Disclaimer: ...Now, if I only had a whole set of the whole friggin' series, then I'd be happy enough to make a false claim.
...
Four years, is it?—or is it five?
Five, then—five years have passed. Five years of release, and five years of learning in this alien world. And yet—not so alien—if any, the past life, the life before, would be more alien, but now he remembers, and he has planted one foot in each world—and the people. The then and the now. Life is cruel, because it gives and takes.
He remembers now, the hot desert sands, the Egyptian sun stroking the skin of its people, the gold weighing down his body; he remembers days and nights spent chasing about the palace, giggling cheerfully with young spell casters, and the warmth of a father still living. He remembers knowing his name like he knows the back of his hand, and a life like any other, any other royal being.
And he knew, up until now, only the rumble of the city, on an island far away from the African winds, of not knowing where he came from, only that his best friend is a small boy who looks like him, and would not be so much younger than him had he also sprung from wherever he hailed—he knew of days spent in a modern daily life, of plastic cards and people whom he has learned to love. The past haunted him—and knew his name as well as the back of his hand, which was not even his, but Yuugi's.
He knows now, and now that he knows, he aches for the past—his age reaches up and snatches him at last, and he knows his name now—not Pharaoh, not quite, but Atem. He knows why he and Yuugi so love the Dark Magician, and he knows where he came from. The afterlife waits. At long last, he is to rest, and now he knows everything he needs to know.
It is too soon.
As he steps forward, he thinks, it has only been five years. Five years is too little, too long. And he thinks, also, that he is not crying.
He hears crying, though. Because this is the end.
Step after step after step—and he thinks, no, this is not the end, because though is to leave, finally, as Atem himself, he will wait. He will wait for them all—Yuugi, Kaiba, Anzu, everyone, because they matter, so much, and he will miss them as they will miss him—and then, there will be an eternity for them all.
One thing always leads to another.
White light, and he is enveloped in the past that rushes back to him; he sees it, and those he knew then, and will know again. He hears crying, though it is fading, and his chest heaves in turn—he does not look back.
He fades.
The afterlife is peaceful.
...
PT: Yeah...I re-re-re-re-watched Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged and suddenly felt this HUGE urge to watch the episodes themselves. Well, I did, and watched the end while I was at it. Um...well, y'know, this was the first anime I liked, the first I watched on a regular basis—I was there, watching it, from the beginning to the end. I was, like, six when I started the thing when it first aired, and yeah. You can imagine the effects it had on me. NOSTALGIA ;_; And now that I'm fifteen and more smarterer— -shot- —I can muse more deeply on the characters on a more realistic scale, and spat this thing out. And no, I don't give a damn about GX and Five-G and...whatever the hell is coming out next, or is already out—I only like Nakagauchi Masataka 8D Hope you guys enjoy.