Why did he bother puzzling over these things? Seto was dead, or as good as dead to him. His world was a closed circuit, completely self-contained and indescribably lonely. Though the world extended as far as the eye could see, there was a definite point where it stopped, and all the things he created were merely pale imitations of reality. The backup drive was far inferior to the world he'd once held dominion over. There was no comfort in continuing to exist after the others had gone. He'd poked quietly at the remnants of the old world where his father and the Big Five had reigned, but found no relief.

Boredom was his number one enemy. It made seconds into centuries, and hours into millennia. He could not rest, he could not die and he could not find anything to entertain himself. Most worrisome of all, he could not allow his world to decay, and yet for what was his effort? He only had the vague memories of his previous life, and the recent memories he'd accumulated. Mokuba, Seto, Yuugi... those words only made his heart ache. If he still had what you could call a heart.

New information: he needed it, hungered for it, scoured the island for it and then...

It was like his first taste of chocolate, the warmth of his father's rare smiles, like solving a math equation. He realized later that someone had simply hooked up the hard drive to a laptop with internet access, but the sudden rush of information brought him unspeakable pain and joy. Then there were the files, all quietly perfect down to the last detail. Someone had backed their personality data onto the drive as well.

An eclectic collection of data it was. An experiment? A game character? There were details on the daily life of the poor Ancient Egyptian, there were collections of blue prints, the chemical composition of lapis lazuli, and a vast complicated analysis on an unknown energy under a file simply labeled, "Darkness."

There was one and only one image file, a photograph of a painting really. A young man with dark hair and skin, but with dark blue eyes that reminded him of Seto's. They had the same cheekbones, the same expression, but were decidedly different. Something about the look in his eyes made Noa sure that this person was different on a very deep level.

He had no contact with the owner of the laptop, and there was no further activity on their part. But he had the idea that they wanted him to do something, to put all of these clues together into something that was coherent. And then, one day a new file appeared.

AN: This was a Bayshipping for Azh written some months ago which I just found recently.