Thank you very much for the reviews!

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Chapter XXX

"Yes, we start the chapter this time!" Bakura cried, throwing his fist into the air as he ran back to Malik, who was sitting while the others had taken over. He quickly sprung to his feet.

"We have to summon the God Card before Mokuba takes control of the chapter," he said. He ran around in a circle, putting all the Millennium Items in their places. While doing so, he hopped from one foot to the other, drawing circles, triangles, and squares in the air with his free hand.

"What the heck are you doing?" Bakura asked.

"Keeping the dialogue and the narration focused on us!" Malik replied, crossing one foot back and doing a little spin. "Mokuba gets a taste of his own medicine!" He did a little tap dance on the floor and then threw out his hands. "Ta-da! All done!"

"Finally, Rare Hunters! Do the chant! And no, you cannot do the Finding Nemo chant!" Bakura commanded. The Rare Hunters groaned, but they trudged over to the lighter side of the dark cavern and lifted their faces. Then, simultaneously, they moaned and called in Japanese while their bodies glowed blue-green for no apparent reason.

"Oh no! We have to stop them!" Mokuba randomly said in the middle, but he didn't quite have control of the scene at the moment. It was all up to Sakurelle and Kaiba.

However, unfortunately for the Plot, Sakurelle seemed to be in an emotional crisis. This was the part where she was supposed to miraculously triumph, defying both physics and canon to be the ultimate winner of all things. However, she was currently shocked that Kaiba, her should-be-love-interest, denied loving her at all. That, and the fact that it was pointed out she got something wrong in her dialogue, of all things, made her quite traumatized.

"If a hot male character is not in love with me…" she whispered. "What should I do…?"

"Can we call a timeout?" Mokuba asked.

"You can't have a break from the Plot!" Bakura shot back, not wanting to risk letting Mokuba have dialogue.

"And why not? We need to consult the author here!" Mokuba yelled, doing his own part in trying to re-takeover the portion of the Plot.

"That would pretty much be a self-insert if she had to come in here and fix this mess!" Malik added, shouting also. "Believe me, we've researched this stuff too! Shut up and let the Plot roll." And so they did. They didn't really have a choice, since the narration was more concerned with word quotas and page limits and their pointless argument was taking too long. The Rare Hunters had finished glowing, and soon a rumble erupted from below the cave. A flash of bright light filled the entire hall.

"Oh no!" Yugi cried. "I think they've summoned something!"

"We've got to do something!" Tristan exclaimed pointlessly.

"But what?" Joey asked, again pointlessly.

"I have no idea…" Téa said. The four of them, plus Mokuba, watched in horror as a giant green and silver mass rose up from the clouds of glowing smoke that gathered in the front of the hall. It was like the Ancient Egyptian Zorc summoning all over again.

"Sakurelle…do something…" Mokuba muttered. But, of course, Sakurelle was still shocked into inaction by the thought that someone didn't love her. Tragic, I know.

"Fourth Egyptian God! Reveal yourself!" Bakura commanded. The smoke rushed out, leaving the giant silver-green dragon standing (it was a very pretty dragon, by the way. It was supposed to belong to our Sue, after all, and even if she's momentarily in a crisis, her Duel Monsters are always pretty. Okay, all right, the parenthetical note will end now). The God pulled his head back and revealed his many teeth. He opened his mouth and spoke in a deep, rich voice.

"I am Phalanx, the fourth God of the Egyptians!" the dragon cried. "I have come to wreck havoc on the world! And yes, I am fearsome to behold, if even if I'm pretty. And just because I don't exist in the real series doesn't mean you shouldn't fear me!"

"I thought Phalanx was a Greek term," one of the Rare Hunters had the boldness to say.

"Silence, mortal!" the God commanded. "Or I'll kill you!" The Rare Hunters cowered.

"He means that he'll send everyone to the Shadow Realm," Yugi randomly clarified, noticing the uber-violence that was mentioned in the previous paragraph, even if it was only one word. Phalanx glared down at the short boy. Yugi cowered along with the Rare Hunters.

"Now this is the way I like it!" Bakura said, bowing respectfully. "My Lord. Malik and I are your humble servants."

"That's nice to know," Phalanx said, undergoing an immediately personality changed to make it easier on Bakura and Malik. "What can I do for you?" Malik and Bakura stared at him, glanced at each other, and then stared back at him.

"Uh…take over the world? Wow…I didn't think we needed to explain ourselves; I thought that was a given." Phalanx and the two of them continued the pleasant conversation about mass murder and destruction. This was obviously omitted from the Plot on the basis that little children would definitely be inspired by giant green-gold imaginary dragons to somehow unleash the Black Thunder Attack or some other nonexistent magical nonsense on all their friends. In the meantime, Yugi and Mokuba (and of course, the less important others) tried to think of a way to save the world from this mess. Unfortunately, the only character capable of pulling a world-saving trick from nowhere was Sakurelle, and she was still moping about not being loved.

"I'm a Mary Sue!" she insisted to Kaiba, while he stood with his back facing her. "You have to love me." Kaiba rolled his eyes.

"I don't have to do anything."

"But! I'm a Sue!" Sakurelle persisted. Kaiba whirled around and glared at her.

"Yes, and you've done nothing but have everything go your way for most of the story. But haven't you noticed that the narration involves you less and less. Maybe you're just…losing your touch."

"Losing my touch…" That would explain her mistake in the last chapter.

"Maybe you're just not good enough to be a Sue."

"Not good enough…" Sakurelle echoed. With widened, glossy eyes, she stared back at Kaiba. No one had ever told her that she wasn't good at something, much less being the perfect creature that she was. That was impossible! She was a Sue! She was! She was!

Or was she? Kaiba was right…maybe she had outdone her Sueness. Maybe she no longer was as important to the story as she thought. Maybe she had failed?

"Me?" Sakurelle whispered. "Fail…" In this uber-dramatic moment of revelation, Sakurelle hung her head, and one tear escaped her lid and fell onto the floor. And the Plot seemed to make up for all that lack of description over the past chapters in this one moment, choosing to focus on the single, pear-like tear as it fell to the floor instead of on the five terrified teenagers, the mob of Rare Hunters, the two maniacs, and the all-powerful Fourth God Card.

As that liquid tear fell to the floor, it didn't simply land (that wouldn't nearly be dramatic or pretty enough) – it shattered like glass. The ground around the Sue shone a bright gold that traveled up her body. Kaiba carefully stepped back as the light climbed up her entire figure, cloaking even the tablet in a radiant glow. Then…it exploded!

The light literally flew to all the corners of the room, a fierce wind knocking everyone to their knees. Now, this would have seemed like an actual attempt at a serious climax, but unfortunately, it was not to be.

"Ah!" Phalanx screamed. "I'm meeeeelting!" Yeah, the Wicked Witch of the West imitation kinda ruined the scene. As the light hit the God Card, he squirmed and moaned, continuing to scream things like "Oh! It burns! It burns!" while twisting into weird shapes. Finally, he vanished, and with him went the four Millennium Items just like that. This was why villains feared the Mary Sue powers of immediate-world-saving. Even an almost-Sue-that-was-losing-her-touch could do that in her sleep.

Bakura and Malik had been discussing the possible methods of world domination when this had occurred, and were quite surprised that their hopes had been crushed instantaneously.

"Whoa…was that it?" Malik asked. "Did…Sakurelle…just win?"

"I didn't even see that coming," Bakura complained.

"I think we won guys!" Yugi exclaimed, back at the other end of the room. Téa, Joey, Tristan, and Mokuba cheered, even though they hadn't done squat as main characters. The amount of action for them in this chapter probably wouldn't have even qualified them as secondary characters.

"Sakurelle?" Kaiba asked. The glow around her body was just fading, and when the light disappeared, Kaiba gaped. Sakurelle was gone.

Well, not literally. But the girl who stood before him wasn't quite the same. Her hair was now an ordinary shade of reddish brown with no hint of unnaturally-hued streaks. Her eyes were not violet but blue, and they no longer shone with 'great sadness or depth'. Her skin was light but not exceptionally fair, and the beauty of her face was no longer eye-catching but ordinary. Overall, she had lost her world-stopping charm. What stood before Kaiba was the average pretty face.

"You've…changed…" Kaiba said. Sakurelle noticed that her wrists were freed and walked forward.

"Yes, I feel a little bit different," she admitted. She took a strand of hair between her fingers. "I guess I look a bit different too, huh?" Kaiba shut his mouth before he got himself in trouble. It was really ironic, really. When Sakurelle had been the jaw-dropping beauty, he had found her features annoying. But now, even he had to agree that she looked very…tolerable. And pleasant. In a nice way. Even for him.

"Are you okay?" he asked. Sakurelle nodded.

"I think so. Is everyone else okay?" Kaiba cast a glance at Mokuba and the others. They were coming to see him.

"Sakurelle, what happened?" Yugi asked when he saw her in this state.

"I don't know…"

"Hey, maybe you turned the curse off!" Joey exclaimed.

"Broke the curse, Joey," Tristan reminded him. Joey frowned.

"Yeah, I guess," Sakurelle replied. She shrugged and turned to Kaiba. "I guess I have you to thank for it, Mr. Kaiba, sir." Kaiba flinched at the way she said his name formally. And then he flinched for flinching. He would have flinched for flinching at flinching, but that was just too much.

"It was nothing," he said in a clipped tone. Sakurelle nodded. She then turned to look at the dais, where Malik and Bakura were still standing, confused.

"It's over!" she called to them, waving her arms over her head. "I no longer have Mary Sue powers. The God Card and Millennium Items are gone forever, so you can forget your dreams of world domination."

"Damn!" Malik growled. "We were so close!"

"I can feel my real personality coming back," Bakura admitted. "For now, we shall part. But when we meet again, we shall win."

"Agreed. This isn't over yet, Sakurelle." Malik and Bakura left peacefully, which was a great surprise. But the Plot had virtually ended anyway.

"Even the tone of the story has changed," Mokuba noted.

"Indeed it has," Yugi agreed. He turned to the Sue. "Now that the fiasco's over, what will you be doing?" Sakurelle hesitantly tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear.

"Well…I suppose I might still make a good typist, if Mr. Kaiba would be willing to permit me to continue working." Kaiba shrugged, not wanting to seem too eager, but inside he knew he wouldn't have it any other way, even if it that sounded mushy. Maybe his personality, which had become slightly mutilated at the end, hadn't fully come back to him yet.

"Call me Seto. It's distracting, otherwise." Good excuse, Kaiba. Sakurelle smiled.

"Okay, Seto. Now, what do you all say we return to our real lives?"

"Until some other Sue plagues us again," Mokuba muttered. Sakurelle laughed.

"I think that if there's anything good that Malik and Bakura have done, it's that they have rid this fandom of Sues. If anymore happen to sneak over from other Plots…then, we'll know what to do." Mokuba nodded.

"Yep!" Sakurelle smiled again, turning to the others.

"Shall we go?"

"Of course! Race you to the top!" Joey cried, running off. Tristan followed soon after, with Téa, Yugi, and Mokuba in the rear. Sakurelle turned to Kaiba when they were the only ones left in the room.

"I really do have to thank you," Sakurelle said.

"Don't mention it." Sakurelle smiled a knowing smile and leaned forward, giving Kaiba a small kiss on the cheek.

"I hope that we might get to truly know each other the right way, and over time we may have some genuine feelings for each other. If you would be okay with that."

"Hn." Kaiba didn't say much, but he touched her elbow before walking off. Sakurelle sighed.

"Change for the better," she said, before following him back above ground.

………

As you may remember, whenever the Rare Hunters were not out torturing people, running after rare cards, or creating mass havoc and destruction, they liked to party. However, whenever they had been defeated, as in just now, they preferred to sulk instead. Bakura was pacing up and down between them, wondering why his personality hadn't come back to him already.

"What's taking so long!" he muttered. He heard a small, evil chuckle, and he turned to see Malik sitting his throne, stifling his giggle.

"What?" Bakura snapped. Malik looked up, a silly grin plastered to his face.

"Remember when we killed off most of the Sue?" he asked. Bakura didn't like where this was going, but he decided to pay attention.

"Yes…"

"Well, apparently we didn't get all of them. A Gary Stu had actually traveled abroad to play a part in one of Little Kuriboh's episode-movie parodies, and he has just returned."

"Oh no…" Bakura trailed off as Malik jumped out of his chair, laughing.

"We're going to use him to get the Fifth Blue-Eyes White Dragon!" he cried. "And a special set of Uber-Powerful Exodia Cards!" Malik continued to laugh as Bakura stared, appalled.

"Now…like, even after our part in this story is done? There are actually other insanely impossible items that fans have added to the series? That means…this story isn't over?"

Malik settled down, sitting in his chair and crossing one leg over the other. "Of course not silly…" he said, leaning forward with a smirk.

"This is a whole 'nother Plot entirely!"

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No. I won't actually be doing a sequel. But you are free to imagine another Plot if you wish.

That was the end, people. Thank you so much for reading and reviewing my story! I was happy to receive your feedback. This is like the first humor story I've done, and I'm surprised it came out this well. Once again, thank you so much for reading!

Oh, and one last note. This story was born out of the guilt of creating a Mary Sue not just once, but twice! Yes, the horror! And as I look back over my Yu-Gi-Oh! pieces, I have to note that my Silentshipping story completely screwed over Kaiba's personality. So, even though my interest in this fandom has faded somewhat, I want to put up one final story as both a goodbye and a way for me to redeem myself after the other story. So, this coming leap day, I'm putting up a Seto and Serenity story. So, if you are a fan of that pairing, please do check it out. It's definitely not a humor story, though. I want to try different styles of writing. But, if you are interested, I hope you take some time to read it!

Thank you once again!