Full Circle
By: Neko-chan

Disclaimer: I'm feeling lazy and so this disclaimer will be applied to the entire story, however long it lasts. Thus: The following piece is a work of fiction. I gain no monetary compensation from writing it. Yuugiou belongs to someone who is male and obviously not me (aka, the manga-ka Kazuki Takahashi) and also belongs to rather large, scary companies that I have no affiliation with. Needless to say, please don't sue.

Introduction: [Puzzleshipping -- Yami no Yuugi/Yuugi] For one Pharaoh, time stood still. However, that Pharaoh's time has moved on, leaving those that he left behind to pick up the pieces of his passing. For one person, Yuugi, this is a difficult--impossible--thing to do. (Please note: This story takes place 10 years after Yuugiou DM concludes.)

Author's Note: ....well. I've been gone from Yuugiou for several years, but I've become rather nostalgic and have decided to return. This is a tentative story and, if enough interest is shown, I will continue and finish it--this idea has been tossed around in my head for... quite a while, actually, and I hope that it's received well by others. I want to do it justice. With that said: enjoy.

Prologue

[…] Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

("Ozymandias" – Percy Bysshe Shelley)

The sun beat down from a cloudless sky, the blue washed out and bleached to white in Yuugi Mutou's sun-dazzled gaze. The now twenty-eight year-old grinned fiercely, bringing up a hand to shade his eyes as he looked out over the sands that lay spread out before him: mile upon mile upon mile of desert, the Sahara stretching out into seeming forever. Here, came the almost savage thought, and Yuugi's attention shifted to the digging crew that was working hard at uncovering a tomb that explorers had stumbled upon the month before. Here.

It had been a long and exhausting fight, but the former King of Games had been able to argue for this chance that other archaeologists worked years for. It had helped that his grandfather had been at the forefront of archaeology for a very long time, and perhaps it could also be said that the board of directors was curious to see what the prodigal grandson would do. Would he find even greater discoveries than his grandfather before him? Would he, too, revolutionize the field?

--thus, the board had said yes, but—as with anything—that agreement came with limitations.

Yuugi Mutou had a month in Egypt.

However, if he didn't find anything within that month…

He had to.

Here—

It was a secretive little whisper that hissssed its way through the back of his mind; hidden in shadows for years, that whisper was finally awakening, stirring to life beneath the uncompromising rays of the Egyptian sun. It twined, slithered, slunk its way through the dark crevices of the ruined labyrinth that mou hitori no boku had left behind.

Here.

Yuugi knew, with complete certainty, that it was here that he would finally find what he had been searching for for so long—an end to the sense of loss that had plagued him for a decade. Learning to stand on his own, to separate himself completely from the thought of 'me' and 'other,' to finally have others see himself as he truly was and not the Pharaoh… it should have ended ten years ago and, for his friends and rivals, perhaps it had. However, the feeling of something missing had never completely left Yuugi.

So he was here, in mou hitori no boku's homeland, searching for the last piece of the puzzle that would seal everything away and give Yuugi the satisfaction of an ending that came within his own terms.

Yuugi's fingers curled tight into a fist, watching as the diggers suddenly became frantic, their motions quick and abrupt as they spoke to one another in their native tongue. Elation filled his chest, and the young archaeologist's smile grew fiercer, shining brighter than the sun so high above.

"Professor Mutou! Professor Mutou! We've finally dug down to the tomb's entrance!"

Here.