Serpent's Vow

4: Revelations

It took them several long, dismal hours of trudging through the muck and rain and underbrush to find the hatch. Actually, Yugi tripped over it. Effective but stubbed toes were murder. Jounouchi didn't care how high and mighty someone was. When you stubbed your toe, all your hit points went to zero. Period.

Moneybags didn't spare Yugi a glance as he stalked over to the cement structure about three feet in diameter and examined it. Together, they hauled branches off of it so they no longer covered the iron hatch in the center. Honestly, the thing just looked like an above ground manhole to the sewer. Oh, yeah. This was going to be so much fun.

"This it?" he asked.

Instead of answering him like a normal person, Kaiba gripped the handle on the hatch and lifted it revealing a tunnel to blackness. Iron rungs lined the cement wall on the way down. Creepy but cool. If only someone brought a flashlight.

"I'll go first," Kaiba said suddenly. "Yugi, you come after me. The puppy can take rear guard."

Do. Not. Punch. Him.

Swinging a leg over the ledge, Kaiba began climbing down. Yugi waited until only Kaiba's head was visible before climbing in after him. Jounouchi climbed in last, making sure to pull the hatch closed behind them.

It was pitch black dark. He couldn't even see the rungs he was holding on to. He hated this. Honda owed him a week's worth of pizza dinners for this. No exceptions.

He was so focused on making sure his hands found the rungs and his footing didn't slip that he stumbled when he felt solid ground beneath his foot when he'd only expected air. Well, he had to reach the bottom eventually, he supposed.

"What's that light over there?" Yugi whispered.

Looking over his right shoulder, Jounouchi squinted into the darkness and, sure enough, there was the faintest hint of red-gold light around the corner of the tunnel. The walls were made of dark, cement-like stone and dirt that swallowed most of the light before it reached their little group. But hey, Jounouchi wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

As long as the lights didn't mean guns.

"Stay behind me," Kaiba commanded, keeping his voice low so it didn't echo.

Glancing around curiously, Jounouchi followed his friend and rival down the tunnel. It turned several corners before opening up to a large, round room. From what he could see, it was empty. There were a few lights that glowed a dull red-gold mounted on the walls, but that was it. Nothing else. No windows and no doors.

"A dead end?" he muttered.

Kaiba spat something that was definitely a curse word and definitely not Japanese or English. It was soft but echoed eerily in the empty tunnel. Yugi visibly jerked and stared at moneybags in shock.

"Wha- Where did you hear that?!" he gasped.

"I've been around," Kaiba said, glaring at the room as if expecting it to bite him. From what Jounouchi had seen in the past few years, that wouldn't be completely unheard of. "Mutt," he said sharply, "with me. Yugi, head back to the surface."

"But I thought-"

"Let me know when you're back at the lookout point," Kaiba continued. "When you see the guards go inside, you're on your own."

Jounouchi watched the two duelists share a look that said more than words could. Then Yugi's eyes hardened.

"Fine," he said, nodding. "And if you find Honda?"