Chapter 39: Anzu's Worries and the Egyptian Exhibit

                                    

                                          
When Akia opened her eyes, she was staring at a white ceiling. "Where...?"
"Akia-chan!" Anzu called out to her friend.
"Thank goodness you're awake!" Jounouchi added in relief.
Akia sat up on the bed. It took her a bit to process what had happened. "Ah! Yugi! Where's Yugi?!"
"Right here," a voice said next to her. Akia looked to her left and saw Yugi sitting on a bed next to hers as well.
"Are we... in a hospital?" The red-eyed girl asked. Then  it all came back to her. The building on fire, Keith Howard, the  shattered and chained up puzzle... She looked at Yugi and found him  holding the completed puzzle in his hands.
"You wouldn't let go of that puzzle... You could've died," Honda informed his friend.
"I just couldn't leave him in there..." Yugi replied and  then proceeded to tell them exactly what had happened. How the  disguised Keith Howard stole the Millennium Puzzle and lured Yugi into a  duel. He then said that Keith didn't seem in control of his own mind.  It was as if someone else was controlling him. Before the end of the  duel, he started going crazy and shattered the puzzle, saying that it  was all the item's fault. Bakura then knocked him out and helped Yugi  gather up the shattered pieces.
"Ryou..." Akia knew that it wasn't actually Bakura, but the Spirit of the Ring that intervened.
"It took me eight years to put the Millennium Puzzle together the first  time around. This time I did it in no time at all. It's as if the other  me was helping me put it together," Yugi told them.
"Yeah, I know what you're saying, man," Honda nodded.
"What do you mean by that, Honda?" Jounouchi inquired.
"Truth is, back there, I heard the other Yugi's voice telling me what to do."
"I knew Honda couldn't come up with a plan like that on his own."
Honda got riled up and held Jounouchi by his collar. Jounouchi reciprocated.
"Whaaat?!" Honda yelled out.
"What the hell?! Ain't it true?!" Jounouchi retorted.
"What you say?!"
"Stop fighting in the hospital, you two," Yugi told them.
Akia snorted at the scene. Jounouchi and Honda, realizing where they were, stood apologetically in front of Yugi and smiled.
"My bad! My bad!" Jounouchi exclaimed.
"Thank you guys. You saved our lives," Yugi expressed his gratitude.
"It's no big deal," the blond teen replied.
"It's something anyone would do," Honda confirmed.
"I'll go get something to drink," Anzu said as she stood up.
"I'm coming with you, Anzu. I need to stretch my legs a little." Akia got up and went with Anzu. When they got out of the room, Akia noticed that something was on Anzu's mind, "is something wrong, Anzu?"
"The other Yugi... I thought he'd always existed within Yugi. Like a  split personality the Millennium Puzzle merely brought out. But maybe...  that's just what I wanted to believe. The other Yugi... Did he really  come from inside the Millennium Puzzle?" Anzu inquired.
Akia  nodded. This confused Anzu. She didn't know who she had romantic  feelings for anymore. At first she thought it was Yugi, since she  believed that the other Yugi was Yugi as well. However, now that she was  proven wrong about that theory, it made her uncertain of her own  feelings. Did she have feelings for Yugi? Or was it the Spirit of the Millennium Puzzle? It was hard to distinguish between them, since they  shared the same body.