Disclaimer: If Kazuki Takahashi didn't own Yu-Gi-Oh!, then I'd be a Winged Kuriboh. Pssshaw.

Public Service Announcement: Do not ever watch Yu-Gi-Oh! GX. Yugi only appears in the FIRST EPISODE, and Kaiba and Atem don't appear AT ALL. Just don't watch it. Just say no.

Disclaimer: This particular fanfic has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with Yu-Gi-Oh! GX. (Thank God.)

"Oi, Yugi!"

Mutou Yugi turned, smiling as one of his best friends came running out of the locker room to join him on the field. "Jounouchi-kun! There you are!"

"Oi, Jounouchi," sounded a slightly sarcastic voice from beside Yugi, "you keep up being late like this and Sensei's going to flunk you out of Phys. Ed. What's keeping you in the locker room for so long, huh?"

"So-rry, Honda" the blond snarked back, pausing between running and letting off sarcastic quips to catch his breath. "The lock on my locker is completely busted, actually, so how about you lay off, huh?"

"Suuure," Honda replied, drawing out the syllable to show that he really believed that shoddy of a testimony. Really. "You're trying to sneak a peek at the girls just before they exit their locker room, aren't ya? Eh? Eh?" Honda nudged Jounouchi with his elbow, waggling his eyebrows lecherously.

"I am not!" the blond shot back, batting Honda's elbow away with a growl.

"Jounouchi-kun, you pervert!" Yugi gasped, though his innocence was half-feigned; he knew that Jounouchi wouldn't stoop so low. Pornography wasn't below the blond, but he definitely was no peeping Tom. Yugi had trouble keeping the smile off his face.

"So you're against me too now, huh Yugi?" Jounouchi lamented dramatically. "No one believes me!"

"OI! You three! Hurry up and get over here! Roll call's starting!"

Each of the boys instantly stiffened. "Yes Sensei!" they found themselves calling out in unison. They trotted over to join the rest of the boys' Phys. Ed. class seated cross-legged on the blacktop, shooting each other grins and trying to stifle laughs behind their hands.

The roll call settled into its familiar routine, with each of the boys in the class calling out their last names in the same practiced, alphabetical order they had used since the beginning of the semester, while the teacher marked on his clipboard for each student that was present. Of course, everyone knew it when there was a student absent, as the rest of the class would impatiently wait for a long, silent stretch for the missing student to call out his name. The teacher would look up, scowl at the class, mark an X on his clipboard, and call out, "Next!" Thus, the role would continue.

There seemed to be an unusual number of students absent that day, which meant that role-call was far slower than usual. The long stretches of silence while the teacher and other students attempted to figure out if the missing name was really absent, or just spacing out and missing his turn, worked to break down the whole class's attention span. Thus, the instructor had to pause the roll call several times to bark at his class to settle down and pay attention.

Such a disruptive atmosphere was, of course, perfect for conversation, and like any sane and normal teenagers would, Yugi, Jounouchi, and Honda took full advantage of it.

"Oi, Yugi," Jounouchi leaned over and muttered to the shorter boy, while Honda, sitting behind the two of them, leaned forward to listen. "I'm sorry I haven't been able to drop by and visit lately."

Yugi nodded, smiling sympathetically to his friend. "That's okay, Jounouchi-kun. I know you've been busy lately."

"Heh…yeah…" Jounouchi smiled self-consciously, his honey-colored eyes briefly flickering away from Yugi with veiled embarrassment. "So…how is Atem doing lately?" His gaze returned to Yugi's face as he posed the question.

This time, it was Yugi's eyes that fell to the blacktop. Despite his efforts to contain it, a tinge of worry entered them. "Well…he's been doing better…he's been up and about a lot in the past few days, even though it's only been a week since he first woke up…"

"Well that's good, isn't it?" Honda chimed in, sticking his head between the two. He gave his smaller friend a concerned look. "What's wrong then, Yugi?"

"I'm not sure; that's the thing…" Yugi trailed off, looking at his feet. The worried look crinkled his eyes deeper. "My other self…he's been oddly secretive, shutting himself away to make long phone calls…I'm afraid he's doing what he said he would, and taking this whole burden on himself, trying to solve this mystery without endangering any of us…"

"You're afraid he's going to up and leave, aren't you." Honda's perceptive look and low tone made his words more of a statement than a question.

"Mm…" Yugi nodded affirmatively. "I asked Jii-chan if he knew anything about what my other self is up to, and he just told me not to worry. I'm really afraid that he's only sticking around because he doesn't have any solid leads yet…and as soon as he gets one that could tell him who's responsible for what happened in Egypt, he's going to just leave without telling us…"

"It wouldn't be the first time." Jounouchi's look was as grave as Honda's. "He tried it once before, remember? After the whole Battle City tournament was over, he grabbed the three God Cards and was on his way to the museum to take a peek into his Memory Stone, and we had to skip class to catch up with him. He just up and left during school. That would have been the last time we saw him if that whole crazy thing with Doma hadn't started."

"Mm," Yugi affirmed again. "He said back then that saying goodbye to everyone would have made him too sad, so he was content with just me seeing him off." The boy shook his head.

"I wouldn't worry so much this time." Honda placed a hand on Yugi's shoulder, giving him an encouraging half-smile. "A lot has happened between then and now. If Atem did want to leave us behind, I think he'd give us a good reason first. And how do you even know his being secretive is because he's getting ready to head out? Maybe he just doesn't want you to worry."

"Honda's got a point there," Jounouchi chimed in. "Atem knows how much it means to you to figure this thing out, Yugi. He probably doesn't want you to get your hopes up if his leads don't turn up anything."

Yugi sighed heavily. "You're both probably right," he admitted. "But still—"

"Mutou! Jounouchi! Honda! Are you three deaf?! The class has been waiting for you to finish our roll call for a good ten seconds!"

The three boys stiffened as their teacher barked at them. "Present!" they found themselves calling out in unison.

Stifled laughter rippled through the rest of the class.

"Whew…glad that's over…"

Another period of Phys. Ed., another period of nearly getting pelted in the head by tennis balls. Anzu let out a sigh as she twiddled the combination dial on her P.E. locker to get inside.

It wasn't that she herself was bad at tennis. Phys. Ed. classes over the years had given her plenty of experience at the sport, and years of practice and experience in dancing made Mazaki Anzu more than a fair athlete. Her problem, sadly, was not her problem, but that of Arai Ayumi, a new transfer student to their class.

"Narrow miss this time, right?" The girl at the locker next to Anzu smirked as she changed, recalling the latest episode of the fiasco that had become their Phys. Ed. class.

Anzu sighed again. "It was pretty close, Rei-chan," she admitted, "but Ayumi-chan didn't do it on purpose."

"One has to wonder," Rei returned, a bit of a mean glint in her eye as she glanced at Anzu again. "You know her tennis-ball-missiles aren't random. She only shoots them at the girls who are friends with cute guys in our class. Like Yugi-kun. Or Jounouchi-kun."

Anzu blanched, looking over at Rei in slack-jawed incredulity. "Jounouchi?! You can't be serious, right?!"

Rei giggled. "Hey, I'm not saying I'm attracted to him or anything—ew, just ew—but Ayumi-chan seems to have an eye or two on that one. And I'll bet she thinks she's chasing you out of her territory so she can stake her claim on him."

Anzu's sigh was half a scoff this time. "I told you already, Rei-chan, it's just a problem with her aiming. She doesn't really know how to send the ball to someone rather than at them. Her mind needs a more solid target than just the space in front of our shoes."

Rei scoffed loudly. "And I'd say your face and ribcage are some pretty solid targets, right? Seriously, Anzu, she's not fooling anyone, and neither are you by taking her side!"

Anzu gave a long-suffering sigh, folding up her P.E. clothes and placing them in her locker. "I really wish you wouldn't look for faults in people just to start up drama, Rei-chan," she said evenly.

Rei scoffed. "Well I don't have to look very far in this case." She shut her locker door.

Anzu was about to follow suit, but something glittered within her locker, giving her pause. She reached inside and picked the object out, blue eyes widening as she realized what it was. She ran a thumb over the flat, silvery object, the chain trailing lazily over the back of her hand.

It must have fallen out of the pocket of my sweater while it was in here...I was looking for this. It's been a week already…

The shiny thing immediately caught Rei's eye, and she whirled, closing the distance between her and Anzu in a heartbeat or less. An excited, greedy look was on her face, like that of a rabidly enthusiastic collector or a gleeful kleptomaniac. "Ooooh, what's this?" she cooed, reaching for the necklace in Anzu's hand.

The dancer jerked away immediately, keeping her treasure out of Rei's snatching fingers. "Cut it out!" she said indignantly.

"It's so pretty!" Rei cooed. Her eyes went wide as saucers as a realization hit her. "Did someone give it to you? Who was it? Does Anzu-chan have a new boyfriend?" She positively squealed at the notion.

"No, it isn't mine," Anzu returned levelly. "It belongs to a good friend of mine."

"With the way you're clutching it to your chest, I'd say he's more than a friend!" Rei squeed. "C'mon, let me see it." When Anzu was less than forthcoming, Rei rolled her eyes and deflated in defeat. "I won't steal it; now please, I just wanna see."

Reluctantly, Anzu showed the other girl the necklace. She kept a firm hold on the chain just in case while Rei fingered the silver, dog-tag-shaped necklace itself.

Now that she had the precious item in her hand, it didn't seem so exciting, as exhibited by the confused look Rei shot up to Anzu. "Um…what is it, exactly?"

Despite her disgruntlement, a small smile tugged at Anzu's lips. "It's a cartouche. The Pharaohs in ancient Egypt used to carve their names on them. The cartouche was like a sacred rope surrounding the Pharaoh's name in order to protect it. Names were very important to the Egyptians."

Rei blinked, thumbing the strange hieroglyphics adorning the cartouche. "So this is a name?" She immediately perked up again. "Whose name is it? Aw, Anzu-chan, that is so cute, getting your boyfriend this geeky little Egyptian thingie!"

She couldn't help it; a blush briefly colored Anzu's cheeks. Thankfully, she was able to yank the cartouche out of Rei's hands and turn away before the other girl could get a good look at her embarrassment.

"It's not just some 'geeky little thingy,'" she replied. Rei fell silent at her serious tone. "It's his name. Names are sacred, Rei. And his is Atem."

Now that she was back in her standard Domino High skirt and blouse, she had no pockets in which to store the necklace. Anzu clasped the chain around her neck, thinking that there was no safer place to keep it. Without even looking to see what Rei's reaction to such a sentimental gesture would be, Anzu picked up her bookbag and exited the locker room.

The second class period of the day was well under way. The teacher had started talking ten minutes ago, and the students were already furiously scribbling down the notes the instructor had been scratching across the chalkboard nearly non-stop.

Which was why, as a knock sounded on the door, nearly every student snapped their heads up as one.

The assistant principal of Domino High opened the door without waiting for an answer. He smiled at the teacher in a simpering, aloof way that tried to give lipservice to respect but clearly betrayed how much he flaunted his station over that of the teacher.

"Sensei!" the math teacher greeted crisply. "What can I do for you today?"

"So sorry for the interruption," he said, eyes completely insincere. "We have a new transfer student in this class today."

A wave of murmuring rippled across the classroom. Now that they had been shaken out of their studious reveries, the students were willing to embrace the interruption…and of course, transfer students were always a juicy topic of gossip.

"We sure do get a lot of transfer students," Anzu heard Rei, sitting in the row behind her, whispering to one of her friends. "I wonder if it's a cute guy?" Anzu suppressed the urge to roll her eyes.

Yugi, seated at the desk to the right of Anzu, caught the look on his childhood friend's face and shot her a sympathetic smile. She returned it with one of her own.

Jounouchi and Honda, ever in tune with the feelings and vibes of their closest friends, caught the look passed between the other two. Jounouchi sat in front of Yugi, and Honda in front of Anzu. The boys exchanged a look of their own. "Rei-chan's right though," Jounouchi muttered to Honda. "We've had our fair share of screwball transfer students."

Honda nodded. "Kaiba, though he doesn't go here anymore; that crazy game-show guy; Otogi-kun; Bakura-kun—"

"Students," the assistant principal addressed the class. The muttering ceased, and all eyes turned to the front of the room. "I'd like to introduce you to your new classmate: Mutou Atem."

Four jaws dropped at the sound of the name. Twenty-eight additional jaws dropped as the new student entered the room.

He was skinny and lanky, but held himself with poise and confidence that gave him a far greater stature than his extremely modest height should have allowed. His hands were stuffed into the pockets of a form-fitting pair of Domino High uniform pants, while his Domino jacket hung open to show a white button-down shirt stretched over a lean chest. His head was a mass of spiky hair, black rimmed with crimson-purple; blond streaks shot up from his scalp to join the tips of each spike; and chaotic blond zigzags of bangs framed his face. His violet eyes gazed out of that face with a look so bold, so cool, so confident and self-assured that he didn't even need his amused quip of a smirk to exude an aura that kept the students' jaws glued to the floor.

Atem raised one hand in greeting. "Yo."

The monosyllabic salutation seemed to have the effect of shaking the students out of their astonished trance. As one, looks of comprehension dawned over their faces. As one, the same thought crossed their minds—He looks just like Yugi-kun. And as one, twenty-eight pairs of eyes swiveled to fixate on Mutou Yugi.

Atem took this as his cue. "Yugi is my cousin," he announced smoothly, as both explanation and introduction.

"Cousins, eh?" the assistant principal mused from beside Atem. "Your name, Atem… that's not Japanese, is it?"

"Not at all," the newcomer admitted, turning to the administrator without missing a beat. "Our grandfather suggested the name to my father. Jii-chan has been fascinated with ancient Egypt his entire life. Atem was the name of an ancient Egyptian Pharaoh."

The transfer student's speech was successful in drawing the class's attention away from Yugi and back to the front of the room, much to the relief of the smaller boy, who had honestly considered sinking under his desk in order to avoid the class's prying gazes. Anzu and Honda looked impressed—Atem had already come up with an alibi for both his uncanny resemblance to his other half and his uncanny name, an alibi that didn't stray too far from the truth, no less. Jounouchi, however, continued to look completely flabbergasted at Atem's very presence.

"Very well," the math teacher finally spoke up, obviously anxious to end this distraction and get on with his lecture. "Atem-kun, there's an open desk beside Yugi-kun. Take your seat and open your book to page 256."

The young man nodded respectfully to the teacher, though that amused quip of a smirk never strayed from his face. Despite every eye in the classroom fixed upon him, he sauntered over to the desk and seated himself as casual as you please.

The assistant principal nodded to the teacher. "Very good. I wish you all a nice day." He took his leave, closing the classroom door behind him.

Despite the instructor's apparent insistence on getting back to the lesson, half the class burst out into whispers.

"Atem-kun? Isn't that—"

"Yes, that's Anzu-chan's new boyfriend!" At hearing Rei tittering with her friend, Anzu fought to suppress a flare of consternation and a flaring blush. She settled for turning to scowl at Rei, putting her finger to her lips and tilting her head towards the teacher. Rei pouted, obviously keener on gossiping than showing deference towards the instructor.

Jounouchi, seated on a diagonal to Atem, finally found his voice. "How—why—" he spluttered, apparently unable to comprehend the idea that someone could actually want to come to school.

Before Atem could answer, the teacher made his irritation known once more. "Class, please settle down. Take a look at problem number 46."

A silence, save for the rattle of the instructor's voice, overtook the room, once more forcing the students to glue themselves to their notes. Atem merely shot Jounouchi a knavish wink. He then turned to Yugi, giving the boy a thumbs-up.

Yugi's eyes had been continuously glued to his other self from the moment Atem had walked into the room, wide with incredulous wonder. But as Atem gave him that thumbs-up, a wide, joyful smile slowly spread over the smaller boy's face. Elation spilled so readily from his eyes that he had to bury his nose in his textbook to keep from shouting in pure glee.

Atem, rifling through a backpack for the required textbook and some looseleaf paper, gave a chuckle.

Math had never passed by more slowly. The more that Yugi, Anzu, Honda and Jounouchi glanced up at the clock, the more the second hand seemed to drag as it ticked from one number to the next. Each of them was anxious beyond reckoning or reason to talk to their friend the Pharaoh, to question his sporadic and unexpected decision to enroll in a Japanese high school, especially when he didn't have to, and especially considering that he had considerably more important things to do. They each glanced at him almost as often as they glanced at the clock, trying to communicate through unspoken looks and gestures as long as the teacher's constant lecture prevented them from using words.

Atem, however, seemed happily absorbed in his work. He was listening to the lecture with rapt attention and taking copious notes, and all the while that slightly sardonic quip of a smirk never left his face.

At long last, the bell signaling the end of second period rang through the classroom. It was time for a fifteen-minute break before the start of third period. The students took advantage of it at once, breaking into conversation, getting up from their desks, or hurrying out the door to use the restroom.

Yugi and the bunch immediately scrambled from their seats, crowding around the Pharaoh with delighted, incredulous expressions. His name rang out in chorus between the four of them. Atem looked up at his best friends and smiled, chuckling in surprise.

"My other self!" Yugi chirped, using every bit of restraint he possessed to keep himself from tackling Atem in a hug. "What are you doing here?"

"I think we're all curious about that one," Honda commented, smirking.

Jounouchi nodded vigorously in agreement.

Atem merely glanced down at his notes. "That was incredibly confusing."

Four pairs of eyes blinked, befuddled. Jounouchi's voice was the only one heard. "Wha…? But…you were so into it…?"

"It's true that I wrote down more or less everything the instructor said. But that doesn't mean I understood it. This material is definitely over my head." That amused smirk was growing now, becoming more of a smile than a quip.

"Well then…why did you…?" A comically befuddled look was painted across Jounouchi's face.

Atem shrugged. "It was a challenge," he said simply.

"Guess they didn't teach derivatives in ancient Egypt, eh Atem?" Honda commented, smiling a smirk of his own.

"Guess not." Atem's smile grew even wider.

Yugi sighed, though he couldn't have kept the sunny smile off of his face if he had tried. "You're avoiding the question, my other self."

Atem looked up into his partner's face, and as he did, the slightly knavish quality to his expression softened. "I'm not going to leave, Aibou. I figured this was the best way to let you all know that…and the best way to be near you all the time."

The honest, straightforward sentiment silenced all four friends. All of the questions on their minds dissolved and drifted away. Yugi smiled affectionately at his other self, and slowly, each of the others adopted their own version of the smile. Atem had been waiting quite a while to say that. They understood.

A brief silence stretched between the five friends. After a few long seconds, the silence became less comfortable and more awkward, until finally a spark of realization lit up Anzu's face.

"Oh—Atem—" The Pharaoh looked at her quizzically as she fumbled for something around her neck. Anzu pulled a necklace out of her shirt, where she had hidden it to avoid incurring unnecessary questions from prying classmates. She quickly unclasped the chain of the necklace, reached down, seized Atem's hand, pulled it towards her palm-up, and placed the necklace in it.

Atem blinked, a little startled by the suddenness and directness of Anzu's actions. Before taking a good look at whatever it was she had just shoved into his hand, he blinked up at her, puzzled.

Anzu saw the look and immediately gave a start. She immediately wondered why she was acting so jumpy, then blamed the awkwardness of the previous silence for her sudden actions, and then berated herself nonetheless for violating Atem's personal space. She fought like mad to keep an embarrassed flush off her face.

Atem blinked down at the object he had been given. A jolt of shock enveloped his face. His gaze darted back up to Anzu's eyes, questioning and bewildered.

"Anzu, how—when—"

"I was keeping it safe for you," she answered. Speaking eased the burn of embarrassment within her. "If I remember right, you had it with you since we all exited the Memory World, but…when you got sick, I was afraid the hospital might lose it…"

"Oh?" Jounouchi peered at the necklace in Atem's hand. "Wait a minute, is that—it is!"

"It's what?" Honda leaned over to take a look as well. When he gotten a good look at the necklace, his eyes widened and he looked up, sharing a glance between Atem and Anzu. "You're not seriously saying that that's—"

"The cartouche!" Yugi chimed in. His eyes flickered from the necklace to Atem's face to Anzu's and then back again. "The one Anzu gave my other self right before he went into the Memory World! And it still has your name on it, Atem." Yugi looked into the face of his double, his expression torn between a smile and wide-eyed wonder.

Atem's expression, on the other hand, was purely wide-eyed wonder. "The very same one that you all carved my name into…simply by willing it." His voice was low, seemingly out of a desire to not be overheard by the rest of the students milling around the classroom, but truly because incredulous reverence. "It's very strange that the magic of that Shadow Game could carry over into the real world."

"Well if you think about it, it makes a little sense…" All eyes focused in on Yugi as he pondered aloud. "Because we didn't just call something into existence…and we didn't bring something from the Shadow Game out into the real world. We brought something from the real world into the Shadow Game. Which was then acted upon by the Shadow Game's magic."

Anzu nodded. A graceful smile had settled onto her face. "I figured it was something like that. And now you can keep your name with you all the time…so you won't forget it again."

The Pharaoh's eyes traced the hieroglyphs etched into the silver cartouche pendant, memorizing the pictograms that spelled out his ancient name. He looked up at Anzu.

The girl blinked at his expression. Such a look of passionate gratitude was unexpected on the hard, unyielding face of a warrior king…

"Thank you." Atem clasped his hand around the cartouche, his eyes thanking her in ways his words never could. "Thank you, Anzu."

Those eyes pinned her. She didn't quite know what to do with this sudden bare, open expression of feeling…so she smiled cheerily. "You're welcome, Atem."

His name means that much to him… Anzu turned her blue eyes away from the Pharaoh's face as he placed the cartouche around his neck. He'd been searching for it for so long…I'm happy for you, Atem. And I'm happy we know your name at last, too…I'm afraid to say…I bought you that cartouche also because…well…I wanted your name for myself. I wanted to know, too.

The bell rang, signaling the end of break and the start of third period. Anzu nearly jolted, startled out of her thoughts by the sudden sound.

"Okay, class! Back to your seats!" The students looked towards the front of the room, each with a matching disgruntled expression. The history teacher was early today. It looked like they wouldn't have any more time to chat after all.

But the most important kind of communication doesn't exist in words. Yugi, Jounouchi, Honda, Anzu, and Atem all shared a glance, all shared a nod, all shared a smile—they all spoke the same thing to one another, conveying their oneness, their unity, their bond, in a way that words never could.

History dragged into Sociology. Sociology simply dragged. Every Sociology class, at least half of the students felt that mind-numbing nag of the sheer closeness of the lunch period looming tantalizingly out of reach. It was maddening having to sit in a cramped, rigid desk, listening to the most monotone teacher on campus drone on about the curriculum's most boring subject, when food and freedom were only thirty short minutes away. Twenty-nine. Twenty-eight. Twenty-eight and a half. Stomachs rumbled, blood sugar levels dropped, and attention spans (or consciousnesses) drifted to the winds.

Yugi was anxious. At twenty-seven minutes till, he started making a conscious effort to keep his foot from tapping out a rhythm on the floor double-timed to that of the teacher's drone.

Anzu was drifting. She was trying to concentrate on the teacher, trying to take notes, but every minute and a half her pen would pause on a word as her mind wandered blissfully away, drifting across the whole mass of Asia to Egypt…drifting across the Pacific and the breadth of the States to Manhattan Island…

Honda was nodding. His eyelids seemed too heavy to hold up against the alluring pull of gravity, and his head, too, seemed too heavy for his neck. His eyelids, his head, or both, would sink, snap back up, and sink again in regular intervals.

Jounouchi was fast asleep. He had made absolutely no effort to put on the illusion of paying attention to the lecture. His blond head was wedged in the crook of his elbow; his check was plastered onto the faux-wood of the desk by his own saliva. It was a miracle he wasn't snoring aloud.

Atem was in a bind. He was making a conscious, deliberate, steadfast effort to follow the lecture and take good notes, but his body seemed intent on betraying him. By twenty-six minutes till, lethargy had already seeped so thoroughly into his limbs as to permeate through his bones. His slim frame had become slumped in its seat, shoulders hunched, arms draped lifelessly over the desktop. Atem continued to stare at the blackboard, eyes stoically half-mast instead of lidded like Honda's eyes, though Atem had long since stopped reading the words scrawled in chalk.

His stomach rumbled. He cursed inwardly.

He knew that the feeling of irritability creeping through his veins was to be entirely blamed on a lack of food, but that didn't make him any less irritable. How could he do what he was supposed to do as a student—that is, focus and take notes and absorb information—if the information was presented in the most boring way possible?! This Sociology teacher should never have been allowed to pass his college Public Speaking class.

Someone chuckled behind him.

Something about that laugh caused Atem to give a jolt. His eyes flew wide open. He snapped to attention, lethargy pushed away by a sudden flood of adrenaline.

He cast a look behind him. The whole class was littered with half-dead or half-mad students, all of them either slumped like he had been or darting hopeful glances at the clock. No one looked lively enough to be giggling like that.

Atem was not content to dismiss the sound as a figment of his imagination. Indeed, he would have been comforted had he seen some evidence that he wasn't imagining things. He returned his gaze to the front of the room. His every nerve slowly awoke, going on cautionary alert.

The laugh sounded again, this time from his right side.

Goosebumps flared up, prickling across Atem's skin. His violet eyes, focused on the desk in an effort to avoid attracting attention from the teacher, bulged.

He knew that voice.

The laughter sounded a third time. Atem cast a look around at the class once more. No one else had moved. No one else had been jolted from his or her stupor. No one else had heard the voice.

Dread flooded his guts like icewater.

Words began to drift around his head, sounding faraway and ephemeral as if spoken through a fog, yet as close as if the speaker's lips were inches from his ear. The words were distinctly Egyptian, and eerily metered—a spell. Someone was chanting a spell that only Atem could hear.

More goosebumps shivered up and down his form. His hands began to shake, all of their own accord. He curled his fingers into his palms until the fingernails dug into the skin, then clenched his hands into fists.

"Scared, are we?"

Atem's head jerked up. He wasn't just hearing voices drifting from wherever. That voice was speaking to him.

Yugi's anxious tapping ceased all at once. He saw the look of terror on his other self's face, and a look of worry overtook his own. "Atem?" he ventured a whisper.

"If you're scared NOW, just WAIT till I get going." That chuckle rang through the air again, the cold, soulless sound of it chilling Atem like an icy hand squeezing his heart. "This is going to be fun."

Atem's whole body gave a sharp jolt. He felt like he had suddenly fallen into a frozen lake. All at once, every drop of his blood turned cold. His lungs seized up and his vision swam.

Yugi jolted out of his seat as his other self suddenly pitched forward, eyes rolling to the back of his head. "Atem!" The entire classroom, teacher included, jumped about a kilometer and watched in astonishment as the smaller boy darted forward to catch his double.

Atem's breath came in short, labored gasps. He saw a blur of purple and blond—his Aibou, hovering over him, mouth working in panic, sound lost to the dimness—before a blanket of darkness was pulled over his eyes, smothering his mind into oblivion.

Author's Notes: For this fic, I spent THREE HOURS on SIXTEEN WORDS, looking up ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and translations and transliterations and grammar structure and STUFF and trying to piece together how to actually pronounce and Romanize a language that doesn't actually have any vowels…only to realize that I wouldn't actually be NEEDING that for this chapter. Oh. My. God. Ancient Egyptian is more impossible to piece together than the Millennium Puzzle. Seriously, I was bouncing back and forth from four or five different online resources, literally taking bits of one resource and sticking them with bits of another to try to figure out HOW these words can be Romanized. If anyone out there has actually STUDIED this dead language, feel free to correct me. Otherwise, I think I'll be okay, seeing as it's a dead language and all so it doesn't really matter in the end…ehehehe…whoa, is that my grey matter oozing out of my ears? Woooow.

But yeah. Anyway. Dead language-ness coming up at the start of next chapter. Promise.

Err...what does everyone think about the breaking-up of the chapter the way I did? I mean, I can see why I edited it that way...seeing as I wrote this chapter over so long a period of time, it came out of me piecemeal...but how do the hard line breaks in the narrative affect the flow of the story? Flow is really important to me...so I just want to be sure that everything's nice and intelligible.

And, uh…sorry this chapter took me forever…holycraplong. Yeah. Heh. XD Not as long as Chapter 2, but…still. Yup. Hope you enjoy. XD;

Oh, and in case it kind of threw you for a loop, the scene in the girl's locker room with Rei and Anzu changing was deliberately ambiguous and light on description. I think that putting too much detail into describing them at that point would have been not only counter-productive to the tone I was trying to establish with the scene, but extremely distracting from the dialogue I was trying to construct. Srsly, dialogue is my biggest challenge sometimes, and I try really hard to get it right.

Oh yes, and as always, beat me over the head with bricks/cinderblocks/DVD boxes if any characters are even a toe out of the in-character line, if at any time I make an error with Japanese culture and/or honorifics, or if there's some other detail you spot that seems out of whack. I mean, I'm not outright asking to be flamed—that'd just be stupid—but if I'm wrong about something, I'd really love you if you would tell me so. Keep in mind that a lot of my opportunities to write are when I'm not exactly at my peak of mental clarity, i.e. when I'm at work (Sin: Multitasking) or staying up all night pounding this out (Sin: Procrastinating. Sin: Not Getting Enough Sleep). So errors are BOUND to slip past my firstsecondthirdfourth passes at proofreading and editing.

Cheers!