The faint sound of a scream snapped Oneesan back into awareness from doze she had been slipping into and caused her to finally notice Jou helping Anzu to her feet.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Jou asked as he watched Anzu nervously.

"I... I will be," she admitted shakily, still able to feel the Shadows surrounding her, despite her freedom. "I'm more worried about you lot."

Jou would have said they were fine, but Yugi had only been in control for about two minutes before she had started to fall asleep, Oneesan was drifting off too, and he and Honda felt like they had been run over by a truck.

"We'll be okay." Oneesan sighed, though her friends could see she was trembling slightly. They were not sure whether it was from exhaustion or emotions, though, as her gaze turned to the bedroom where she could see, through the open doorway, Kaiba and Mokuba locked in a tight hug. "We just want to get home and get to bed."

None of her friends argued with that. She was not surprised. This whole weekend had sucked, and she was kind of worried that they would not want to stick with her after this.

That was not the only thing on her mind, though. She was not entirely sure she could trust what her uncle had told her during the duel. He could have been trying to play with her mind, after all. However, there was a lot to unpack, the most important of it being the fact that until Imoto had given her access to her true name, she had not been able to enter the duel, meaning that Mutou Yugi was not really her name, no matter how much her twin insisted it was.

Akhenaden had not used her real name, so either he had not known it or he had been deliberately keeping it from her, and she did not know for certain which it was. Plus she could not trust anything that had come out of his mouth. He had claimed to want to be on her side, but then he had nearly killed Imoto and tried to make himself her Master. That meant that what he had told her could have been a complete lie. The whole mess just made her wonder what had really happened in Egypt.

"Mutou." The sound of Kaiba's voice made her straighten up as the two brothers came to the bedroom door. The elder Kaiba had the younger pressed into him protectively as he stared her down.

"Kaiba." The Pharaoh nodded back, wondering what he wanted.

"I will be providing a lift back to Domino, and Kaiba Corp will pay for your Ojiisan's hospital bill," the CEO informed her, leaving her with no room to argue. "You and I will discuss the rest of the owed debt at a later date."

Oneesan opened her mouth to reply, but a knock at the door cut her off. Honda strode over and threw it open, only to find a mook in a suit had an A4 envelope in his hand and a scowl on his face that told them something was not right.

"Mutou Yugi, here are your prize check and your title contract. The rest of your prize has already been delivered." The man held out the packet, and Oneesan strode across the room to take it.

"I've not signed any contract." She scowled as she opened the envelope and took out the Industrial Illusions headed paper that the first page of the contract was printed on.

"You agreed to the title contract when you signed in to compete; that was explained on the entry form you would have been sent with your invitation. Your copy has also been signed by Master Crawford," the goon explained as he turned to leave. "You are now, officially, Queen of Games. Congratulations."

With that he left.

Oneesan passed Jou the check for the prize money, and the boy hugged it as she passed him, contract in hand. It was not particularly thick, only a couple of pages, but there was a lot written on each page.

"How bad is it?" Mokuba asked, moving away from his brother to read the paperwork with her.

"Not too bad. A lot of it is 'Don't embarrass Industrial Illusions. The title can be stripped from you should you be convicted of crimes, etc..." Oneesan replied, wishing her twin was awake to read it with her and unable to remember getting an entry form with her invitation. "Oh."

"Oh?" Jou asked.

"The Title Recipient may not turn down a challenge once issued by a Challenger. They must complete the challenge or forfeit the title by default," Mokuba read aloud for everyone, stealing the paper out from under the Pharaoh's nose. "They may rearrange the challenge for the first available time or date that is suitable for both Title Recipient and Challenger. However, a challenge may only be rearranged three times by the Title Recipient before they are considered to have lost by default and the Challenger will receive the Title."

"Damn..." Honda hissed.

The Pharaoh flipped to the last page to see if she could get out of it by saying she had not signed it, only to find that her signature, or rather that of her Imoto, was already on the paper, which was, in fact the sheet the girl had signed to board the boat. The same sheet she had been too nervous to properly read when they had been heading out.

Jou noticed that when he glanced over her shoulder and cussed. "That sneaky sonovabi..."

"Jou." Anzu snapped, cutting him off. Then she looked over to Oneesan. "We can deal with this when we're more awake and can find the loopholes."

The Pharaoh nodded, not particularly pleased, but too tired to handle it right now. As Bakura slipped into the room, relief sank in because it meant that they could finally leave. "Are you alright?"

The Thief Queen stared at her. For a moment Oneesan had the distinct impression that she wanted to stab her multiple times, but then the other spirit nodded. "I am fine. Can we get the hell out of here?"

"We were just waiting on you," Kaiba huffed. "Are you quite done?"

"Yes." The sharp nod told the Pharaoh that something that had happened while Bakura had been dealing with Pegasus had infuriated the other spirit. There was another moment when the Thief looked like she wanted to rip the Pharaoh limb from limb, but then she huffed and turned away again. "Let's go."

"Master Yako, Master Geko." A suited man bowed as the two entered the waiting room a few hours later, wishing he had better news for the pair.

"How is he, Roland?" one twin asked. Roland was certain it was Geko, wringing his hands as his brother paced up and down the room. "Have you informed the others?"

"Your brothers are on their way," Pegasus's right-hand man promised as he bought two coffees from the vending machine and passed them to the young men. "And your father's… not good. They're operating now."

Roland considered the two young men as they absorbed the news. The pair were identical. Both had the same thin build, long, pale green hair, and green eyes. The only way Roland was normally able to tell them apart was by their sense of style and their body language. Master Geko was prone to coats of the same red as their father and was calm and collected, but a little slow to act. Yako, on the other hand, favored pale pinks and whites and was quick both to make a decision and to react. His temper was the worst of all Pegasus's adopted sons.

"What happened?" Yako's voice was full of venom as he took the drink from the henchman and glared into it.

"Your father was…" Roland sighed, not sure how to explain it.

"It was the Eye, wasn't it?" Geko sounded resigned, like he had been expecting something to go wrong because of his father's Millennium Item.

"Technically." The goon nodded as he sat down. "Your father challenged another Item Holder for her item, and he lost."

"So she took the Eye?" Yako's head shot up, wondering what the name of the woman he would have to hunt down was.

"We don't know. Your father was found in his tower study, unconscious and bleeding. As far as I'm aware, the Item Holder he challenged didn't leave her suite after the duel until she was taken home by Seto Kaiba. He had the Eye when he entered the tower; he didn't when we found him." The suit shook his head.

"So unless she can move unseen, it wasn't her." Geko huffed, slumping into a seat and resting his head in his hands.

"Who DID win father's little pet tournament?" Yako snapped out. "What's the name of this woman? If she's under an I2 title contract now, we need to keep tabs on her."

"Yugi Mutou." Roland handed the file over to Geko, aware that he would show them to his brother when he was done with them. "Lives in Domino, Japan. She's fifteen years old, defeated Seto Kaiba twice, and carries the Millennium Puzzle."

Geko nodded as he read through his father's files on the girl in question. Yako huffed and leaned over his brother's shoulders. "She doesn't look strong enough to take the Eye from father."

"The doctors say that it was ripped out with considerable force." Roland agreed with that assessment as the twins winced. "I suspect that it was one of the boys, but, again, there's no evidence."

"I'm surprised a child managed to beat father." Geko frowned, his voice louder than intended as he turned to their father's right-hand man, "You're certain there was no foul play there?"

Roland grimaced. "Your father invoked a Challenge. There couldn't be any foul play, or the cheat would have suffered."

Yako just scowled and stalked over to the window, never having entirely trusted the so-called 'fairness' of the Millennium items. Still getting mad not did not help. At least not right now. Instead he focused on the two limos that were pulling up, and he silently thanked the fact the four of them had been planning to surprise their father after his tournament so they had all been close when the call came in.

"Whoever hurt father will be made to pay." As he spoke, his other brothers, Richie Merced, a bulky young man with blue eyes and very spiky blonde hair, and Depre Scott, a brown-eyed, eternally slightly gaunt young man with crew cut black hair, exited their vehicles and headed into the hospital.

"Yako…" Geko trailed off, knowing better than to try to talk to his twin when he needed to vent.

"We can't allow this to stand, Geko," the slightly younger twin snapped out. "Our father was assaulted. You know the others will want revenge, too."

"An eye for and eye, and soon the whole world is blind; you know that." The most levelheaded of the quartet of sons sighed. "Father taught us such."

"We'll see what the others say," the least calm replied, a sharp edge to his voice. "I'm not going to be the only one who wants justice for this."

"Yugi, Yugi, wake up."

The girl in question groaned as she was shaken awake. She looked blearily around, trying to work out where she was, and found that the helicopter was descending onto the grass next to Domino General Hospital, where her grandfather was currently a patient.

She rubbed her eyes, trying to wake herself up a bit as her other hand scrunched up the fabric of her skirt. A twist of fear ran through her as the thought that Pegasus might not have freed her Ojiisan, just to mess with her, crossed her mind.

'Easy, Imoto, he freed the others. The Shadows would have made him free Jii-san, too.' Her twin sister sent reassurance down their bond as the helicopter touched down.

Jou helped her down from the vehicle. The cold night air and wind generated by the rotating blades made her shiver as Jou turned to help Anzu, only to find Honda had beaten him to it.

Yugi did not wait for her friends. She hurried into the building, hoping they had not missed visiting hours. The reception was quiet as she entered, but she did not need their assistance: she knew all too well which room her Jii-san was in, and she almost ran for the elevators and hit the call button.

Her friends had caught up to her by the time the lift dinged and the doors slid open. She was glad of their support as the metal cube rose, taking them up to the sixth floor. She did not know what would happen if Pegasus had broken his word.

The sound of her grandfather's voice as the elevator doors opened made her heart soar. She dove into the room and froze, drinking in the sight of Ojiisan, on this feet and scolding the nurse.

"There is nothing wrong with me that a rest can't solve. I can get that at home. I have family to…" He trailed off as he spotted his granddaughter. "Yugi."

"Jii-san!" Yugi hugged him tightly and felt his arms wrap around her in response, squashing her slightly in his tight embrace.

"You can't…" the nurse started, only to get cut off by the phone at her station going off. Grandpa waved her off subtly as he stumbled backwards and sat on the bed, still holding Yugi close.

"I'm so glad you're back." The Queen of Games could not help the tears that flowed as she continued to hug the most important person in her life. He did not judge her for it. In fact, she felt tears of his own soak into her top.

"Thank you, Magomusume." Yugi sobbed harder at the sound of him calling her granddaughter, having feared she would never hear it again, or worse, he would never want to say it. As she calmed and the tears slowed he murmured, "I'll be out as soon as they let me, okay?"

She just nodded, staying curled into him, exhausted, hurting, and needing the calming presence of the man who had raised her. She could feel her older twin near the surface, basking in Ojiisan's aura, needing the comfort after everything Akhenaden had told her.

The elderly man raised his head and looked at her friends. "Thank you for looking after her."

They nodded, just relieved to be back in Domino and heading home shortly.

As the nurse headed back to shoo them out with a security guard in tow, Sugoroku turned to Jou. "Did you get the money?"

He nodded and showed the check to the old gamer, who noted that it had Yugi's name on it, meaning that she would need to cash it before they could pay for Shizuka's operation.

The security guard reached them first and started herding Yugi's friends out, but Yugi held on to her grandfather just a little bit longer before she pulled away.

"I'll have the shop spotless for you," she promised him as the nurse put her hand on the girl's shoulder.

"Rest first. I'm sure you need it."

She nodded, hugged him tightly, and left.

Bakura had slipped away from the group as quickly as she had been able, too angry and full of the desire to rip someone limb from limb to risk maintaining a close distance with the absolutely exhausted Pharaoh. She knew that if she went after them now, she could win, but that would not help her long term goals.

She wanted to, though. She really wanted to, to the point she had stalked the young Queen to the shop and watched from a distance as she and Jonouchi split off from the others and entered the shop, contemplating the best methods of attack.

'Ba-Khu-Ra?' The sound of her lighter self's voice calling her name made her pause. 'He could have been lying…'

The Thief Queen knew that, now she had calmed a little, but she could not confirm it one way or the other. There was no point talking to the Pharaoh; she did not remember anything of the past, and even if she did there was no guarantee she would tell the truth unless there was magic involved, and her Ka beast had devoured Akhenaden.

It would not be surprising if he had. He was a known liar and took pleasure out of hurting her. What Pharaoh's Uncle had said made a painful kind of sense, though, and she did not know how she was going to be able to keep herself civilized around the Pharaoh.

'You need to talk to her. Find out if he told her anything during the duel,' Amane pressed, trying to at least get her dark to back down for the night so they could get a full night's sleep.

'Even if he did, she'll lie about it,' Ba-Khu-Ra snapped back at her host, unwilling to trust the other spirit and her vessel after what she had heard.

'Ba-Khu-Ra…' She could feel her light hesitate. 'You could always make telling the truth part of a Game with them. A relatively friendly one… one that won't…'

'A Challenge isn't a bad idea, but I'm not going to kill them until it's the right time, if that's what you're worried about. I still need them.' She cut her Landlord off, hands clenched so tightly into fists that she could feel the nails biting into her skin. She was just too tired to want to deal with the Mutou twins right now. 'I've waited this long to get justice for what she did; I can wait as long as it takes.'

'Then let's go home,' Amane suggested, hoping that once the spirit of the Ring got some rest, she would be more open to discussion. 'We can plan in the morning.'

The Thief Queen hesitated a moment longer, then, deciding her vessel's plan was a good one, she headed for home.

Hope you enjoyed the story, the next in the series is here, just take the extra spaces out: www . fanfiction s / 13447149 / 1 / Ennead-Kin