Chapter 1

Seto squinted as the gold light around the pod faded and his ride started to judder as it came to a stop. He blinked, trying to see through the stinging in his eyes and out the window. The sense of calm resolution he had had when first booting up the pod was giving way. His heart started to race as the golden light evaporated into a blank white canvas outside his window. He breathed heavily, checking all of his vitals. Everything was sound. Everything was stable. He pressed a hand to the window, found it cold to the touch. Should he risk opening the pod? Should he-

A tiny spot of gold appeared. Then more, like watercolours spreading across the featureless white. A brilliant blue was next, the colour of a hot summer's day sky. The gold became stretches of sand, then turned into the mighty rise and fall of dunes in a desert. He realised the pod was still moving, listing slowly and then drifting around broadside until it came to a gentle stop. Seto braced a hand on the side anyway, not quite able to trust there wouldn't be a sudden jolt or last-second disaster. But the pod just ran up against a sand bank and drifted to a stop, safe. As Seto dropped back into his seat he saw uneven smudges left on the glass by his shaking fingers.

He chuckled. What a stupid thing. Even with all his calculations, all his epiphanies about this new science and what it entailed, he was feeling something as pedestrian as nervousness. Well, why not. Breaking into another dimension wasn't something you did every day. Seto Kaiba gave himself a moment to lean back into his seat and take a long, deep breath. It was the only sound around, because the desert was quiet. Too quiet. It occurred to him then, listening to the total lack of anything surrounding him: it had been six months since he'd just stopped and breathed. All he'd done in that time was work, sleep, eat, work, the occasional power nap or break with Mokuba, work… he hadn't stopped, not once in all that time.

A wicked grin curved his lips. A Kaiba didn't stop, not until he was cold in the ground. He doubted the Pharaoh had either.

Seto arranged his trip items in the pod: several bottles of water, a few snacks and spare cards. The food and water could stay here but he stuffed the spare cards into his pockets just in case. Even with his technology taking the legwork out of building a deck, he didn't doubt Atem would prefer physical cards if they were available. Normally he'd be dismissive of such mindless sentimentalism, but now it just felt like another of Atem's stupid little quirks. He could put up with it, if it meant getting the rematch he was due.

Next he checked the pod's environment scanner. It was detecting nothing unusual, so with any luck he wouldn't drop dead the moment he stepped outside.

The only other thing he took was the translator he'd been working on. It had taken greasing the palms of more than one linguistic specialist, but he was reasonably confident it might be able to handle ancient as well as modern Egyptian. He couldn't begin to guess what he'd find out there, but it was best to be prepared.

He fitted the chip into his duel disk earpiece, and with the preparation done, leant over and clicked the pod door open. The air was breathable. A good start. Or at least, his tech was doing its job in sustaining him.

As soon as he reached outside, though, something odd happened. A pins and needles feeling came over him, odd little particles raising from his skin. If his suspicions were right about what Diva had been showboating about, he needed to find Atem, and quick. He took a deep breath and jumped from the pod, landing on the sand without disintegrating. Kaiba stood stock still for a moment, half expecting to be struck down by some divine force for altering the laws of the universe as everyone understood them.

Nothing happened.

He smirked. Then the smirk turned into a laugh. Then he reached down, grabbed a clump of sand in his fist and threw it into the air. This was real. He was here.

He started to walk, the elated bounce in his step hampered by the sand shifting beneath him. It gave suddenly and he went sliding down a large bank onto a small hill. Kaiba tried to recover his balance and failed miserably, getting sand all down his new coat. He grumbled to himself, falling forward when he tried to get up. Thankfully the ground here was more tightly packed, more solid… and led to a cliff edge. And there was something other than the sound of dust blowing – there were voices.

Kaiba scrambled to get up, almost falling again – and it came into view.

An ancient, living capital.

Kaiba stood and stared. For the first time he actually wanted to pinch himself. Instead he stared hard, not daring to let himself blink as he tried to take in every detail of what he saw before him. An exact replica of an Egyptian city, a bustling capital no less where the one back in his dimension had probably long since been abandoned. People walked the streets, some on foot and others on horseback, still busy even though there was surely nothing left to be worried about if this was truly Aaru. The sky rippled with what looked like a reflection of the city below, as though the sky was really the surface of water, but when he looked directly at it the image slipped away into just a regular heat haze.

But it was the building towering above everything else that caught his attention – a tall building, colourful compared to the rest, guarded by huge statues intimidating even from this distance.

The palace. His destination.

Kaiba gave shook himself out of his gawping stupor and headed down towards the streets. The worsening pins and needles feeling told him he had no time to waste. He brushed his arm, trying to shake it off, and flakes came off in his hand. He looked down at the dust in his palm. It was so fine it slipped off his hand when he tried to touch it. Experimentally he ran a hand down his sleeve and the black dust sloughed off his body like water.

He shook his hand to get rid of it. He was committed now. All there was left to do was find the Pharaoh.

He took the main path since it was the most direct, but this led him straight through a busy market street. The people stopped and stared, looking at him uncertainly. Only the children were unafraid, pointing at his attire and laughing with their friends. Kaiba just settled for nodding in what he hoped was a friendly greeting. He hadn't thought to read up on the cues to this time period, so he couldn't afford to get himself into bother before he could find the king. Luckily the palace was visible from down in the streets so he didn't even need to worry about getting lost.

It was a breath-taking sight all by itself. It was as high as a church, and every inch was decorated in brightly coloured murals or a twining fruit and leaf motif. Two pharaonic statues stood guard over the gates, and far below an array of guards were watching him intently. He headed straight for them.

But before he could even say a word to introduce himself, one of them stepped forward and bowed his head. "Seto Kaiba?" he asked.

Kaiba nodded.

He turned and called up to the guard tower. A guard called back down and there was what Kaiba could only assume was an argument between them in rapid-fire Egyptian, so fast his translator couldn't begin to keep up with it. After a bit of back and forth between them, the gates were opened with a mighty rumble, a huge corridor filled with light stretching out before him.

The guard gestured for him to follow. Kaiba shook his head. "I can find the way myself," he said, enunciating each word and trying to gesture what he meant. "I do – not – need – an escort. I came – to – see – Atem."

He saw them understand Atem well enough – looks of annoyance and disgust passed over the guards faces, followed by an angry barrage of Egyptian between them. Kaiba cursed himself – he'd read about Ancient Egypt, he knew calling the monarch by first name was a taboo in most movies, let alone in this time period – but there was nothing he could do about it now. Stupid. Stupid mistake.

The first guard pushed the others back, saying something quickly that he was sure included the word Pharaoh. The others fell silent. Then the guard turned back to Kaiba, gesturing angrily for him to follow. Kaiba didn't protest that time.

He was led down the huge corridor. The ceiling towered many feet overhead but there were gaps everywhere to let in floods of light across the floor, and yet the air inside was much cooler. Kaiba had done some research when he could spare the time about Ancient Egypt, more out of idle curiosity than anything else, but nothing could have prepared him for how lustrous it was. Everywhere were brilliant paints lining the walls, vibrant blues and reds and greens, gods clinging to pillars and paintings as far as the eye could see.

The guard cleared his throat. He was standing in a large doorway up ahead, a painting of the eye of Horus surrounded by falcon wings crowning the ceiling. A tremor ran down Kaiba's arm to his fingertips and he clenched his fist involuntarily. He took a moment at the doors, straightening his back and raising his head, before walking on.

Kaiba Seto passed the threshold.

Light shone into the room, probably from more skylights up above. It hit the far end of the room, in the centre. The pillars in the room too, built a perfect distance apart, drew his eye to the same spot… the spot where a long, golden-white throne reached high up to the ceiling. Seto squinted, willed his eyes to adjust.

Someone was sitting on that throne. A small figure, garbed in white linen and flashes of gold, and the Millennium Puzzle glinting in his lap. It caught the light even more as the man pressed his hands against the golden rests of the throne and slowly stood. His cape flared out behind him as he did so, coming to rest against tanned skin and yet more gold. Seto's eyes started to adjust and the king's face started to come into view. Seto had a last minute thought: what would Atem think of him hacking his way into this dimension, chasing him past death as all the others seemed to think…

Too late to worry now. Kaiba held his arm out, using the inbuilt gesture to activate his duel disk. Actions suited him better than any words word.

Those red, wild eyes with their sharp focus, met his own.

And then Atem smiled. Not smiled. Smirked.

Kaiba smirked right back at him, letting a small 'hmph' pass his lips. He was a fool to have expected anything else. Anyone evicted to a dimension like this was obviously in dire need of a challenge.

Atem descended the dais and approached him. Kaiba noticed with some surprise that Yugi must have overtaken him in height – the monarch was barely over five feet, if he had to estimate – but there was an assurance to his posture that disguised it that Yugi had never had. It had been one of the most obvious tells of the two switching, if he couldn't see the challenging eyes. Yet another thing that he looked back on differently, now that he knew the royal training that came with it.

Before Atem could speak he reached into his coat and undid the clasps around the other duel disk. He tossed it to Atem who caught it without missing a beat. He looked pleased and didn't even ask for an explanation. Kaiba let himself smile; just a small one, since he was never going to allow himself to get a reputation for it.

"You made me wait a long time for this," Seto said, as Atem turned the new model duel disk over in his hands, appreciating each point of the design. His fingers went to the physical slot for the cards, feeling the empty space where a deck should have been. There was no real need for a physical card holder, not in the digital age, but he knew his rival was prone to mindless sentimentalism, so he had kept one in. "You had better make this worth my while."

"You could expect no less, Kaiba," Atem said in fluent Japanese. "If I had some cards to use."

"What?" Kaiba was momentarily wrong-footed. Everything he had thought of…except the cards themselves. But he recovered quickly. "You have cards to use. That new duel disk is state-of-the-art technology – it calls to the satellite and allows you to build a deck."

"Hmm." Atem examined it again, an unfathomable look on his face. Kaiba couldn't tell if he was favouring amusement or ambivalence. Atem put the disk on anyway, sliding off a gold bangle so that he could click it into place on his arm. He managed to turn it on without assistance, and Kaiba maintained a duel field's worth of distance between them. It looked as though his tech didn't befuddle Atem – but then why would it? Atem remembered him, he remembered everything about the modern world. As it should be.

Atem navigated a few settings with his fingers, then stopped. He tried it again. " 'No signal'", he said.

"What?"

"No signal," he repeated, messing with something else on the display. Kaiba stared at him. Atem tried something else, but there another ugly red message popped up.

"You have to be kidding-" Kaiba marched across the room and grabbed Atem's arm so he could see for himself. NO SIGNAL flashed in bold letters across the screen, with a helpful little icon showing the failure to communicate with the crystal cloud. His stomach dropped and he brought up the settings, testing other ways to connect. Nothing worked. He frantically tried elsewhere, looking for any cards stored in local, offline memory.

There were none. His own disk had several different decks stored locally so he could play around with different combinations in his off hours, but Atem's duel disk had barely been used. He'd been forced to allow Yugi to use it, but he had discarded those settings after the tournament. Kaiba growled, going back to the settings screen even though he knew it was hopeless. The satellite just wasn't talking dimensions to the disk. "Damn it," Kaiba muttered, raking a hand through his hair. "Damn it, this can't…"

Atem had been watching him, expressionless. "Kaiba."

"One second, I just have to…"

"Kaiba."

Kaiba stopped and looked down at him. Up close, his unfamiliar African features were more obvious. Kaiba hadn't noticed it before because that laser focus in his eyes so unmistakeably belonged to his rival. Those red eyes stared back, a hint of worry in them. "You did build yourself a way to get home, right?"

"Of course I did. The same way I got here."

"Which was?"

Seto cursed; he knew then that Atem did not plan to let this one go. "A dimensional canon. My theory was flawless, otherwise I would never have gotten here in the first place."

The Pharaoh looked unimpressed by his ability to quite literally rip through the veil of life and death. He said only, "Then we need to check if you have the signal you need to get back."

All of Kaiba's grumbling that he had just got here fell on deaf ears with Atem, who asked only if he could ride and then led him to a stables in the back of the palace, selecting a pair of horses for them both and leading the way through the city. Kaiba hadn't been on a horse in years, though of course he had been forced to learn as a child.

He noticed Atem watching him. The Pharaoh's grip on the reins suggested total ease with being on horseback. "You're not a fan of riding," he said.

Kaiba grunted. Typical Atem, giving him a statement and not a question. "It's a pretentious activity the rich pretend to enjoy."

"And chess is not?"

"Games are different," he said, giving him a look, "You should know that."

Atem just gave him that smirk, catching Kaiba off guard enough that he actually smiled back before the moment was suddenly broken by Atem pulling his horse to an abrupt stop.

A small child had darted out into their path, and not by accident either – he was smiling up at Atem with the broadest beam on his face. Atem dismounted quickly, his shoulders tense, but he relaxed as soon as he saw the child was unhurt.

"That was very dangerous, young man," Atem said, kneeling down to his level. "You could have been hurt."

The child didn't look particularly guilty though. He turned back to his house and called, "The Horakhtian!"

A second later a woman rushed out the door. She quickly sized up what had happened and pulled her excited son behind her before falling to her knees and exclaiming, "Your pardon, Your Grace!"

The boy pointed again, muttering the strange word directly into his mother's ear in a barely contained, excitable little whisper. She turned to him, about to chastise him when Atem intervened. He looked as calm as ever when he took the woman's arm and encouraged her to her feet.

"Not at all," he said. "Just tell your son to be careful not to get himself trampled underneath a horse's hooves next time. I wouldn't want to see such promise tarnished."

"That's all right, Your Highness!" the boy piped up. "No one really gets hurt here."

His mother gave her son a despairing look and pulled him behind her, getting out a barely audible thank you to Atem. Before she turned to go, she noticed Seto. An odd look of recognition came over her before she bowed her head to him too, then more deeply again to Atem, before she steered the both of them back inside.

"I never heard that title before," Kaiba said to Atem as he remounted his horse.

"Not now," he said, checking the street to see if they had attracted anyone else's attention. They rode on, Atem spurring his horse down a quieter road close to the river. They still passed by other Egyptians, most of whom smiled and waved at the Pharaoh. He greeted them in return, but otherwise spoke little, his attention on their destination. Kaiba had expected some posturing about responsibility, or taking care of himself, not this calm silence. It actually bored him a little, so he entertained himself by trying to estimate the net value of all the gold Atem was wearing. The lapis lazuli earrings were a pricey touch, too. He coughed and looked away when Atem caught him staring.

Atem slowed his horse when they left the city, noting his horse struggling in the sand. "Kaiba, did you… park far from here?"

Kaiba nearly laughed, imaging his dimension crossing pod with a Kaiba Corporation taxi logo on the side. "Within walking distance."

"Good." Atem dismounted again, leading his horse to a fence to tie him there and petting his nose before waiting for Kaiba to do the same. Kaiba dismounted, looking down on the tiny king standing there and giving him a look of haughty impatience. At least some things never changed.

"This way, Your Shortness."

Atem fell into step with him, doing an admirable job keeping up with his short legs even in the sand. "I could have your head taken off for that."

"Oh, really? Can someone die twice in this realm?"

Atem didn't answer at first as they had come to a higher dune that needed mastering, and Kaiba was starting to think he wasn't going to when he suddenly said, "Yes. The boy with the horse back there would have been hurt if I had hit him."

"Go on."

"Spirits can die, Kaiba. But rather than any physical wound, it happens in terms of losing parts of yourself. If no other wound occurs, you can stop yourself fading and become whole again, but if too many happen in too soon a time…" He reached down and took a fistful of sand, then released it to the wind. A lot vanished at once, then the stragglers were lost to the wind, leaving nothing behind.

"What about sleeping? Do you do that?"

He shrugged. "We have something akin to it, for restoring ourselves. If I was taxed playing a dark game back when I was – back in Domino, I would rest for awhile to regroup my spirit."

Seto remembered what Sera had said about Duel Links assembling the consciousness of Duelists: 'If there was an individual with a superior consciousness that transcends human wisdom in the mix…' He had assumed Atem's would be distinctive, easy to find because of what he was. "Then this world is just everyone's consciousnesses given form?" he asked. "And the bridge between it is recognition of the signature of an individual?"

"In theory. I was able to help Jo – help stop Aigami because people in your world respond to my power. But it goes without saying that under normal circumstances, individuals from the Second Intermediate period have no reason to know the citizens of modern day Japan."

Kaiba gave him a look, feeling something was off and not being able to put his finger on it. It would have to wait, though, since they had made it back to the pod. Atem actually chuckled when he saw it. "Are there any safety precautions in this design?"

Kaiba raised his an eyebrow and indicated the seatbelt. Atem rolled his eyes and hoisted himself to up to look into the cockpit.

"I suppose I can't judge too harshly when Osiris has no seatbelts."

Kaiba startled. He wasn't talking about actually riding Osiris the dragon of heaven, was he? And what the hell would that even look like? Was the Egyptian God still 60 foot long and the size of a jumbo jet? Atem looked up, bemused. "Kaiba, are you going to help me with this?"

Kaiba snapped to attention and went to the opposite side of the pod, climbing in and powering it up. He ran through all the start up procedures to get the pod to talk back to its point of origin, and then the message flashed: NO SIGNAL.

Kaiba tried it again, only for the same message to display.

Atem was watching him follow through the steps, an increasingly alarmed look on his face. And then he muttered something in Egyptian that sounded distinctly like a swear.

No matter how much Kaiba insisted this was something he could fix, Atem would not be calmed. He spent some time rapid fire muttering to himself in Egyptian, the heavy whip of fabric following as his cape twisted to keep up. Finally he stopped and said, "With me, Kaiba. We have to fix this."

"Do you talk to your subordinates like that?"

"Kaiba, this is serious! Do you realise what could happen if you end up stranded here? That tech on your arm, how does it –"

"First of all, calm. Down. This is entirely fixable. I just have to adjust some parameters, and – where are you going?"

Atem was walking back to the horses, not stopping to wait for him. "To the palace. I don't advise trying to brainstorm a fix for this out in the full sun, in a tiny pod with glass to magnify the heat."

Kaiba couldn't really feel the heat of the sun that intensely but he followed Atem anyway. "What about the pod?"

"A team will be sent out to it and it will be dragged to the palace where we can work on it more easily."

He looked back at his pod where it sat half sunk into the sand. "You had better tell them how much it costed."

Atem actually laughed before he caught himself. "My men are used to moving items that cost twice what that contraption does. There won't be so much as a scratch on the paintwork."

"Oh, really? Leave it to you to have such a tight grip –" Kaiba stopped himself, suddenly, unexpectedly. Atem looked over his shoulder and a charged look passed between them. He looked away suddenly, an odd guilty feeling coming over him.

Neither of them picked the banter back up as they headed back to the palace.

They took an even more convoluted route back that avoided most of the major roads and any and all market squares. Atem led the way, obviously practised in this route by the ease of his navigation around the dim alleys and back streets.

Kaiba cleared his throat. "They have you on a pretty loose leash, don't they?"

Atem raised an eyebrow. "I wasn't aware I was on a leash at all."

"Not what I meant, Your Highness." He gestured to their surroundings. "You just get done telling me that you can still die here, but you have no escort but myself to take you through the entire city and back?"

Atem hmph-ed at him. "This is my city, and I'm more than capable of handling myself. I remembered doing much the same thing when I was still alive."

"I bet your guards loved that," he said, rolling his eyes. But secretly he was thinking: of course you are. Of course you did.

They reached the palace much quicker on the return journey and headed to some side entrance Kaiba hadn't spotted before, through a garden and straight to the stables. A man was standing there in long robes with a fancy hat. He reminded Kaiba of someone, though he couldn't say who. His look turned sharp when he spotted Kaiba, but then he ignored him totally and knelt before Atem.

"I am relieved to see your safe return, Pharaoh."

Atem shook his head and laid a hand on the man's shoulder. "How many times, Mahad? You don't need to do any of this every time I go somewhere… or any time you see me, come to think of it."

Mahad rose to his feet. "Given recent events, my King, permit me some relief when I see you returned safe." He looked at Kaiba again, and quickly away. Atem spotted it and awkwardly cleared his throat.

"Allow me to introduce you. Priest Mahad, this is –"

"Yes, I know who he is," he said, looking him over. He wasn't as tall as Seto but Seto could've sworn the priest was trying his best to look down his nose at him. "Pardon the interruption, my Pharaoh, but I trust you have found a way to send him home?"

"There is a way," Atem said. "It requires…adjustment."

"Then allow me to assist-"

"I am not leaving until I get the duel I was promised," Seto interrupted. He folded his arms and glared at Mahad. "And I am not about to be shooed out the door by some lackey."

Mahad's eyes flashed and his hand clenched into a fist and he started towards Seto but Atem seized his arm. "Wait, Mahad. Please. He – he hasn't realised –"

"Realised what?" Kaiba snapped.

"Kaiba, you… you need to eat. There is no food here. There is water in the river, but you can't drink it." He gestured to the device on Kaiba's arm. "That device may sustain you, but there is nothing else here that will. You are still flesh and blood, what sustains a spirit will not keep you alive. And I… I don't know what will happen to you, if you don't…"

Kaiba rubbed his temples. So that was the problem. "All right. I understand. You don't need to panic; the pod will be fixable."

"It had better be," Mahad said, folding his arms. "What would happen if the first living human to make it here were to expire within days under the Pharaoh's watch?" Then he turned to the Pharaoh, adding, "I trust you will want to assist this interloper in returning home. I will cover you for any engagements you may miss. If you need my assistance at any time, please call for me."

The Pharaoh thanked him as he bowed again, then Mahad gave Kaiba one last hard look before turning and walking off. Kaiba glared after him, long enough that he caught sight of an odd ripple of light across the man's entire form, the same that he would see in his own holograms when his Solid Vision system was still in its infancy. Then he rubbed his eyes and it was gone.

"Are your men always this welcoming?" Kaiba grumbled. Atem just gave him a look.

"You know… never mind. Let's go. I still have duties to attend to once we get this fixed."

It was Kaiba's turn to give him an irritated look, which he completely missed. Typical. "So where have your men oh so skilfully dragged my highly expensive machinery to?"

The Pharaoh thought for a moment. "The courtyard. Probably."

It turned out Atem was right, the pod was in the courtyard. It was a beautiful area, really, a large space shaded with palms with a fountain in the centre. Atem sat on its edge, trailing his fingers through the water for a moment. Then he reached into his golden waistband and retrieved something – a tiny piece of chalk.

"Do you carry that with you all the time?" Kaiba asked, confused.

"It serves me for incantations. Now," he said, and leant down to sketch on the stone pavers, "You are in Aaru. There are most likely more scientific ways to refer to it, but it will do. And you need to find your way back to your own dimension. And you got here by using your technology to elevate your pod to being on the same – let's call it frequency – as this dimension." As he spoke, he made notes in hieratic. "Is that about right?"

Kaiba blinked. A magic laden explanation was par for the course with Atem, but one he could actually understand and that was more or less exactly how his machine worked? That was… a little bit more surprising.

"Uh, yeah. Of course."

"But you're getting no signal here, because your machine can't find the Kaiba Corp – mainframe, satellite?"

"Both, but let's say satellite."

"-satellite to talk to. So how was the exit procedure supposed to work?"

"In the Duel Links world, we take someone's brain signals and convert that to a duelist's strength. Sera explained to me that the concept for this dimension is the same – there is a net of signals, of people's consciousnesses, and it is the power of the consciousness that makes a signal stronger."

Atem nodded, stopping his writing to listen.

"Those children – the Plana, you probably noticed all the trouble they caused – had some kind of magic that raised their consciousness to cross dimensions. She told me that if I were in sync with a superior consciousness, I would be able to contact the Netherworld." He looked Atem dead in the eye. "I knew she was talking about you."

Atem leant back, setting his chalk down. A complex expression came over his face, but he said nothing.

"And then I saw the Plana crossing dimensions, their power acting like a bridge. All I had to do was gather those neurons, those consciousnesses reaching out for one point, and I would be able to reach the higher dimension. And I almost did, but using myself only was taxing my brain's natural limits too much." Kaiba circled the pod, running a hand around the outsides. "Eventually I realised I didn't need to do any of that. I have an entire city of people whose brainwaves are connected to Kaiba Corp tech already. With their neurons I could create a combined frequency and elevate the pod to the next dimension." He chuckled, which turned into a satisfied laugh. "Sounds like science fiction, doesn't it? But even magic can be explained with enough understanding – someday your dimension too will be about as foreign to Japan as China!"

Atem didn't so much as smirk at his assertion. "Is that so?" He shut his eyes and let his head tip back, the large golden earrings tipping back with him. Eventually he sat back upright and stood. "All right. I think I know a way that we can achieve the same result. We can do the same thing with–" He stopped, looking suddenly sheepish, "Well, sorcery."

"How?"

"You said the Plana were reaching towards me with their power. That I was the point of focus around which they were crossing dimensions. The prophecy that my return would effectively end their powers referred to that: if I were to cross dimensions, the fixed point that made the bridge – my presence in Aaru – would no longer be fixed, and their powers would be gone. Or, at least… in theory." He looked pensive. "Anyway, the same principle should apply in reverse. We send someone across the divide to act as an anchor. Everyone here forms a mental connection with them and we use that to power your machine. Then you should be able to cross back."

"All right… but who are we using? Crossing the divide is the problem in the first place."

Atem looked uncomfortable. "No. Not for everyone."

"Then who-?" Then the penny dropped. "Oh. Tell me you don't mean-"

"Mahad. It looks like we have to get his help sooner than we thought."

"Oh," Kaiba said, biting back the urge to groan. "Great."

Mahad was immediately approving of the plan when he realised it would help Kaiba get back, though he continued to ignore Kaiba's presence and talk solely to Atem as they worked out the finer details. Kaiba leant against the pod, ignoring it for the most part, but his attention perked up as soon as Mahad asked, "But you were at least able to duel?"

And Atem paused, his silence an admission by itself. Mahad's eyes flickered over to Kaiba with another disapproving look, and then lowered his voice. But Kaiba was too practiced at reading people not to have seen him do it, so he leant forward and listened intently.

"Your Highness, how are we to stop him from doing this again?"

Atem paused again, for far too long. "Mahad, let's not jump to conclusions-"

Kaiba pushed himself off the pod to stand upright, stopping their conversation in its tracks. He folded his arms and stared the pair of them down.

"You two are forgetting something," he hissed. "Something the pod needs to work. No, a non-negotiable condition of it working." Mahad's glare only got more intense. The priest at least had caught on. But Atem had not. He switched back to panic.

"What? What did we miss?"

Kaiba stalked forward until he was towering over Atem and glaring down at Mahad. Mahad took a step forward, putting himself between Kaiba and Atem. But Kaiba didn't back off.

"The Pharaoh is coming back with me," Seto said. Atem flinched and Mahad growled in warning. "If you don't join me," he said, pushing Mahad aside and meeting Atem's shocked eyes with chilly ones of his own, "Then I am not going anywhere."