's usual tones.

Bakura almost laughs out loud.

"I'll tell him." Tea says firmly. "When he wakes up later, I'll talk to him." She doesn't try to reach for the Pharaoh. "He'll understand, don't worry." Her last words are said kindly.

Bakura almost growls past gritted teeth. Even if there is a guarantee of some kind of fallout later, the girl's words have not doubt lessened the Puzzle Spirit's fears.

"Even if Yugi… accepts this." The Pharaoh's eyes remain on Tea as he speaks. "There's still the fact that we were only attacked by pawns" At this, his crimson gaze looks over the room at large. The statement seems to sink into the others thoughts, and Bakura can feel the grip that Joey has on him tighten.

"None of the people who are…left in this house were the voice from the recording, and I most certainly did not sense Klamath when I came here." As his eyes lose that softness that matched his host's, the usual confidence slips back into the Pharaoh's tone. The rising apprehension in his friends' eyes is something that he understands how to control, so of course it settles him.

And they say that I'm the bad one, at least I know how to navigate a conversation without a little fear-mongering.

"I assume that you all understand that this is not over." The Pharaoh says as he once again states the obvious. "Whoever those two were, we now know that they have the resources and a detailed enough knowledge of the Items' limitations to concocted this sort of trap. Just because they failed once does not mean they will not try again with a more difficult attack."

Even in the low light of the hall, everyone's expressions of ill ease are visible.

"What are we going to do about that?" Joey stares at the Puzzle Spirit. His tone sinks lower than its usual volume.

The Pharaoh focuses slowly on him. Joey does not falter from the full weight of those crimson eyes.

"Well, we prepare to the best of our abilities of course." There is a second of silence. "And keep a better watch on any new faces in Domino."

Klamath's orange eyes shine with fear.

The two walk up the endless stone steps while Coppermine watches the boy's face. The few torches sparsely placed along the stair ledge brighten the boy's sweat with each pass, coloring the beads the same orange as his eyes. Even though Coppermine's features do not catch the torchlight the same way (his eyes glow too much to properly trap any light not their own), his outfit reflects the flames far more interestingly than Klamath's plain cloak. For each torch they pass by, orange crawls in threads across the black leather. While his upper arms are bare, the long leather armbands on Coppermine's lower arms encase his limbs in a meteor-filled night.

As they grow ever closer to the end of the stairs, Klamath does not look up once, too caught up in whatever thoughts are making him sweat. Sometimes, though, a whisper from over the ledge draws the boy's attention to the side. The shifting amongst the trees stretched out below the towering staircase always makes Klamath lean a little closer to Coppermine.

For a moment Coppermine wastes a thought trying to figure out whether Klamath's nervousness stems more from the landscape below or from the failure of their assignment. A few steps later, Coppermine shrugs because it really does not matter.

The sight ahead of them though, now that is important. Before them, tall stone towers reach into the starless night. Beyond the coming edge of the last stairs rests a stone platform and the balcony that looks over it. Stepping over the top of the stairs, Coppermine ignores the numerous torches that illuminate the platform and instead looks up at the balcony. The balcony is the highest spot, a proper place for a leader to look down upon his minions and to judge them for their failures. In other words, it is the most dramatic spot, so it wouldn't be surprising to see the one he is searching for standing there.

A glimpse of white catches his vision. Standing a little ways away from the balcony's edge is what appears to be a young man. Green hair reaches below the white coat collar and a green eye, the only one that is visible in the torches' strange patterns of light and shadow, stares at him neutrally.

Coppermine waves. His gaze travels a little to the left of the one on the balcony and to the only other person up there. Dressed in black, another green-haired man leans his arms on the ledge and stares down with disapproval shining clear in his gaze. Coppermine's nonchalant attitude was not well received.

Pete Coppermine shrugs at one twin's disapproval and ignores the other's neutrality before looking away from them and back down at the platform he stands on. Besides him, Klamath stands stiff and straight as he stares straight ahead at the watching figures. As a smile tugs at his lips, Coppermine almost chuckles at the sight of the seven in front of him.

In the shadows under the balcony stands a man, his hair short and bristling like his eyes. Away from him, closer to the end of the staircase, wait the rest of the six scattered across the platform. Somehow, one manages to make the chaos look centered around him. With a smile playing on his lips, the one in the center surveys the new arrivals.

Coppermine shakes his head with a snort. Leaders are not supposed to be cheerful about their minions' failures.

"Judging by your lighthearted attitude, Mr. Coppermine, I assume you were successful in retrieving the Millennium Puzzle." The words come from the shortest of the figures. The feminine voice that carries them holds age as well. Yet, despite its maturity, the voice does not know frailness and comes out as sharp as the glint of its owner's glasses in the torch light.

Coppermine smirks and closes his eyes while his hand finds the back of his head.

"Nope, this is the guilt-inspired playful attitude." The cheeky words bring a sigh from one of the others. Eyes that glimmer a pale orange close as a man presses a hand to his temple.

"So you failed then." The orange-eyed man's tone lacks surprise under its dreadful expectation.

"Now, now, that is unfortunate." The center figure steps forward, his voice reaching out farther than any who have spoken before him. "I guess the majority-supported plan failed its little field test."

Besides Coppermine, Klamath flinches at the man's emphasis. Within the boy's nervous bubble, he fails to hear the orange-eyed man sigh again. Coppermine merely opens his own eyes and stares.

"I suppose it has." The shortest acknowledges. "Yet, you do not sound that disappointed." As if the coming reaction tires her, the woman rests against the back of her wheelchair.

The center man waves off the stern words with a hand. "Well, of course I'm disappointed. That was our safest plan, the one that involved as little fanfare as possible, and while I myself did not come up with it, I was certainly rooting for its success."

"Yeah, sure you were." Mumbles the orange-eyed man. On the balcony above, the second twin's stare of disapproval deepens into a glare at the center man.

The center's next words trample the mumble. "In light of this failure, we have no choice but to refer to my more public and fun-sorry, I meant to say riskier, back-up plan." The amusement in that tone rises up as though announcing the concept. "And while Klamath here is the only one besides myself who supported it, there is no other plan waiting in the wings to save us."

For his part, some of the nervousness has slid off of Klamath's face, and his eyes light up with hesitant happiness that their leader positively referred to him. Coppermine simply keeps smiling and lets the playful voice fill his current thoughts. The others sit in silence.

"Now that that is settled. How did the little mission go, Coppermine? I want to hear all about the close escapes and grisly details." The center man's hands come together in anticipation.

"Close escape" does it. Two words let an image of a boy with white hair slip past the mind-blocking veil of the present conversation.

Across the room, where one of the eyes of the center man's should be, a glint of gold strikes out in the darkness.

"Or perhaps you could start with why the owner of the Millennium Ring was there." Gone is the amusement and playfulness, for while the tone still sounds lighthearted, a sharp undercurrent courses through it.

The others react in their own little ways. Under the balcony, bristly hair's eyes darken while the elder lady's glasses glint even more as she moves slightly. Orange eyes open and the man allows a frown to mar his face. On the balcony above, disapproval and neutrality disappear into twin looks of surprise.

Klamath's head swerves towards Coppermine. His brow furrows in confusion as he glances back to the others whom tension weighs down. The last confrontation with the Ring Spirit was before his time.

Coppermine ignores him, and instead tries to maintain the same smile while ignoring the twitch in one of his hands.

"Well, it wasn't quite the Millennium Ring Spirit…" He trails off, lets the conversation from that day play clearly in his head as he watches strands of silver hair shift and that gold glint out again.

The center man stays silent, and that alone causes the twitch in Coppermine's hand to occur again.

"I see." The words come softly. "So, Bakura has been weakened."

Following those words is the silence (and it is a complete silence for the wind does not whisper that night) which comes when a decision has already been made.

"Well then, it looks like we'll be having yet another Millennium Item owner join in on our fine tournament." The glint of gold is even more prominent than before as the man's cheerful tone catches on everyone's ears. The man looks away from Coppermine then and to the one on the balcony who has gone back to staring with disapproval.

"Who knew that Duelist Kingdom would grow to be so exciting." Maximillion Pegasus says as the Millennium Eye peers out into the darkness.

AN: I've posted the first chapter of a new story called The City of Dominos. Technically, it's a prequel to this and the Ghost, but I've tried to write it more as a companion piece that can be read on its own, before, or after this story. As a warning, each work does have mild to minor spoilers for the other ones, but I'm trying to keep the most major plot points hidden.

In other news, I also have a poetry account at /TheraLance/poems/ on HelloPoetry. So, if any one is interested in poetry about snake gods and the beginning of the universe, a few pieces of social commentary, supernatural romances, and dystopian relationships, come on over to check it out. If you're not interested in poetry, come over anyway; I've had plenty of people who've hated poetry in school like my free verse.