CM: Okay, so, this story takes place a couple years after the end of the first Yugioh series after Yami leaves. Just so you know, all WILL be explained eventually, and if not point it out and we'll fix it. Constructive criticism is allowed, even welcomed. Now without further ado... we give you...

THE LINE THAT DIVIDES

Disclaimer: We don't own Yugioh or any of the characters except for the two inserts. Nor do we own any of the references you will find in here.

CHAPTER ONE: Mysterious Theft

Pant. Pant. Pant.

Dokun. Dokun. Dokun.

Her breathing came in heavy gasps as her heartbeat thundered in her chest. Her lungs were on fire and each breath she drew was sharp and painful. She wasn't sure how long she had been running, or what she was even running from. All she knew was that she was in danger.

FLASH!

Lightning cut through the sky in a brilliant blaze of light, momentarily illuminating her surroundings. The street was devoid of any life apart from the chilling rain falling mercilessly from the sky and the sharp wind that whipped across her skin like a cold slap. She stopped to lean against a lamppost which offered no light as she attempted to catch her breath. Never had her endurance ever been tested in this manner.

"I see you… my little light," a voice darker and more chilling than the night itself rang in her ears sending a wave of shivers rolling through her.

'I have to get away… I have to…' In her haste to run, the girl felt a shock of pain as her foot caught into a pothole. She crashed to the ground with a painful splash, her clothes becoming even more sodden. She scrambled, trying to force her numb limbs to lift herself back up.

"And just where do you think you're going?"

The girl looked over her shoulder impulsively and saw a figure standing several yards away from her. She couldn't make out his appearance. It was too dark. But she didn't have to see him to know that he wasn't someone she wanted to get involved with. She watched as his feet lifted from and then lowered back onto the ground in a steady pace as he moved closer to her.

"Come to me… my little light," his voice crooned through the sounds of the rainstorm.

She couldn't move. She was frozen in place, whether by fear, the cold, or his voice, she didn't know. It could have even been all three.

"Surrender yourself… to me." He reached for her.

She opened her mouth to scream but no sound would come.

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"Kairi, wake up!"

Kairi felt a pair of small hands shaking her. She experience the sensation of being pulled through a space too tight for her to fit, compressing her lungs so that she couldn't breathe. Panicked, she began fighting for both movement and breath.

"Hey, Kairi it's me, Mokuba. Wake up already," the voice sounded again as the little hands shook her again.

Kairi slowly began to feel her breath returning along with the rest of her senses. Then she slowly began to move and opened her eyes to see Mokuba Kaiba standing above her looking worried.

"Mokuba?" Kairi asked feeling rather disoriented.

"FINALLY you woke up," Mokuba said, giving her the impression he had been attempting to wake her for some time now. "If you don't hurry up we're gonna be late for school, and you know how Seto hates waiting."

"Ugh…" Kairi groaned, rolling over and burying her face in the very plush pillows.

She was currently in her senior year of high school, the same grade as Yugi Moto and his friends. Mokuba was now a freshman so she saw quite a bit of him. And for half a year now, she had been living with Seto and Mokuba. It was sometimes hard to tell how Seto felt about this arrangement, but he hadn't kicked her out yet. Of course with the history they shared…

"Mitsuko!" Speak of the devil, Kairi thought when Seto's voice came blazing onto the house intercom. "If you're not down here in ten minutes I'm taking Mokuba to school and you can walk in the rain."

"Yes MR. Kaiba," Kairi replied groggily. She got up anyway and after Mokuba left she changed in a hurry and made it downstairs before Kaiba got fed up and left without her.

"It's about time you got down here. You're not staying here out of charity you know," Kaiba muttered when she joined them downstairs. "You keep this up and I'll kick you out."

"Come on, Seto...you wouldn't really kick her out onto the streets, would you?" Mokuba asked.

"If she keeps making me late, then yes," Kaiba threatened.

"Sorry, I just had an uneasy night," Kairi apologized. Unnerving was more like it.

"Hn," was Kaiba's reply before turning on his heals. "Just hurry up or I will leave with or without you."

Kairi and Mokuba both gave synchronized sighs before following him out the door.

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"It's time to awaken from your slumber. The spirits of the morning are calling for you to rise."

She was surrounded by a hoard of what looked to be duel monsters. In fact they were...she could identify Wall Shadow and Curse of Dragon, but the others were too blurred to fully make out. She tried to escape from the center only to find herself chained to the floor, unable to run and without anyone around to help her.

"Who are you? What do you want from me?" she shouted in fear.

"It's time for you to answer the call."

"Your destiny will be fulfilled."

"You will set us free...as it has been foretold."

They started to close in on her as she continued to struggle to escape, but nothing she did would set her free.

"Your awakening has come."

"The spirits are calling for you."

"Your time has arrived."

They were on top of her by now and she screamed as her vision darkened and all was lost.

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"Risa! You're going to be late if you don't leave soon," a high nasal voice called up the stairs.

"It's time to awaken from your slumber. The spirits of the morning are calling for you to rise," came the sound of a small alarm clock that sat on her bedside table. Risa rubbed her eyes as she came to her senses before hitting the off switch.

"I know," Risa called back followed by the sound of rustling papers and things thumping around. "Geeze, I can't believe my aunt gave me such a strange alarm clock, or that I somehow managed to sleep through it," she muttered to herself. "And it had to be today of all days." Then she appeared at the top of the stairs with a bag on her back and jumped down all the steps. "Right, I'll see you later, Auntie."

"What about breakfast?" her Aunt asked as Risa rushed out the door.

"I'll grab something on my way. Thanks, Auntie! I'll be back to help after school," she shouted before disappearing around the corner.

"I swear, that girl, if she didn't have the discipline to live on her own she probably wouldn't have survived after her parents died. I can't believe that it's only been 3 months since she got here and already she's caught up with her senior class. I guess having her job back home really helped her learn how to pick things up quickly," her aunt thought to herself. "I just hope those new friends of hers are as good as she says. Hmm maybe I should give her a reading… just to find out for myself."

She grabbed her deck and began shuffling the cards with vindication. Then she laid three out on the table. She turned one over. Rush Recklessly. Of course, her niece was quite impulsive. She turned the second card over. Ties of friendship. She obviously had very close bonds, one in particular was quite strong. She turned the third card over and her eyes widened. Despair from the Dark.

"Oh, Risa…I do not know what trials await you. I just hope that you are strong enough to withstand them," her Aunt muttered to herself. "I hope these friends of yours are as good as they appear."

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Risa sprinted through the rain trying very hard to get to school on time and not turn out being completely soaked. She finally made it to the school just as a limo was pulling away and the first bell rang.

"Hey, Risa!" Kairi called out waving frantically in order to get her attention with Mokuba standing beside her.

Risa grinned and waved back before approaching her friend. "Hey, Kairi, what's up? You and Mokuba are usually the first ones here."

"Kairi slept in this morning," Mokuba said in an almost teasing voice.

"Hehe, guilty," Kairi admittedly sheepishly.

"Don't worry…I got highly distracted this morning and didn't leave until a few minutes ago. I think my aunt has been doing some really creepy reading lately," Risa told her shaking her head.

"Well either way we need to get to class before we're late," Mokuba said heading into the building.

"Right, see you at lunch Mokuba," Kairi said waving to him. Then she and Risa went in the opposite direction. They entered their classroom and sat down in their seats just as the final bell rang.

"Phew…that was close. We were almost late," Risa sighed pulling out her books. "I just hope I didn't forget anything in my rush."

"Hey, guys!" Risa and Kairi looked up to see Tea waving them over to where Yugi, Tristan, Joey, and Ryou were all sitting.

"You two look like you've just been through the 500 meter dash," Ryou commented in his soft, British accent.

"Well, we had to book it to make it on time," Kairi explained with a shrug.

"Graduation isn't here yet," Tea admonished. "You guys aren't slacking off already are you?"

Risa rolled her eyes. "Oh please, as if Kairi could EVER allow herself such a thing."

"He-ey," Kairi pouted. "Seto threatened that he'd put me on the street if my grades dropped."

"Just because you don't want your grades to drop doesn't mean you can't have any fun on the side," Joey said smiling.

"He's right you know, you can't have it where it's all work and no play," Tristan added.

"I know that but… Seto's done so much for me already. The least I could do is keep out of trouble," Kairi replied embarrassed. Joey looked at her incredulously unable to see Kaiba doing anything for anyone except his little brother.

"Oh hey, did you guys hear about the theft at the museum on the news this morning?" Yugi asked changing the subject.

"No we were kind of busy this morning. What happened?" Risa asked surprised.

"Apparently all seven of the millennium items were stolen," Yugi divulged. Upon hearing the news Joey and Tristan were utterly surprised, Ryou was fearful, Tea was nodding having seen the news as well, and Kairi and Risa glanced at each other nervously.

"Hey, now that I think about it, didn't you two hang back after we visited the museum yesterday?" Ryou brought to attention.

"Oh yeah, you girls didn't happen to see anything, did ya?" Joey asked them.

"Well…" They said together.

*FLASHBACK*

"Risa, we're going to get in trouble!" Kairi hissed as she and Risa snuck through the museum halls.

"Aw, come on. I do this all the time and I haven't been caught yet," Risa said, not heeding the warnings.

"Neither have I but…" Kairi thought. Then out loud she said, "Look, if Seto got wind of this I would get evicted for sure."

"He's not going to find out, trust me," Risa assured her.

Kairi sighed but continued following Risa as she ignored the KEEP OUT sign and entered the roped off exhibit. The room was rather dim, but from the hall light they could make out the stone tablet with the seven millennium items placed neatly inside of it. Apparently the museum had managed to buy the stone tablet and put it on exhibit. Yugi had told them about the millennium items and how they were supposedly dangerous, but that had been a couple years back and nothing bad has happened since.

"Whoa… wow. Look at the make of this thing," Risa awed, going into her Egyptian archeology geek mode. "With the tools that they had way back then, I'm surprised they could make it like this. And how smooth…"

"What do you think you're doing?" Kairi panicked when Risa stepped forward and began feeling the tablet's surface.

Risa didn't answer her as she continued her inspection. "Look at the detail on this thing… Kairi you've got to feel this! The texture is absolutely…"

"Risa, we're not supposed to be in here and I'm pretty sure we're not supposed to touch the ancient artifacts. Besides, don't you remember what Yugi told us about these things?"

"They're just ordinary items unless you know how to use them…. As far as I know. Now come feel this thing."

"No."

"Come on. You'll never get a chance like this again," Risa encouraged. "It's just one touch. What could it hurt?"

"If I touch it, can we go?" Kairi asked exasperatedly.

Risa nodded. "Yeah."

"Fine," Kairi conceded. She stepped forward to stand beside Risa, lifted her hand, and placed it on the stone tablet's surface.

What happened next, neither expected it nor could explain it. The room around them seemed to vanish and all was complete darkness. There was nothing. Nothing… except for three pairs of eyes that gazed at them through the shadows. One pair was deep crimson. Another was pure amethyst. And the third was dark brown with hints of copper. They just stared at the pair. Where ever they were seemed to lack oxygen because the two girls felt as if they could not breathe. Suddenly they felt several hands, so cold it was like touching ice, touching, caressing, and pulling them into the darkness and a rumbling purring sound resonated through their minds. In fear, they fought against the chilling hands that grasped for them. Then through the cold darkness a warm light suddenly erupted and Risa and Kairi felt themselves released from their bodiless captors. The two screamed as the world seemed to snap back and they were flung across the room. No sooner had they hit the floor than an ear splitting CRACK rang through the air.

Risa and Kairi looked up frightened by what they heard and saw that the tablet had split in two and all seven items were missing. "Okay, can we go now?" Kairi demanded her voice cracking as she spoke.

Risa just nodded in fear and Kairi grabbed her hand dragging her out of the museum.

*End Flashback*

"We did stay back awhile," Kairi admitted guardedly.

"But we didn't see a soul," Risa added quickly.

"No we saw three," Kairi muttered under her breath earning herself an elbow to the ribs.

"So you guys didn't see anyone odd?" Tea asked disappointed.

"Nope…no suspicious activity there at all," Kairi and Risa said together.

"Hmm, why do I have the feeling those two are hiding something?" Yugi whispered to himself. Everyone was too busy paying attention to Kairi and Risa to have heard him, all except for a certain white haired English man.

"Well, considering those two, they probably are," Ryou said with a small laugh, though he too couldn't help but feel worried as well.

At that point the teacher got the class started on their studies and they had to put their conversation on hold. Not that Kairi or Risa were complaining. They spent the entire hour trying to focus on what they were learning but they both had something pulling their minds away.

Every so often Risa would see someone in her peripheral vision that sent chills down her spine, but every time she turned to look…the figure was gone without a trace. "I must be more tired than I thought. There's no way I'm actually seeing that," she thought to herself with a nervous chuckle.

Kairi meanwhile kept getting chills and every once and awhile she would shiver and goose bumps would blaze up over her arms and her neck hairs would stand on end.

"Are you alright?" Kairi heard Ryou whisper to her from behind.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Kairi lied. "Just a little chilly I guess."

Ryou didn't bring it up again but he kept his eye on Kairi wondering why she had shivered. After all the temperature in the room was around 80 degrees and that was no where near shivering temperature.

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CM: Just what did Kairi and Risa unleash? And what happened to the millenium items THIS time? Stay tuned!