Light Amongst Shadows Part 4

“So what’s the card supposed to do?” Honda asked, “Besides make everything wet.”

“I’m hoping,” Oneesan replied as the four of them ducked for cover under a nearby bus shelter, “That even if it can’t wake everyone up, the rain can control some of the fires. Plus ‘Rain of Mercy’ is a lifepoint recovery card. So it might heal a few of the people hurt by the wave.”

“Nice.” Jou grinned, “And while it’s healing people we can focus on smashing the bad guys.”

“Okay, small issue.” Honda scowled, “Where are the bad guys?”

“I don’t know.” Oneesan reluctantly admitted, “And I’ve lost Bakura.”

“You’re kidding me.” Oneesan scowled at Jou’s deadpan tone, “So we’ve got nowhere to start, nowhere to go AND we’ve lost track of the tracker?”

“I have some idea of where to start.” The spirit of the Millennium Puzzle shook her head. “If we head further in, where the Shadows are thicker, we’ll probably find the centre of this whole mess.”

When the gang decided that made sense, they started heading further into the centre of Domino. It was just as bad further in, worse in fact, due to the crowding. They could feel the Shadows crowding as they moved amongst the sleeping masses though as they went. None of them liked the feeling and Honda distinctly missed the days before he had been exposed to the Shadows often enough to know what they felt like.

Oneesan was the most on edge. She hated the Shadows passionately. Though she drew most of her power from them, she still remembered her time trapped within them and they took every opportunity they could to try and drain Imoto-chan’s energy. Even now, with the wards she had up to protect her little sister she could feel the Shadows just waiting. Looking for a gap in their defences took take advantage of in order to draw from the purest source of light available.

She could feel Imoto-chan’s reassurance even as she could sense her apprehension. Her little sister did not like the Shadows anymore than Oneesan did, but both girls could see their uses and Imoto-chan was as convinced as always that Oneesan could get them out of this, safe and sound. Whatever ‘this’ was.

Oneesan just wished she knew what she was leading her friends into. There had been no warning at all before that wave had hit, no signs of what had been afoot before it had already struck. The last time someone had attacked them before they’d had any warning, the last few times in fact, things had nearly ended very badly for all of them.

Still she had the advantage, at least for the moment. She could feel that even as the Shadows deepened, her powers were stronger than those of whoever was controlling this fiasco. The darkness had swarmed the city but it was the upper levels of the realm, what she referred to as level one, where they wanted to feed on Imoto-chan’s light, but if exposed to it they would burn away quickly.

As far as she was aware, the only way to control the deeper levels was with a Millennium Item and she knew where almost all of those were. But then she had thought that about the upper layers too, and obviously she had been wrong about that.

“Bakura knew something.” Anzu grouched as they got lost in the alleys close to the city centre, not that far from the former site of the Black Star Game Shop, “Why couldn’t she just give us a straight answer?”

“Because she never gives us a straight answer.” Jou replied, just as irritated with this wild goose chase as the rest of them, “She never seems to lie to us, not anymore anyway, but she never gives us any real answers either. We always end up having to work out the full truth for ourselves.”

“She seemed to want us to stay out of this.” Yugi sent over the link to her other self, pondering the conversation and the situation over in her mind since she had little else to do, as Oneesan wouldn’t let her come out again for her own safety. “I think whatever’s happening, it links back to what she was talking about before, you remember? Just before she went to confront Marik?”

Oneesan had not actually been there for that conversation, Imoto-chan had not been wearing the Puzzle. However her little sister had told her about it afterwards, when she had awoken from her nap to find Bakura had gone up against Marik and lost, leaving Marik up one Millennium Item and Yugi down another friend.

‘You mean about not wanting the Items to fall into the hands of anyone with evil intentions?’ Oneesan asked, having been confused by that statement at the time.

“Yeah.” Yugi returned, “She’s only ever wanted them to end up in our hands, or hers. She doesn’t seem to care much which, as long as they were together and she knew where we were.”

Oneesan would have replied, but something in the Shadows was shifting, moving closer to their location. When she stopped and glanced around, the Puzzle glowing slightly the boys moved into defensive positions, ready to protect the girls.