The Heart of the Cards
Disclaimer: I do not own Yugioh or the game: Yugioh! The Duelist of the Roses. This fanfiction is purposely written for the fun of it.
Author's Notes: This story is from the American dubbed version of Yugioh, not the Japanese version. I will also be combining one the Playstation 2 games, Yugioh! The Duelist of the Roses, with this story line. Also, the characters will be out of character. Please read and leave a review.
Prologue
"Goodbye, Atem… and good luck," I whispered as I watched an old aged tablet filled with hieroglyphics and pictures of Egypt. A moment ago, the tablet was a grand doorway Atem, the Pharaoh of Egypt, walked through alone. No one would have ever believed it burst with life and opened to an unknown world only meant for him.
I raised my hand to touch the surface of the stone, to feel its coolness under my fingertips. Maybe if I touched the stone, the door would open for me so I could walk through it to join my fellow Pharaoh in his afterlife. But I stopped myself because he was gone forever. Nothing in the world could return him to Yugi Muto, the boy whom he shared a body with, or to Joey Wheeler, or to Tristan Taylor or to me. He belonged to a different world all together.
My chest hurt thinking about him. Slowly I let my hand fall to the side of my body as I heard footsteps walked away from the tablet. Yugi, Joey and the others were leaving. Their whispers echoed in the room, but their words didn't register in my mind. I felt very sad to lose a precious friend. No. I felt like something was ripped away from deep inside me as the Pharaoh left the world. I wanted to scream, to lash out at Joey for trying to prevent me from going after Atem, to collapse on the ground and weep in sadness.
Yet, I remained standing and staring at the lonely tablet. My friends were gone and for a moment a surge of hatred swelled in my chest. A friend left us and they acted as if his departure meant nothing to them.
But his existence meant the world to me. As small as the amount of times we shared with each other, I treasured it. Sometimes, I purposely got myself in trouble so Atem or Yami, as my friends and I called him, would appear instead of Yugi to save me.
Somewhere along the way of our adventure or troubles, I grew to love him. However, I could not express my love for him without hurting or involving Yugi so I contained my feelings as best as possible by acting as a friend. I used it as a disguise to get closer to him, to learn about him, to support him. Damn! All the friendship speeches I gave throughout his battles were a load of crap! I was speaking of my feelings for him, but instead of saying "I," I was saying "we."
How else can I act around him? Yugi was my best friend since childhood. Yami was a part of him. As much as I loved Yami, Yugi's friendship also meant the world to me, I mentally told myself.
"Does it?" said a feminine voice from behind me. Quickly, I turned around to see Ishizu Ishtar staring at me with grim expression on her face. She was dressed in white. Her long flowing dressed clung to her curvy form. She wore a scarf over her head to hide her dark hair. Her ears, neck and wrists were adorned in gold jewelry. Her lovely brown eyes were skeptically observing my reactions toward the tablet. I felt like belittling myself for being caught unaware of my surroundings. The one person who had a good sense to observe people was Ishizu. Her millennium puzzle piece allowed her to read people. She could see their past, present and the future. She was also one of the Pharaoh's tomb keepers.
"Does what?" I asked with puzzlement.
"Does Yugi's friendship mean as much as your feelings for Atem?" she questioned. She folded her hands over her stomach but her simple gesture caught me off guard.
How did she know what I was thinking?
"You make it obvious. You wear your heart on your sleeves," she answered with a small smile.
"But, it's still weird how you knew exactly what I was thinking without your millennium puzzle," I said as I stepped away from her. Ishizu always had a mysterious aura, which made her a bit creepy to my liking. However, she wasn't a bad person.
"I've had it with me for years. I have grown accustomed to the unusual powers it granted me. Before it disappeared, it allowed me to not only peer into your past and future, it showed me your aura and I must say yours is quite interesting."
I took another step back as her smile widened to a grin. Seeing a fully smiling Ishizu was freaking me out. Usually, it meant unfortunate news. "Uhh… umm… I really don't want to know anything about what you saw."
"Are you sure?" she asked. All of a sudden the smile was wiped off her face.
I nodded my head.
"Even if it has to do with the Pharaoh?"
I never saw it coming. It was too late for me to stop. As I was retreating from Ishizu, my back touched the cool surface of the tablet. I froze as I inhaled air into my body. Automatically, my body stiffened upon touching a sacred area Atem was recently occupying.
This is not suppose to happen, I mentally scolded myself. Where are Yugi, Joey and Tristan when I need them?
"They won't come. The sands of time will not allow them to interfere with this discussion," she yet again answered my thoughts.
"Stop doing that!" I yelled. I pushed myself away from the tablet to get away from both it and her. "Leave me alone!"
"I cannot do that," she simply said before unfolding her arms at her stomach. Her hands remained in fists as they moved to her sides. I didn't notice her hands before, but she seemed to be holding onto something in both of them. "The sands of time will not allow me to stop our discussion until I warn you what is to come in your future."
"What the heck are you talking about? What the heck is the sands of time?" I questioned as I surveyed the room. Something was different about the room. I didn't see an exit anywhere. Instead, stonewalls surrounded us on all sides.
"I will notify you if you stop moving around."
"How can I stop when we're trapped inside this room?" I panicked and began to madly dash around the room, going from left to right to find myself bumping into Ishizu.
"If you listen to me, all of this will end," she rationally said.
I stopped dead in my tracks and glanced at her. I puffed a few breaths, logically thinking about what she said. Nodding my head in agreement with her statement, I walked to her. However, instead of standing on my feet to have a conversation with her, I sat down cross-legged on the cold ground. I decided it was better to hear her story while sitting on the floor because it will brace me better for my reactions than standing on shaky legs.
She didn't take any offense to me sitting before her. Instead, she gracefully knelt down on her knees. Displaying both her closed hands in front of her, she opened them to reveal grains of sand. I stared at the sand and then looked at her in bafflement.
"In ancient Egypt, the Egyptians worshiped many gods and goddesses such as Ra, Horus, Isis, Anubis, Amun and many others. Nonetheless, they also believed objects had a life around them. Similarly to the Native American cultures in North and South America, the Egyptians believed everything had a life, especially the sand, which covered the most of their homeland."
"Okay," I responded. "How does this relate to the sands of time, or about my future?"
"I am getting there," Ishizu said with a small smile curving her rosy lips.
"Well, you're taking too much time," I retorted.
Her reaction shocked me. The smile never left her lips, which meant I wasn't annoying her at all. "The sand was of great importance to the people of Egypt. They believed the sand was alive and that it connected their world with other worlds -."
"Like the shadow realm?" I interrupted her as I recalled Yami dueling his opponents in the dark world with monsters.
"Yes," Ishizu approved. "The sand was believed to contain an entity to retain an essence of the person and bits of this sand was collected throughout a person's life. When the person died, the sand was encased in pottery and included with the body in his or her tomb."
"This is starting to sound bizarre," I said.
"To you, this will sound bizarre. To my people, it is a tradition. We greatly value the sand for its history and divinity."
"Which brings us back to the question of sands of time and me?"
Ishizu laughed and shook her head. "You really are something Tea."
"I don't know whether to take that as a compliment or an insult," I grumbled as I folded my arms over my chest.
"It's a compliment, Tea," she assured me. "This is the attitude I hope you will keep as everything is about to change."
She perked my interest with her words about change. "What type of change?"
"I can't say what type of change. All I can say is Atem's reappearance in the world disrupted the normal balance of life and with his departure; the things he affected with the balance will right itself. Unfortunately, this will include you because he has left some unfinished business."
"Me? But I don't see how it can affect me and not Yugi? Isn't Yugi the chosen one, his reincarnated self?" I questioned her. "Yugi and Yami endured many hardships together and they are very close to one another, so it is only fair for Yugi to be the one to complete Yami's unfinished business."
"True, the Pharaoh and Yugi are close, but Yugi's journey is over. And where one journey ends, a new one begins. This is about you now. Your journey is about to begin. It is up to you whether you want to walk the path to complete it."
I gulped as I realized the seriousness of Yami's situation. If he left unfinished business, then he shouldn't have gone to his afterlife. What if the world was in grave danger, I didn't have the power in me to stop it from consuming the world. Although Yugi may be small for his size, his courage, wit, determination and strength could withstand anything evil. He proved himself to be a formidable opponent against Yami.
"Do not underestimate yourself. Your courage, your belief in your friends, and your positive nature helped your friends get through perilous situations. Out of all the people you helped the Pharaoh the most."
"You're wrong," I said while I shook my head. My hair fell to the sides of my face while I bowed my head in shame. "I was being selfish. I wanted to be near Yami so I staged those friendship speeches. I constantly feared something terrible will happen to him so I followed him wherever he went and made Joey and Tristan come with me."
"Then, your selfishness is what he needed to help him conquer the darkness," Ishizu replied.
Her words made me looked up at her with astonishment. "What?"
"Your feelings helped him spiritually fight the darkness."
I inhaled a deep breath and exhaled it while I shook my head. "You give me too much credit."
"Actually, you don't get enough of it," she replied.
"Huh?" was all I could say to her.
She flipped over her hands until the sand fell onto the floor. "The sands of time say your journey will begin. Your deep feelings for the Pharaoh not only make a connection between you and him. Your link with him goes on a deeper level."
"How?" I questioned. My eyes gazed at the sand on the floor as if transfixed. For some strange reason I felt if I looked elsewhere in the room, something dreadful would happen to me or it.
"Walk your path, find the answers you seek but beware. This journey you begin will be a difficult one and unlike Yugi who had his friends, you will ally yourself with strange people."
I frowned; pondering which people would be my allies and then some questions popped into my mind. "Will walking this path really answer my questions like why I was chosen to finish Yami's business instead of Yugi?"
Forcing my attention to avert from the sand to Ishizu, I saw her gently nodded her head while her scarf bounced up and down on her head. "Just remember to believe in yourself."
"Okay," I answered her. I was ready to start my new journey, to answer my questions about my link to Yami or Atem and why the sands of time chose me to complete his journey.
She smiled so radiantly that her beauty seemed so ethereal. She stood up to her full height, forcing me to crane my neck to continue to stare at her. "I am glad to hear of it. I will now leave you alone."
She walked away from me, but my eyes returned to the sand on the floor. In order to inspect the sand, I carefully shifted my body weight to be supported on both my hands and knees and crawled to the sand. Poking my head closely at the fine grain, I took my pointer finger and touched some of the particles.
"Tea!" a familiar voice called to me. Automatically, I shifted my position so I was kneeling instead of being discovered in an awkward position by the intruder. "What are you doing?"
"I… uh… Was checking the floor for something." I answered truthfully and lamely at the same time while I awkwardly scratched the back of my head.
"We have to head back, Joey and Tristan are complaining they're hungry," Yugi said with a laugh. He also scratched the back of his head with his hand causing his already unruly blond mixed with black hair to be wilder at the sides of his boyish face. I nodded my head. Standing on my feet and dusting myself, I search for the sand on the ground. It was still there, the small amount looked out of place in the room. I glanced around me to see if the room appeared the same way before Ishizu warped it to tell me something important. The room looked as if magic never tampered with it.
Wait! How can Ishizu use magic if she no longer has possession of her millennium piece?
"Tea!" Yugi called me, distracting me from my thoughts yet again.
"I'm coming!" I waved at him. Dismayed, I looked at the tablet one last time before walking over to Yugi. However, I noticed two things as I walked with Yugi to meet with our other friends. First, a slight draft of wind passed me to gently blow away the sand. And second, with every footstep I took away from the tablet, a heavy and appalling feeling overtook my heart.
Whatever path I decided to walk on, it was going to be a challenge.