This occurred in-between when Bakura attacks the palace and when Mahad leaves for the Valley of the Kings. When I re-read it, I was thinking 'Where's Mana?' because she probably would've wanted to watch the priests (specifically Mahad) dueling. So this (in my mind) is why she wasn't there.
By the way, for those of you who are thinking it is, this IS NOT ApprenticeShipping.
"But-But-" Mana struggled to find a reason to get out of her lessons.
"No buts." Mahad said, crossing his arms across his chest. "You've put off this lesson for too long."
"But Master-!"
"Mana..." Mahad said firmly, reprimanding his student.
"Yes Master..." She mumbled, eyes downcast.
"The Pharaoh has called for us priest to train with our ka today," Mahad handed his dejected apprentice a collection of scrolls, "so I will not be able to teach you today. Instead, study these scrolls until I return."
"Yes Master." She repeated, less grudgingly, already making plans to escape once his back was turned.
"To ensure you don't try to get out of it," Mahad said, guessing what was going on inside her head, "this Shadow Creature will be watching you." The Millennium Ring flashed and a Winged Kuriboh appeared in mid-air.
"Awww..." Mana sighed, disappointed that her plan had come to a halt so quickly.
"I'll be back once I have been dismissed." Mahad promised, leaving the palace gardens. 'Those scrolls are so simple, a Kuriboh could do the spells.' He thought as he headed toward the royal court.
"Really!" Mana huffed as she dropped the scrolls on the grass under a shady tree. "Does he not trust me?! Don't answer that!" She glared distastefully at the Winged Kuriboh, who simply looked down at her from it's tree perch.
"Transformation?!" She yelped, eyes popping out of her head when she opened a scroll. "Maaaasstteeerrr!" She wailed.
"Kiiiiiiii." The Winged Kuriboh hummed disapprovingly.
"Oh hush." Mana said, and then sighed. "Might as well..."
"Transformation," she slowly read, "is the practice of turning an object or person into something else. The more familiar the object is that is envisaged, the easier it will be to make appear..."
-\/-
Mahad's feet carried him back toward the palace garden, which he had left almost six hours before.
The Pharaoh had given him a chance to redeem himself, and he wasn't worthy of receiving a second chance. Mahad's plan was a dangerous gamble, but the thief Bakura and his spirit ka, Diabound, had to be stopped. They couldn't be allowed to cause any more destruction.
'But if I die, who will take care of Mana?'
She still had many lessons before she was a full-fledged sorcerer. But for a sixteen year-old, she had a great measure of heka, even if it was uncontrollable.
And there was the possibility that she had a ka in her heart, like him. It hadn't appeared yet, but his ka, the Dark Magus, had appeared when he was fifteen years, so if she did have a ka, it would appear soon.
Mahad entered the garden and the Winged Kuriboh flew over to him.
"Did she cause any mischief?" He asked and Winged Kuriboh shook it's head. "Good. Thank you." Winged Kuriboh nodded and vanished, returning to the Shrine of Wedju, where it's tablet was.
Glancing around, Mahad spotted Mana laying under a tree, wand in one hand, an unrolled scroll in the other, snoring softly. Mahad chuckled quietly, until something moving on one of the bushes that was nearby caught his eye.
A weak beam of pink-colored energy was lazily wrapping itself around the bush. As Mahad approached, he noticed fine threads of energy that were connected to other bushes. His eyes followed one, and saw a bush sparkling faintly with pink energy. Except the bush didn't exactly look like a normal bush. His eyes widened.
Mahad found himself staring at a leafy version of his ka, the Dark Magus. It looked so identical to the real Dark Magus, it appeared that the bush had been formed in a mold.
His eyes followed other threads and saw topiaries of himself, Pharaoh Atem, Priestess Isis, and, surprisingly enough, High Priest Seto.
The energy had completely surrounded the bush, which was taking on a humanoid shape. Mahad was curious as to the bush would look like, and was surprised when it took on the form of Mana.
Except it wasn't an exact copy of Mana. The Mana-lookalike had longer hair and markings on her face, and wore a short cape fastened to the back of her skirt-dress, jeweled arm bracers, boots, and necklace, and a pointed hat similar to the Dark Magus's.
It was eerie how lifelike it was. Then before Mahad's flabbergasted eyes, as the energy began to move to a different bush, the Mana-doppelganger seemed to vibrate and emit a weak glow. His eyebrows shot up as the glow became more powerful and a hand reached out from the heart of the topiary. A hand attached to an arm that wore an arm bracer.
Mana's wand slipped from her fingers and the magic was broken. All the bushes simultaneously returned to their previous states and the gloved hand vanished into tendrils of pink and blue mist.
Mahad continued to stare at the bush.
'Did I see...what I think I saw?'
"M...Master?" A somnolent Mana rubbed her eyes, the scroll sliding from her other hand. "Is that you?"
"Did you manage to do any studying while I was away?" Mahad reached down and rolled the scroll back up.
"Uh-huh!" Mana proudly nodded, then stretched. "I read all of them! You were gone a long time Master."
"I know." He gathered the other scrolls as Mana got to her feet and dusted off her dress. "Let's go inside Mana, it's getting dark and nothing good happens at night." His mind flashed back to the knowledge that Bakura was still loose.
"Okeydokey Master." She picked up her wand and skipped along as they went into the palace, humming to herself.
"I had a strange dream." She told him as they entered the hallway that lead to their quarters. "I saw you, and the Pharaoh, and Priestess Isis, and the Dark Magus, and Priest Seto," she wrinkled her nose, "and I saw me! Except I looked really different. My clothes were cool though."
Mahad stopped walking midstride, mind moving rapidly. Mana kept going, unaware of her master's presence no longer beside her.
"Maybe I should try to make clothes like those. Oh, but my hat looked like your Dark Magus's hat Master! Master?" She looked around, then ran back to him. "Are you okay?" She gazed up at him.
"Yes." Mana thought for a moment, then wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him.
"Good night Master."
"Good night Mana." He allowed an arm to squeeze her before she skipped the length of the passage, twirling her wand like a baton.
'Without a doubt, I believe that what I saw was Mana's ka,' Mahad thought as her door clicked shut. 'And to perform the transformation spells unconsciously-Ra! As I've suspected for a long time, she has great amounts of heka that have yet to be discovered.'
'That does not change the fact that I may die destroying Bakura. But it's only a matter of time until Mana's true potential emerges. One day, she may surpass High Priest Seto, even me. The Pharaoh will be safe with Mana next to him. There is hope for the future.'
Wrote this criticizing myself every step of the way. Since this is the first time I've used actual characters, I was trying to imagine what Mana and Mahad would be saying.
-Inspired from Imagination