going forth by day
By Alecto Perdita
Part Two
Rating: G
Pairing(s): None
Warning(s): None at the moment
Posted: June 19, 2014

I made some minor edits to part one, mostly to fix the timeline for this story. In addition, I also added an endnote about everyone's approximate age in this story in the first part.

The café was situated a few blocks from the last tube station Yuugi had emerged from before he vanished. The coffee was serviceable, and the shade only offered minimal protection from the summer sun. But most importantly, the outdoor seating offered an unimpeded view of the sky and thus, an excellent uplink with the KaibaCorp satellite.

Raw and red, Rebecca's shoulders took the brunt of the sun's assault, while the tension in her lower back was further exacerbated by hours of hunching over her laptop. She stretched her arms up and surreptitiously checked on her tail out of the corner of her eyes.

The tail she had picked up outside of her hotel earlier this morning was seated two tables away and appeared entirely focused on the smartphone in her manicured hands. She wasn't convinced her stalker had anything to do with Yuugi's disappearance, but Kaiba's security people were never this subtle.

Her laptop had spent the better part of the morning running her custom face-recognition algorithm on CCTV footage taken from nearby cameras. It may be buggy and occasionally spitting out false hits, but not too terrible given she'd just programmed it from scratch yesterday.

Metal legs suddenly scrapped against cement— the sound was ear-wrenching. Someone was trying to share her table. Whatever rebuff she'd prepared died on her tongue as soon as she glanced up. Out of the corner of her eyes, she could see her would-be stalker had already vacated her post— gone without a trace.

"If Sherlock was so pressed to have a case, I could have readily supplied one." Mycroft Holmes announced as he sank into the chair across from her.

"Phone lady was one of yours then?" She scowled.

"You sound disappointed." He said as one hand swept the crumbs from her croissant off the tabletop.

"Actually, yes. Incredibly so."

Folding his hands together, he continued, "You've done well for yourself, Rebecca: entered university at the age of eleven, graduated top of your class, and then received a doctorate from the number one school in your field. Mummy is quite proud of your accomplishments."

In her head, an alternative conversation— the sort that sociable people without mighty sticks up their asses engaged in— was taking place.

Oh, how are you, Rebecca?

Long time no see, Mycroft.

Wow, you've grown up.

And you've lost weight.

Oh well, there was no point in being bitter about it. Mycroft had always regarded her as an intruder in his perfectly ordered world. And given his stiff posture and distant politeness, that was plainly still the case.

The smile stretched his lips so thin that she thought they might rip at the seams. "It's good to see that your more trivial pursuits didn't damage your prospects."

She took it back. She was so tired of the Holmes brothers constantly putting her down. If Mycroft was going to be an enormous asshole about it, Rebecca was going to respond in kind. "Yeah, won't you look at that? People can have both friends and hobbies, and not end up as abject losers."

Mycroft frowned. It gave his face that funny pinched look that reminded Rebecca of constipation. She choked down a batch of giggles, causing his glare to intensify.

"Be that as it may," he cleared his throat and straightened his back (as if that was anymore possible). "I wish to ensure there's no reason to have you arrested," he looked pointedly down at her laptop. "Or to have your computer confiscated."

Alarmed, she grabbed the machine, cradled it close to her bosom, and prepared to bolt. She might not get very far, but she wasn't going down without a fight. "You can't! I need this to find Yuugi!"

"And this friend of yours," he sneered. "He's worth breaking the law for?"

"Yes." How could she make him understand how important Yuugi was to her? But to a lot of other people as well? "Like you've probably done for Sherlock loads of time."

"Sherlock is family." He spoke like she was six years old again.

Refusing to be cowed, she raised her head high. "Yuugi's my family too. I'm not giving up on him."

When the laptop gave a sudden high-pitched beep, she clutched it closer. Her program must be done processing the second batch of footage she had fed it. Keeping one eye on her cousin, she peeked at the results window. The first two were obviously false hits from the start, but the last one that was time-stamped two afternoons ago lodged her heart in her throat.

The video was in color, so it was hard to miss Yuugi's hair as he wandered into view of the camera. He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, just under the camera to check a piece of paper he was holding. As his attention was elsewhere, a black van came barreling onto the scene and stopped just short of hitting him as it jumped the curb. Four people in masks (a jackal, an ibis, a lion, and an alligator) popped out of the back of the vehicle, grabbed Yuugi, and pulled a hood over his head before pulling him into the van. They fled as suddenly as they had appeared.

Feeling a bit light-headed now, she rewound the footage and watched it another time through. The camera sat on a corner only several blocks from where she currently was. She slammed the cover down and shot up out of her seat.

Mycroft watched her silently with an expression she didn't have time to decipher. He could try to stop her all he liked, but Rebecca Hopkins had never let anyone, even the British government, stand in her way.

"I have to go," she said as she swiftly packed her computer away.

Mycroft nodded, even if it was only the slightest tilt of his head.

As she turned to leave, Mycroft suddenly spoke up again. "My condolences about your grandfather, Rebecca."

The reminder of her grandfather's recent passing caught her by surprise and she almost tripped over her feet. Her grief rubbed her raw and made her feel like her skin was pulled too tight over her skeleton. He just wanted to get the last word in, she told herself. And she refused to lose anyone else so soon— not if she could do anything about it.

The streets raced past in a blur of concrete and brick. Rebecca couldn't remember the last time she had run so hard and so fast. Her lungs burned like they were on fire when she finally stopped, propped up against a lamppost to catch her breath. Glancing up at the signs at the intersection, she saw she was almost there. She pushed back the pain and kept going.

The street where Yuugi was taken was residential and relatively quiet. First, she located the camera and used its position to approximate where the van had stopped. Nothing had been left behind— not even tire marks. Desperate, she made several rounds up and down the street in search of any clues.

"Come on, Rebecca, you can do this! You're a goddamn genius. There must be something here!"

But she wasn't a Holmes. All she could see was a quiet street where her friend had been kidnapped some 50 hours ago.

"Fuck!" she shouted and her voice echoed back at her.

Okay, she needed to think this through. The van— she had to track the van that had taken Yuugi. That was the next logical step. But the license plate hadn't been visible in that particular view, so she would have to comb all the local footage for signs of similar vehicle. Worst case scenario, she would have to expand her search to the wider London area. This was where Sherlock's deductions would be useful in narrowing the possibilities.

She dug her cellphone out and dialed Sherlock's number. It rang several times before sending her to voicemail. She hung up and tried a second time, but her call went to voicemail again. When that didn't work, she called him a final third time without any better success. This time, Rebecca left a terse message demanding her cousin call her back as soon as possible.

She needed to take another look at the surrounding streets before she returned to work on her computer. Determined, she prowled the area in search of anything that could tell her something about what happened. She would come back and canvas door to door if she had to. What was Yuugi even doing in New Ham? It almost seemed as if he was searching for something.

She made one last return trip to the CCTV camera, taking photos of anything that might be relevant with her smartphone. The app was still zoomed in when she turned to take a photo of the building behind the camera. Through the viewfinder, she noticed a particular bit of graffiti on another building next to it. The bright yellow paint stood out among the other colorful tags like a beacon in the night. From a distance, that almost looked like...

Her feet moved automatically, taking her into the alley between the two buildings for a closer look. No, not the Wadjet Eye— but it was the same eye symbol found on every Millennium Item.

Rebecca's hands shook as she raised her phone to capture an image of the hieroglyphics splattered across the brick wall.

-x-x-x-

Save for the hum of his desktop computer, Kaiba's office was silent at long last. He closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair, soaking in the peace for as long as it would last. Because sooner or later, someone else would come knocking on his door and seeking information about Yuugi.

He sat up at the brisk rap on his door. "Come in," Kaiba called out in English.

Isono bowed upon entering the room. The older man straightened and approached Kaiba's desk without needing to be beckoned. "Seto-sama, you wanted a report on the tournament preparations."

Kaiba waved his hand as an indication for Isono to proceed.

"Almost 90% of duelists have already checked in for tomorrow's tournament. We expect to have 100% by sometime this evening. There was a delay in the construction of the main stage in Victoria Park, but I'm keeping a close eye on the matter and have a crew on standby if the contractors aren't done by this afternoon. Otherwise, all preparations are in place for tomorrow."

Kaiba nodded with approval, "Good." Isono had flown in a week ahead of him to personally oversee the tournament details. Even with everything else that was happening, they were on schedule for the tournament at least.

"Mokuba-sama asked me to pass along a message on his behalf. He regrets he will not be here to support you."

Kaiba smiled softly, mostly to himself. He quickly sobered and asked, "Did you tell him anything about Yuugi?"

"No, Seto-sama, I haven't. You told me not to."

"Keep it that way. Otherwise he'll be on the first plane over here. He needs to focus on his studies."

"He'll be very angry with you afterwards," Isono warned.

That was already a given. In the blink of an eye, it seemed as if his little brother had grown up from a precocious child to a somewhat reckless young man. He blamed that on the others' (but especially Jounouchi's) influence. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Kaiba grumbled.

"One final thing, Yuugi-san's friends— their plane will be landing in an hour."

Kaiba groaned. It was only a matter of time before the tag-alongs stormed his office, demanding some answers. Never mind that he was just as in the dark as they were, having last spoken with Yuugi a week ago. He hadn't even known something was wrong until Rebecca reached out to him last night. But Yuugi's friends rarely let that sort of logic get in the way of their jumping-head-first-without-looking philosophy.

"If they come here, refer them to Rebecca. I really don't want to see them before tomorrow." Out of the corner of his eyes, he spotted the wrinkled business card that John Watson had left behind. He snatched up the card and thrust it in Isono's direction. "Better yet, tell them to go bother this Sherlock Holmes."

"Of course, Seto-sama." Isono traded him for the card with the pile of reports he had brought in. He immediately pocketed the card.

Other than Mokuba and Isono, Kaiba didn't tolerate people hovering over him. Isono knew this, but rarely did he take advantage of it. Kaiba started counting back from 30 in his head. He managed to hit eight before Isono cleared his throat to speak again.

"If I may speak freely, Seto-sama?"

Amused, Kaiba raised an eyebrow at his longtime employee. "Since when have you ever needed my permission to do that?"

Isono smiled wryly, but the expression quickly faded as it was replaced by his usual neutral one. "We've been able to keep this under wraps so far. But people will talk if Yuugi-san doesn't make an appearance at tomorrow's opening ceremony."

"What would you have me do?" He passed a stack of signed documents to Isono. "Delaying the tournament would hardly help matters, and canceling is completely out of the question."

"But it may be for the best to prepare for a worst-case scenario." Isono suggested solemnly.

Kaiba was taken aback by the thought. It didn't necessarily rattle him, but it seemed so foreign. But for so many years since they first dueled, Yuugi had been a constant fixture in his life. The idea that Yuugi might no longer be there... Given everything that Yuugi had already been through, it seemed inconceivable.

He pushed the feeling down, covering his discomfort with a small smirk. "Don't you have any faith in me, Isono? I always have a plan."

-x-x-x-

When Sherlock demanded to see the hotel's security footage, the manager stonewalled him with a frosty smile. "We'd be happy to comply if you were with the police and have a search warrant."

"A man's life could be at stake!" He slammed his hands down on the countertop. A gasp rippled through the bystanders watching from around the lobby.

Despite a small flinch, the manager remained stalwart. "Sir, I would be happy to call the police if you wish to report an assault. Otherwise, I'm going to insist you calm down." She reached for the phone as she spoke.

John was ready to intervene— it was starting to get out of hand. But as soon as he took a step toward Sherlock, the man straightened and shed his previous indignation like a snake sheds its skin.

"That's won't be necessary. Come along, John." Sherlock twirled and stalked away from the front desk.

John flashed an apologetic smile at the manager, but she glared back with narrowed eyes. He could feel her suspicious gaze burning into his back across the length of the lobby. He followed Sherlock back to room 235, presumably Yuugi Mutou's hotel room. Upon entering, Sherlock threw the jackal mask down on the bed next to the opened suitcases and began digging through the suitcases with renewed vigor.

John stepped around the shards of broken glass littering the carpet to approach the room fridge. With a silent apology to the missing Yuugi, he took the half-empty bottle of soda inside and pressed it again his throbbing eye. "A warning next time would be appreciated," he snarked. "If you happen to be entertaining masked assailants."

Sherlock looked up. "I was similarly caught by surprise. It wasn't as if I was expecting to find him here."

For the first time, John noticed the red mark stripped across the front of Sherlock's neck. Sherlock had sounded kind of raspy when he was talking to the hotel manager. John marched up to the bed and caught the other man's attention by grabbing his arm. "Sit down," he commanded. "And let me take a look."

Without protest for once, Sherlock obeyed. John ran light fingers up and down the length of Sherlock's neck, checking for tenderness or signs of a deeper injury. "Any trouble breathing?"

"No, doctor." Sherlock rolled his eyes, but flinched halfway through when John pressed down on left cricothyroid muscle.

Satisfied with his examination, John stepped back and placed the cold soda bottled back to his black eye. "Fine, but tell me at the first sign of anything wrong." He held Sherlock's gaze until the other man gave a reluctant nod. John picked up the jackal mask with his free hand. After turning it over several times and unable to divine any further clues from it, he asked, "Why do you suppose he wore this in particular? There are more practical options if he just wanted to hide his face."

Sherlock pressed his fingers together and leaned forward, assuming one of his many thinking poses. "Because it's dramatic, John, theatrical. It leaves an impression."

"Did he say anything else?"

"Just—" Sherlock stopped abruptly, eyes flickering over in the direction of the suite's other room.

"What is it?"

But Sherlock provide no answer as he scrambled over the bed and bolted into the other room. Clenching his hand into a tight fist, John forced himself to stay where he was. He'd had enough of blindly following Sherlock around for one day. They were already falling back into old patterns as if nothing had changed.

(But everything had changed.)

If Sherlock was unwilling to acknowledge that, John was in no rush to point it out either. He resumed digging through Yuugi's luggage. Sherlock was unlikely to acknowledge him anytime soon, so John may as well start investigating on his own.

The small computer bag already set aside on top of the bed was the first thing that caught his attention. An iPad, a stylus, and some papers spilled out after he unzipped the bag and turning it over on the bed. He turned on the tablet first, and he sifted through the loose pages while waiting for the device to power up. One sheet was a printout of Yuugi's boarding pass from Japan to England, another was an email printout that John couldn't read, but it was the last page that gave him pause. John wasn't sure why Yuugi was keeping a blurry photo of himself.

The tablet chimed, booting up to the desktop without asking for a password. The apps were labeled in Japanese along with the rest of the OS' dialog. But previous experiences with iPads allowed John to locate the image gallery— Sherlock might be able to make better sense of the rest of its content later. There were a lot of photos stored in the gallery, dating all the way back to Yuugi's teenage years and chronicling his life since through birthdays, holidays, graduations, and dueling tournaments. Many of them featured the same core set of people: Katsuya Jounouchi whom John recognized, a tall brunet with sharp hair, a brunette girl with shoulder-length hair, an androgynous boy with long white hair, and an elderly man who appeared related to Yuugi. Sometimes, the Kaibas (Seto and/or Mokuba) were present in the peripherals. As time went on, others appeared in the albums with increasing frequency: a tall and buxom blonde often hanging off Jounouchi, an Arab family of three, a boy with a long ponytail and too much eyeliner, and Rebecca herself through the ages.

Yuugi himself transformed from a slouching teenager armed with only a sheepish smile to the confident young man always surrounded by friends and family.

Music started playing, breaking John from his reverie. The music stopped by the time he located its source: a mobile fallen under the hotel's desk. At first, he thought it might be the attacker's phone that fell out during the fight; or maybe it was even Yuugi's. The device started vibrating and ringing again in the palm of his hand.

The name of the caller simply read Becky.

The call rang out for the second time, and "Becky" called for the third time.

"Sherlock," John called. "I think Rebecca's trying to reach you."

"Busy!" Sherlock shouted back.

"You should take it. She's calling for the third time."

"I'm trying to concentrate, John!"

The mobile in his hand fell silent again, with the LED flashing to indicate one lone message waiting in Sherlock's voicemail.

-x-x-x-

Mrs. Hudson's mannerisms reminded Rebecca a lot of Auntie Holmes. Like Sherlock's mom, the landlady was quick with a smile and a tray full of cookies. She still had many fond memories of her beloved auntie, who treated Rebecca like one of her own and forever challenging Rebecca to seek out her limits. She brought the delicate cup of earl grey tea to her lips. Inhaling the citrus scent, her eyes fell closed and she allowed the smell to transport her to a country cottage.

Maybe after everything was sorted, she would go visit Auntie.

The sound of people trampling up the stairs intruded upon her memories of a cozy kitchen always ripe with the smell of baked goods.

Mrs. Hudson placed a hand on Rebecca's knee before speaking, "Oh boys, you're back! Sherlock, why haven't you introduced me to your delightful cousin before? She is such a dear! What on earth happened to you two?!"

The landlady's alarmed gasp forced Rebecca out of her sanctuary. She slowly opened her eyes and looked to the doorway, where Sherlock and John now stood. John's right eye was a swollen and bruised mess. Not that Sherlock seemed to fare all that better with his scrapped check and the fantastic band of bruise blooming across his neck like a choker. It looked if they'd gone several rounds with someone and lost.

"Someone caught us off-guard. It's nothing, really," John said sheepishly.

Mrs. Hudson patted her knee and stood. "Nonsense, I'll get some ice for the both of you from downstairs. God knows what you two are keeping in the freezer."

"No need to fuss, Mrs. Hudson. John is a doctor, he knows how to take care of himself." Sherlock rolled his eyes and stepped around the coffee table.

"Uh, I'll come with you and bring them up," John volunteered. He unloaded his armful of things down by the couch.

"Just as well, my hip is starting to act up again." She smiled fondly down at Rebecca. "I'm sorry to hear about this dreadful business with your friend. Don't you believe a word in those tabloids, Sherlock is the genuine thing. He is the best at what he does. He'll find your friend for you, won't you Sherlock?"

"Of course, Mrs. Hudson," he replied dutifully.

Rebecca lifted the cup back to her lips to hide her smile. Sherlock even talked to Mrs. Hudson in the same tone as he did to his mom.

"Come and visit any time, dear. You're always welcome here. I'll leave you alone to your business."

While John walked Mrs. Hudson downstairs, Sherlock stomped across the room and sunk into his armchair. The sound of something slapping against the metal bar of the chair drew Rebecca's attention. Her gaze landed on the jackal mask in his hand and she couldn't tear her eyes away. The pitter-patter of her heart was matched only by the rhythmic tapping of her feet and fingers. She glanced at her bag where her laptop and the footage on it was burning a figurative hole.

Sherlock brought the mask to rest in his lap and reached for his violin. He cradled the instrument against his chest, strumming a few notes. His attention was completely focused on a spot over the door though— as if Rebecca wasn't even in the room.

Intrigued, Rebecca studied her estranged cousin. She had never seen Sherlock waiting so eagerly for another human being. Puzzles and mysteries, sure— but another person? But just like her, Sherlock had changed and grown over the years. As she glanced around the mess in the flat, it was obvious to her how intertwined their lives had become.

"Why'd you do it?" She clapped her hand to her mouth, not sure how the question had slipped past her defenses.

"Pardon?" Sherlock's full attention was a lot like being hit with the spotlight as you stand alone on-stage— a bit blinding and paralyzing at first.

"Why did you fake your death?" she hesitated before adding, "Seems to me that there were less drastic ways to handle the situation."

"The situation was complicated."

Well, that was a non-answer. Rebecca pushed the subject as she was trained to by the nature of her work. "Complicated? I would have thought you'd enjoy a grand game of cat and mouse with Moriarty."

"Multiple people were in Moriarty's cross-hairs— all to get at me. It was what he wanted. Playing along with his demented plan was the quickest and most effective way to resolve the situation." Sherlock slumped back and grumbled while pointedly not looking at the stairs, "Even if some people don't appreciate the effort on their behalf."

She had a few guesses as to who he might be referring to. This petulance she remembered well too; the two of them shared much in common on that front. She decided to take pity on him. "Have you tried apologizing?"

Sherlock stared back blankly.

She sighed heavily, "You can't blame your friends and family for getting mad at you. Faking your death is generally not a cool thing to do, not to mention illegal."

He rolled his eyes so hard that she thought they might fall right out of their sockets.

"So of course we going to feel a little betrayed. Saying you're sorry is generally a good place to start." She glowered at him. "But try to mean it. You're shit enough at apologies as it is."

They stared silently at one another as the sound of John and Mrs. Hudson exchanging goodbyes echoed up the stair into the flat. When John finally returned with two washcloths holding ice, he lingered in the door for several beats. His gaze bounced uncertainly between her and Sherlock. "Am I interrupting anything?"

"No," Sherlock shifted in his seat— always an indicator of his discomfort. "Let's get to why you're really here, Rebecca."

"You would know if you bothered answering your phone."

"Oh right," John exclaimed and produced Sherlock's mobile phone from his jacket pocket. "I picked it up in the hotel room."

Sherlock took the phone but refused the ice offered in John's other hand. "We were busy working your case."

John took a seat in his own armchair and pressed the melting ice to his black eye. His gaze flitted between Sherlock and Rebecca, unabashed in his curiosity.

Rebecca crossed one leg over the other and straightened in her seat. Glancing back, she looked up at the evidence he'd mounted to the wall so far. "I know. You also went to see Kaiba earlier. I could have told you that he had nothing to do with Yuugi's disappearance. He's one of us."

"Your blind faith in others is reassuring as always," Sherlock sneered.

She bristled at his statement.

"You recognize this." He lifted the mask with the free hand not currently glued to the screen of his cellphone. When she extended a hand forward, Sherlock tossed the mask over, which she then caught.

She lifted the mask aloft and gazed into the empty eye holes. The long ears and muzzle were typical of the jackal depiction of Anubis. Rebecca didn't know much about latex masks, but there was a level of detail that suggested it was custom-made.

"One of Yuugi's kidnappers was wearing a mask just like this," she said.

"You have proof he was taken then?" Sherlock asked.

She nodded and dropped the mask. From inside her messenger bag, she retrieved a slim laptop and placed it on the coffee table. "Yuugi had his cellphone with him at the time of his disappearance. I was able to pull his general location before it was turned off. Yuugi was in and around East Ham on the day of his disappearance. I pulled CCTV footage from the surrounding area—"

"Wait, wait, how'd you get the video?" John asked.

She tapped her fingers several times before replying diplomatically, "I may have exploited a hole in your government's server protocol."

John's jaw dropped. "You hacked it?!"

Sherlock smirked. "Mycroft will be cross."

Rebecca, on the other hand, found it hard to find humor in the situation. Unlike Sherlock, she didn't necessarily enjoy antagonizing the older Holmes.

"Oh, he's already made his disapproval plenty apparent," she muttered darkly. Each word was accompanied by a vicious jab at her keyboard.

She pulled up the security footage, turned the laptop screen to face the two men, and pressed play. Having already watched the video many times, she focused on Sherlock and John instead. Sherlock was leaning forward and John pulled the ice away from his eyes for a better view. Rebecca wasn't sure what Sherlock was able to discern from the videos, but it must be something given the way his eyes flickered all over the screen.

After the video ended, John peered over at Sherlock and asked, "That was the man from earlier today, right?"

Sherlock nodded. "Mostly likely, he has approximately the same height and build."

Her heart leaped into her throat. "You've seen him then? In person? That's how you have the mask."

John met Sherlock's gaze and she got the sense there was a conversation taking place that she was not privy to. He gave her an apologetic expression and explained, "We went to your friend Yuugi's hotel room. There was a man there wearing that mask."

"Then you must have seen his face!" She exclaimed, sitting up with her spine rod-straight. It sounded almost too good to be true.

John shook his head, "He got away from us. I'm sorry, Rebecca."

She slumped back. "He attacked you, didn't he? That's why you look like this."

"We were simply caught by surprise. It won't happen again." Sherlock sulked.

"They were all wearing animal masks in the video. Why those animals though? Is there some sort of meaning?" John mused out loud.

Rebecca hesitated before pressing another button to bring up the photo of the hieroglyphics graffiti she'd taken earlier. "I also found these on a nearby building."

"Can you read it?" Sherlock was studying her like she was one of his cases. She squirmed under his gaze.

She shook her head. Isis Ishtar had been easy enough to reach with only a one-hour time difference— her delicately drawn eyebrows had furrowed with concern as she translated the hieroglyphics. "No, I can't. Kaiba wasn't happy about it, but he got in contact with an acquaintance who can. She said it roughly translates to 'We humbly request an audience with Osiris at the city of battles'."

John looked over at Sherlock and asked, "When you were attacked inside the room, Anubis also said something like that to you, right Sherlock?"

"If we don't see Osiris at tomorrow's tournament, we can't guarantee Yuugi Mutou's safety." Sherlock recited.

Rebecca's heart skipped a beat. None of this was a coincidence— not the mask, the hieroglyphics, nor Yuugi's kidnapping.

"I got it! The God cards!" John exclaimed as his face lit up. "It's a ransom note! They must want Osiris in exchange for Yuugi!"

Her face fell. "Saint Dragon— the God of Osiris?"

"What are you two talking about?" Sherlock scowled.

John eagerly sprung into an explanation. "When Seto Kaiba held his first Battle City almost thirteen years ago, a trio of rare one-of-a-kind cards surfaced during the tournament. Kaiba started with one that I think was called The God of the Obelisk. Someone else had the Winged God Dragon of Ra. And Yuugi himself had Saint Dragon— The God of Osiris. Because of a special tournament rule where the winner of a duel also won the loser's strongest card, Yuugi ended up with all three of the God cards by the end. That must be what the kidnappers want!"

Sherlock produced a deck box out of seemingly nowhere. He must have gotten it from Yuugi's hotel room.

Before he could flip open the box, she heard herself say, "Don't bother looking, the cards aren't in there. We can't give it to them even if we wanted to. The God cards are lost for good." Her mouth was moving but she didn't feel like she was the one in control of it.

Her worry was beginning to deepen into panic. Frankly, she had never cared for the Millennium Items or the God Cards. She didn't doubt their power— didn't doubt there were powers beyond that which her science could explain or model, but liking or even tolerating them was a different story. She believed in the Nameless Pharaoh's existence; because her grandfather believed. But Rebecca hadn't been part of the core group that orbited the spirit in his adventures, so she never had the opportunity to get used to the idea. Nor had she been acquainted with him long enough to develop genuine affection for Atem like Anzu and the rest did.

(Because a small part of her— a childish one— cannot forgive or forget that the Pharaoh fucking dared to return as the sole occupant of Yuugi's body that one early morning thirteen years ago.)

The Pharaoh Atem was resting in peace at long last and Yuugi had moved on. This was Yuugi's past— one that should stay buried with the Millennium Items and the God Cards in the desert.

"Rebecca? What is it?"

She belatedly registered the fact that Sherlock was speaking from much closer than before. She spooked, jerked her head upward, and was ensnared in her cousin's all-seeing gaze. Sherlock was worried about her. But all she could think about was the wrong Yuugi, shoulders slumped in defeat but still standing too tall, framed by the backdrop of rocky plateaus smudged by the dry desert heat. She couldn't do anything then for her Yuugi, and she remained just as powerless now.

"What's wrong?" John had also moved to her side. "You've gone completely pale."

When John reached out to touch her forehead, she flinched and shrunk away.

"Tell me. You know something," Sherlock insisted.

Her body shivered as the stress of the last few days finally took its toll. Her eyes lingered on their battered faces and she finally admitted to herself that Kaiba may be right. She should have never brought this— long dead Pharaohs and insidious shadow magic— to their doorstep. They had already been attacked once. They may have emerged relatively unscathed this time, but what about the next time?

Her resolve solidified in an instance. They couldn't investigate any longer— it was not their responsibility.

"It's nothing!" She snapped and shoved Sherlock aside to retrieve her laptop. Better the hurt in his eyes than they be utterly vacant. "You're done. I don't need you anymore."

John shook his head. "You can't be serious. These are obviously dangerous people. You could get hurt."

She shoved her belongings into her bag. "We'll be fine. We'll handle it ourselves."

Rebecca had to be able to believe in that much. She needed to get back to the others and report her findings as soon as possible. She jumped to her feet and headed toward the door. Whatever she expected to happen from there on, it wasn't Sherlock shooting forward and physically barring her from leaving.

"You need my help."

"You don't understand. It's complicated!"

"Then explain it." Sherlock said haughtily, his eyes afire with challenge.

Rebecca laughed, almost choking on the sound as it clawed out of her throat. How does one begin to explain the shadows cast on their modern world by an ancient Pharaoh trapped within a puzzle and a card game based on ritualistic duels from several thousand years ago? Sherlock's pride played no small part in his stubbornness, but she would never be able to forgive herself if she let that pride be the literal death of him. No, now that it was apparent that someone(s) interested in ancient Egypt and possibly dark magic was involved, she couldn't drag the two of them into the mess.

She glanced helplessly back at John, whom she got the increasing sense that Sherlock might never forgive her if anything happened to him. And Mycroft would also certainly blame her if Sherlock ended up soul-less and catatonic.

"No," she shook her head and rearranged her grip on her bag. "I need you, an outsider, to stay the hell out of our business."

She owed the Holmes family enough to not involve them. Sherlock had just gotten his life back.

His face became void of expression, but that was probably as good as striking a physical blow at him. Rebecca flew down the stairs and out the doors of 221B Baker Street. She had to have faith that she and the others would be able to find and rescue Yuugi on their own. They'd done it before and they'll do it again without putting anyone else in harm's way.

-x-x-x-

A perceptible chill lingered in the room after Rebecca left. John watched as a stone-faced Sherlock stared at the spot she once occupied. Several minutes later, he called hesitantly, "Sherlock—"

"Quiet, John."

John shut his mouth with an audible click. Sherlock's face grew stormier with every passing second. It was the sort of emotional display that John wasn't sure he had ever witnessed before. Under the churning turbulence, John could still make out the brilliant mind plowing through all possible scenarios.

"Stupid girl," Sherlock snapped and launched himself at the evidence wall he'd stayed up all night to construct. He tore entire sections of the material mounted and left them scattered on the floor like a snow drift.

Alarmed, John asked, "You're not giving up, are you?"

Sherlock leveled an annoyed glare in his direction. "Of course not, I need more room to work. She's frightened. Despite the brave face she's putting on. And she won't get far without us."

"That's a bit presumptuous, isn't it? She found the footage all on her own." John thought that was pretty impressive on its own. It figured that even Sherlock's young cousin would be brilliant beyond her years. "But she seemed pretty adamant about us stopping our investigation."

Sherlock appeared to be of a less charitable opinion. "She got lucky. But her grief is muddling her and she's not using her head. She's doing it out of some misguided attempt to keep us out of danger."

"Do you think it's really that serious?"

Sherlock plucked a sheet off the wall and thrust it into John's face. "Tell me about the necklace that Mutou is wearing in this photo."

The Yuugi depicted in the photo was a much younger Yuugi, probably from around the time where he had first emerged triumphant from the Duelist Kingdom tournament. The necklace in question was the ubiquitous golden pyramid pendant that Yuugi Mutou used to wear on a chain around his neck. "I think it's called the Millennium Puzzle. What's so interesting about it?"

"The eye symbol on his pendant also appeared in the graffiti that Rebecca show us. No doubt that was the first thing that tipped her off. This puzzle is visible in every photo taken of Mutou during the first year he played competitively. But it disappeared soon after he participated in his first tournament in America. Do you know what happened to it?"

John wracked his brain for that specific timeframe, but he couldn't recall when Yuugi had stopped wearing it. "I don't know. Maybe he got tired of it?"

"No, Mutou would have never parted with it of his own free will. He treasured it."

How Sherlock came to that exact conclusion, John could only guess at.

Sherlock tore another photo down and continued, "Three other contestants in the first Battle City tournament were carrying trinkets with similar motifs. There must be a connection between them and Mutou."

The top eight contestants of that first major tournament sponsored by the Kaiba Corporation included Yuugi, Kaiba himself, Katsuya Jounouchi, Kujaku Mai, Namu, Ryou Bakura, Isis Ishtar, and Malik. The last three of whom were pictured wearing or carrying golden items with the eye symbol as Sherlock pointed out. The wicked slant of Ryou Bakura's facial features was so different from the doe-eyed face that the young man wore in Yuugi's album that John didn't reconcile them as the same person at first. John grimaced at the sight of the old scars covering half of Malik's face. Upon closer inspection, he realized the markings resembled hieroglyphics.

"So if we can find the connection between them, we might be able to find Yuugi then?" John asked.

"I need more data first. No one takes me off a case, John, and I don't need a child ten years younger than I am coddling me!" Sherlock exclaimed.

In the face of Sherlock's apparent outrage, John smothered a chortle. It made sense that barring Sherlock from a case only made him want to solve it all the more. "Let's get to work then."

-x-x-x-

Less than twenty minutes later, Sherlock shoved his laptop away in revulsion. "I've never read more ridiculous dribble in my life! Is everyone who plays this game a gullible idiot? If so, no wonder Rebecca is doing something as moronic as refusing my help," he snorted before continuing darkly. "Monsters coming to life and these idiotic notions that the game began in ancient Egypt— or Atlantis even."

"It's a well-known fact that Pegasus J. Crawford, the inventor of Duel Monsters, spent many years in Egypt before he created the game. He could have been inspired by something he saw there." John pointed out without looking up from his screen.

"Atlantis, John!" Sherlock threw both arms up into the air and gave him that look.

"Okay, that's a bit silly." John admitted. "The bit about monsters coming to life, I remember when that happened. We had that string of strange weather and aurora sightings around the same time. But Kaiba said that his company had nothing to do with those incidents, and investigations never found any projectors or machinery in the affected areas. What do you think really happened then?"

"Folie à plusieurs. Idiots clinging to the same delusion to explain a phenomena they don't understand." Sherlock grumbled irritably and rose to his feet. He regretted tasking John with looking through Mutou's email. It left Sherlock chasing rumors of high-stakes Duel Monster games perpetuated by over-invested card enthusiasts. "Have you uncovered anything?"

John hummed softly before replying, "Most of it's in Japanese so I can't read it, but there may be something. I found some emails in his sent box— they're written in English. Yuugi was reaching out to several private investigators in the local area. He doesn't go into much detail in his emails, but I think he was trying to hire one."

"How long ago did he send those emails?"

"Um, back in March. I wonder what he was looking for."

Sherlock's eyes fell shut and he began reconstructing the scene from the CCTV footage in an empty room within his mind palace. He may have only watched the video once through, but be was fairly confident that he had committed all the necessary details to memory. He didn't bother placing the surrounding buildings as they were not the object of interest. Yuugi Mutou entered from house right in skinny jeans and a leather vest. As he walked down the sidewalk, he looked to his left, right, and then up. Once he reached center-stage, Mutou paused and consulted the object barely hidden in the palm of his small hands. Sherlock paused the scene and approached. It was a piece of paper, mostly likely inscribed with a local address.

Without opening his eyes, he reached into his jacket coat and the crumpled note containing the address he had traced in Mutou's hotel room met his fingertips. He nearly forgot about it after what happened next with their jackal-headed attacker and Rebecca. "Not what, but whom. He was looking for someone. Let's go, John, we're going out."

-x-x-x-

The cab dropped them off on a street in East Ham lined with council flats. There were handfuls of pedestrians, mostly returning home from work or going out to dinner. A group of four teenagers meandered past, giving Sherlock a wide breadth and eyeing him with open suspicion as they passed. Leaving John to pay the cabbie, Sherlock bound down the block— past the CCTV camera that caught Mutou's abduction and to the building in the dead center. A glimpse around the corner of the building confirmed the rest of Sherlock's theories.

John jogged to catch up with him. "This is the street where Yuugi was taken." His gaze followed Sherlock's down the narrow alley to the graffiti-filled walls. "And that's the message that Rebecca showed us."

Sherlock squeezed around several rubbish bins slew haphazardly by the mouth of the alley. John followed closely on his heel. They stopped before the particular stretch of wall peppered with bright yellow hieroglyphics. The paint dried days ago, but it was impossible to tell from sight whether it had been done before or after Yuugi Mutou was taken. The runoff from each glyph and the hesitant strokes indicated that whomever wrote them had never used spray-paint before. But neither of these two points was the most interesting observation to take away from the scene.

"The message was not meant for Rebecca or her ilk." Sherlock turned from the wall and craned his neck to get a better look up the fire-escape.

"Then who was it for?"

"Someone who's flat overlooks this alley." He pointed up to a fifth story window.

Sherlock wrinkled his nose. The inside of the building was dingy as it appeared to have seen only sporadic maintenance since it was first built in the 1960s. The walls were thin, allowing him to catch snippets of conversations in Punjabi or whatever was playing on the telly inside. The lift gave a small shudder as it came to a stop on the fifth floor. The address from Mutou's room led them to the flat at the end of a hallway on the far side of the building.

Sherlock was sure that one of the windows within offered a view of the graffitied wall. He lifted a fist and knocked.

There was no immediate answer. Sherlock leaned in closer, straining his ears to listen for signs of life on the other side. He frowned and began reaching for his lock picks. But before he could pull them out, John sighed and reached over to ring the doorbell.

"One moment!" Someone called from within.

Sherlock scowled while John raised a cheeky eyebrow. It was another minute before he heard the sound of the deadbolt disengaging. The door slowly opened to reveal a young Arab man who could have been Yuugi Mutou's twin standing on the other side of the threshold.