Chapter 5: Help Wanted from a Distressed Damsel

He would have liked to have believed that he would've gone numb by now. And in a since he had. There was no hope, there was nothing to fight for. He was nothing and he was surprisingly satisfied with that. This was the way his world ended, not with a bang but with a whisper. At least he would wither away in pain, the pain of thousands of shadow leeches biting into his flesh—ripping him to bits and consuming him for the rest of eternity. It was a predictable way to go—to have been born from someone else's hatred and to dissolve in someone else's nightmare, someone else's anti-climactic, half-assed Hell. Yes, he could accept this. Fuck, what was he kidding? He didn't have any other choice.

Is anyone there?

What was that?

Can anyone hear me?

What was this?

This indescribable feeling of yearning, of purpose!

It was a feeling he felt around the weak, around the good spirits—around the people whom he was born to break. Oh its presence, its stupidity, just it's innocent aura filled him with such...such ecstasy!

This was his purpose.

HE WAS NOT DONE YET!

"Yeeeesss." he wheezed out as one of the leeches dug into his left eyes socket.

Amane squeaked and jumped back from the Ouija Board in the center of the room. "Okay which one of you moved it?!"

"I-I didn't." Shizuka whimpered.

"M-Me niether." Mokuba agreed.

"Well I didn't either… Oh my god there's an actual spirit here! This is amazing! Let's ask more questions!" Amane cheered scooching back to the Ouija Board.

Shizuka and Mokuba looked at each other. The former stopped Amane's hand before she could reach the planchette, "I-I don't think we should."

"Why not?! It's just some harmless fun!" Amane asked.

"But it's not! You of all people should know that no good can come from meddling with spirits!" Shizuka cried.

Amane tilted her head and raised a brow, "Why me especially?"

Shizuka and Mokuba looked to each other again in surprise. "W-Well because of your brother." Mokuba answered.

"What does my brother have to do with meddling with spirits? I mean I know that he loves the occult and all that creepy stuff but it's not like he's ever actually contacted a spirit!" she laughed, "Right?"

Both Shizuka and Mokuba looked to each other as they thought the same thing.

She didn't know.

Amane blinked, "Do you two know something that I don't?"

"O-Of course not!" Mokuba defended, "How could we know more about your brother then you?! I mean contacting spirits?! That's just crazy! We were talking about his occult deck in Duel Monsters! A-And the fact that he, and you for that fact, are so into horror movies! R-Right, Shizuka?"

"Y-Yeah… Right!" Shizuka agreed.

Amane looked at the two skeptically before moving the planchette back to the center of the board. "Well then, since I do know more about horror movies and spirits then you two, as you said, I say that we keep playing!"

Mokuba and Shizuka looked to each other hesitantly but, unable to will themselves to leave Amane alone, placed their hands back on the planchette and looked to her to take the lead, "Can we ask you some more questions, spirit?"

The planchette moved painfully slowly to the top of the board. Yes.

"Are you a girl?"

And to the side. No.

"So a boy then?" Amane asked almost excitedly.

Yes.

"Are you hot?"

"Amane!" Shizuka scolded.

"It's a viable question!" she laughed.

Yes.

Amane smirked, "See, he gets me. What is your name?"

He had more to say then.

N.

O.

N.

E.

Amane's brow furrowed, "None? Your name is None?"

No.

"Do you mean that you don't have a name?" Shizuka breathed.

"Hey, there you go Shizuka-chan!" Amane encouraged.

N.

O.

T.

N.

O.

W.

Amane's brow furrowed empathetically almost immediately, "Oh wow, he must not remember it. Something terrible must have happened to him."

"Amane…" Mokuba whined, practically begging her to stop.

But she did not, "Did you go young?"

Yes.

"How did you die?"

Their hands and the planchette began to pick up speed across the board, candle flames flickering as this question obviously brought back old wounds, ancient anger.

L.

O.

S.

T.

Mokuba blinked, "Lost?"

"Maybe he got lost and died." Shizuka suggested.

The planchete immediately moved, shocking them all.

No.

"Then what—?" again it moved, silencing Amane immediately.

T.

R.

A.

P.

P.

E.

D.

Shizuka began to shake, "Amane I really don't like this! I think we need to stop!"

"We can't stop now! It's just getting interesting! Where are you trapped Spirit?" Amane asked eagerly.

H.

E.

L.

L.

"Amane!" Mokuba cried, "It's some sort of demon or something! Let's stop!"

"No, no, no Mokuba-kun, you have to look deeper than that!"

"He said that he was trapped in Hell Amane! What do you think he is?!" Mokuba demanded, immediately standing up.

"And he also said lost! And that he died young! You need to think about this rationally, it's like a detective case Mokuba, like a game! You like games!" Amane said, pulling him back down next to her, "The spirit only has so long and so many letter he can use to give us an answer we can understand, that's why these answers are so short. If he was young and trapped and that's how he died, he may be describing the conditions of the place he as trapped in when he died. A place that was like Hell."

"S-So he was tortured when he died?" Shizuka asked, the words almost making her sick.

"Maybe." Said Amane, "But the thing I'm confused about was that he said lost, but that he hadn't gotten lost when he died. What else could that mean?" Amane stroked her chin contemplatively.

"M-Maybe he lost something. Like a pet, or wallet, or…"

"Or a game!" Amane chirped, the planchette moving so fast to Yes now that it very nearly lost their hands.

"Okay so that's right." Said Amane, "So then, who beat you?"

The planchette moved so fast and furiously then that it flew right out from under the teens' hands causing them to scream. They watched in horror as it flew across the board at rapid speed without their guidance.

P.

H.

A.

R.

A.

O.

H.

"Pheh-raaaah—oh! Pharaoh." Amane's head tilted in confusion. "He was beaten by a pharaoh?"

Mokuba's and Shizuka's eyes widened. Mokuba grabbed Amane by the shoulders and dragged her away from the board immediately, "Okay we need to stop this right now! Shizuka-chan turn on the lights I'll blow out the candles!"

"On it!" Shizuka replied as she bolted to the front door and switched the lights back on.

"What are you two doing?!" Amane demanded.

"Amane-chan this is getting dangerous we need to stop!" Mokuba answered.

"What are you talking about? It's just some harmless fu-"

"No Amane! This is not harmless anymore! Not ever! This has never been harmless! Just trust me right now! You don't understand what's going on! This is way beyond your control and we need to stop!"

Her widened eyes from outburst narrowed almost immediately, "Oh. I get it now."

"I'm glad to hear that." Mokuba sighed as he snuffed out the last candle.

"Yeah… I'm sure you are. Since you think I'm an idiot."

"Amane-chan that's not what Mokuba-kun meant-"

"No it's not just what Mokuba meant! It's what everybody meant! I'm just the ditz with the big boobs who can't even tie her own shoes! Because she's happy and optimistic and fun and a little boy crazy she doesn't ever have a clue about what's really going on! She needs to be babied and treated like some damsel in distress! Well you know what?! Yeah, I'm spunky, and pretty, and I'm not the brightest person in the world! But I don't always need to be saved! I can save someone too!" Amane shouted rushing back to the Ouija board, "Spirit! Can I help you?!"

She need not even touch the board for to move. Yes.

"Amane stop!" Shizuka and Mokuba screamed, struggling to drag her away from it, but she held her ground.

"What do you need to help you?!"

One after one, each lightbulb in the living room quickly overheated and exploded, candles relighting themselves in their place, high and fast like fireworks. Hot blue-flamed fireworks. Amane's stomach dropped at each pop and burn swirled around her, and the planchette flew across the board so wrathfully, it ripped the paper off in some placed.

O.

U.

Y.

O.

U.

Y.

O.

U.

Y.

O.

U.

Y.

O.

U.

Y.

O.

U.

Y.

O.

U.

Y.

O.

U.

Amane's eyes widened as she deciphered the insanity below her.

Y.

O.

U.

You.

"M-Me?' she breathed.

Suddenly an energy akin to electricity—black in color, thin and surging and aggressive in attack—shot out and enveloped Amane, swirling around her in a vortex of darkness. She could barely hear her friends' distant screams under a deep, powerful, malevolent stream of laughter. She saw it in the distance—a golden glowing eye identical to those on the artifacts her father had all-too-often shown her in his history books, in the necklace she remembered her brother once wore. Her vision expanded, the eye was in the middle of a forehead of someone who's very being dominated everything around him, that radiated absolute power and evil, and struck Amane with an irrevocable fear of which she had never felt the likes of before. She was swathed by such overwhelming submission that as she collapsed she didn't even take notice of how ineffably beautiful the man before her was.

Ryou bent over to catch his breath as he stopped in front of Marik, who sat with his legs crossed and with a dry martini in his hand at the airport bar, "You're a terrible person. You know that Marik-san?"

Marik blinked, "I'm sorry. Let me buy you a drink for whatever I did wrong?"

The whitette groaned and leaned against the bar, "No, you will not buy me a drink I have to drive. Right now. Come on, let's go."

"Okay just let me finish my drink first!" Marik insisted.

Ryou crossed his arms and tapped his foot as Marik took his sweet time by taking exceedingly time-consuming, yet ridiculously tiny, sips of his cocktail with several moments of staring into nothingness in between.

Slurp.

…

Sluuuuurrp

…

Sluuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrr-

"MARIK-SAN!"

He laughed, patting the boy's back playfully, "What? What's the hurry?"

"The hurry is that I had to leave three teenagers alone in my apartment—one of them who just so happens to be Mokuba Kaiba—to come get you! And if Seto Kaiba finds out that I left his little brother alone and oh god if something happens to them—!"

"Ryou-kun! Calm down! I'll go get my bags right now!" Marik said, downing the rest of his drink and hopping off the barstool.

"You haven't even gotten them yet?!" Ryou cried.

"Really Ryou-kun you need to calm down; you've been gone for like twenty minutes—there's no way something bad could've happened in that time span!" Marik assured as he ran off to the direction of the luggage carousel, "I'll be right back!"

"Hurry!" Ryou called after him.

His phone suddenly began to buzz angrily in his pocket. He grabbed it and noticed his home number on the screen. Oh god.

"Hello—?"

"Bakura-san you need to get home right now!" Shizuka cried in a panic.

"What's wrong?! Where's Amane?! Put Amane on the phone right now!" Ryou demanded.

"Amane-chan! Damn it Amane wake up!" Mokuba screamed in the background.

"Sh-She's unconscious! There was something to do with the Pharaoh—!"

"The Pharaoh?!" Ryou cried.

"I don't know! I don't know what to do! Just please come back!"

And the line went dead.

Ryou stood in shock allowing the phone to slip from his hand. This wasn't happening.

This wasn't happening.

This couldn't possibly be fucking happening!

"Awww, well sure it could. Landlord."

"Nii-chan I don't understand! Why are you leaving?! You said that you'd always be here for me, to protect me!"

"That's a bad, bad promise Landlord. How could you ever keep something like that?"

But he did. I did keep it.

Amane just couldn't understand back then. That's why he had to leave. So that he could protect her. But she could never understand why.

He didn't want her to ever have to.

Marik hurried back to Ryou happily, "Ryou-kun I just got the dirtiest look from the security guard at the carousal—Ryou-kun? Ryou-kun what's wrong?"

He felt the phone slip out of his hand, bits of its plastic casing breaking off and tumbling across the floor.

"A-Amane. She…"

Marik's eyes narrowed seriously, "Ryou what's wrong?"

"Amane's unconscious." He just barely breathed out, Marik's eyes widened, "They said it had something to do with the Pharaoh."

Marik's breath hitched and Ryou's catatonic shock did not yield. The Egyptian grabbed the boy's cell phone, stuffed it in his pocket, and then grabbed his shoulders tightly, pushing him forward.

"Let's go."

"KuKuKu. And do what, praytell?" he whispered into Ryou's ear, keeping his feet rooted.

"Ryou Bakura, your sister needs us, let's go!"

Ryou immediately blinked away his shock, gasping and nearly almost falling as he came to. But he wouldn't let himself down that far. He picked himself up, and stormed forward.

Because she did need him.

She needed him now.

Ryou slammed the front door open, causing Shizuka and Mokuba to snap away from the unconscious friend they knelt in front of to the door. "Bakura-san!"

He rushed into the apartment, immediately followed by Marik.

"Marik-kun? What are you—?"Mokuba started.

"That's not important right now!" Ryou cried as he saw the young Bakura's clouded, lifeless eyes—an expression far too familiar, "What happened?!"

"W-Well you see we-"

It was then that his peripheral vision caught perhaps the second worst possible object he could've seen in this situation.

"What is that?" he asked darkly.

"B-Bakura-san-" Shizuka whimpered.

"No! Why is that Ouija Board out?! Y-You—don't you know better after all that's happened?!" Ryou practically screamed, unable to fight the tears from falling.

This wasn't supposed to happen! Not to his baby sister! She was supposed to live a happy normal life free of evil spirits and dark magic like this! How could they let this happen?! How could he let this happen?!

"Bakura-san it wasn't our idea! Amane was the one that really wanted to play! W-We tried to stop her—" Shizuka sobbed.

"Well you should've tried harder! You know her! You could've distracted her with something else! I told you to be responsible and you—!"

"We know!" Mokuba exclaimed, "We should've done something! It kills me to see Amane like this! She's our friend and we care so much about her! We really do! We're scared Bakura-san! We don't want to lose her!"

And he broke down into tears, Shizuka following soon after and Ryou staring at the two and his sister in horror.

Completely loss of what to do.

Marik came through then, kneeling between them all, right by Amane's unconscious mind, "Let's everybody calm down. Shizuka-san. You mentioned something about the Pharaoh. Tell us exactly what happened."

And she went through it all to them, from "Is anyone there" to "Yes".

"So you three talked to someone killed in a duel by the Pharaoh." Ryou's stomach dropped immediately, "That much we know."

"KuKuKu." He chuckled into Ryou's ear, "Oh I wonder who."

Marik froze as his fingers pressed to Amane's neck. "Mokuba-kun, call an ambulance right now."

His eyes widened in horror and just barely choked out, "W-What? Why? What's wrong with her?!"

Upon seeing his emotion, Marik then turned to Shizuka, "Shizuka-san, call—"

"I'm on it!" she cried, already at the home phone.

Ryou could only fall deeper and deeper into his shame and fear as he too moved his hand to her neck.

And felt no pulse.

There was a distinct taste of sand in her mouth, this is what Amane' recognized before anything else. She opened her eyes slowly. Everything was so blurred, so surreal. Like a dream. A shrill scream shocked her into reality—a reality of an aching body and a mouth full of sand. She sat up quickly and spat, even resorting to wiping her tongue off with her hands. She always thought that she missed the warm sands of the beach back in Florida but this wasn't what she mean't!

Once her taste buds returned to their normal equilibrium, Amane took a moment to look around. There were miles upon miles of sand under a swirling black and purple sky. She could just barely see the silhouettes of what looked like boulders and dinosaur skeletons in the distance.

"Where am I?" she breathed and shivered as she felt a breeze tickle her skin.

She looked down and her eyes bugged out as she found herself dressed only in her frilly blue and white undergarments. She screamed as she tried to cover herself, "And why am I half naked?!"

She took another quick scan of the perimeter before slowly uncovering herself, "It doesn't look like anyone's around. I should probably start looking around for people though. And maybe I'll find an outlet store."

Amane stood up and began walking in the direction where the silhouettes looked the closest. She jumped as she stepped on something hard. She looked down and saw a bit of purple material poking a bit out of the sand. She gasped in joy, dropped to her knees and began digging up the material. She immediately halted as she grabbed the thing she stepped on: a skeleton wearing a white grinning half mask and a dark purple cloak. She shrieked and immediately dropped the skeleton.

"What is this place?!" she cried.

She took a second look at the skeleton. The cloak looked warm and it wasn't like Mr. Phantom of the Opera down there was using it. And honestly, anything was better than walking around in the desert in her bra and panties…

She crawled back over to the skeleton and tugged at the cloak, causing the skeleton to disintegrate into dust at the abrupt movement. Its mask fell silently to the sand. Amane shook out the cloak to rid it of the dust, sand, and god know what else. She looked at the symbol on the hood—a white Egyptian eye dead in the center. She shivered.

"Oh god what if this guy was in some middle eastern secret society like the Arabian KKK or something?!" Amane gasped in horror before smiling and justifying, "Well then I'm doing a good deed by stealing his coat! Amane Bakura, one! The forces of evil, zero!"

She pulled the cloak on and set off again on her quest for… Her quest for… What was she looking for? Civilization? Cities? A mall? Answers?

Answers. That sounded about right. She set off again on her quest for answers. Where was she? What was that scream she heard when she first woke up? Where were the people? Would she ever get home? And where was the dead boy she needed to save?

A/N: Yay it's a longer chapter this time! Follow, favorite, and review if you like the story!