A/N: I am so sorry for the long wait! As always, thanks to everyone who has read, reviewed, followed, and favorited. I 3 you all. I hope you all enjoy this one : )
This is the second to last chapter! Yaaay
-xxx-
"Tale as old as time / Tune as old as song / Bittersweet and strange / Finding you can change / Learning you were wrong…"
(Beauty & The Beast, If I Can't Love Her Reprise)
-xxx-
"Pharaoh, are you in here?" Yuugi bit his lip. "This place still feels like such a maze sometimes…" He muttered as he continued to pace the Pharaoh's chamber.
The chamber had undergone a massive change since they had begun their work reassembling the Pharaoh's shattered Pendant. The whirlpools of darkness had stilled and settled along a soft and gentle shore. The walls had crumbled and come down. And yet, a few odd corners and endless, twisted halls remained.
And it appeared that the Pharaoh had completely disappeared.
"Everyone is waiting for us to come down," Yuugi called as he turned a corner. "I promise it will be fun—Master Mahaad does such a great job making the dining hall look spectacular and—oh." Yuugi stumbled over his feet, nearly toppling through the Pharaoh's back. "There you are," he sighed, trying to blink back the flurry of stars and comets that suddenly seemed to dance before his eyes. "I was afraid that maybe you had decided not to come…"
The Pharaoh chuckled. "I always keep my word, Yuugi. I was merely making some—ah—final adjustments."
The Pharaoh turned towards Yuugi and spread his arms slightly, revealing a sweeping violet robe and enough glistening bands and bangles to make it look as though he had been forged in gold. The Millennium Pendant—now nearly completed—dangled just above his heart.
But Yuugi could see nothing but the Pharaoh's bold, brilliant face, the way his eyes dazzled in the semi-darkness, the smile he gave Yuugi—which began so proud, but melting into something as soft as morning when he noticed the way that Yuugi simply couldn't look away. Yuugi almost didn't hear him when he titled his head and asked, "So, how do I look?"
"Oh! Uh—you look, well—I like it…you—on you. I-I mean—how did you—where did this all come from?"
"I can feel my powers beginning to reenter—I suppose you would call it the realm of my conscious control." The Pharaoh's smile faltered slightly. "I'm not sure how I feel about that."
"Why?"
The Pharaoh's hand moved to rest just above the edge of the Pendant. He didn't quite touch it. "The Millennium Items granted us all extraordinary powers. But now that I know where those powers came from, and I have seen the spiritual toll that they take—I'm not sure that this revival of my item's magic isn't taking me a step in the wrong direction…" He sighed. "I can no longer shield myself in ignorance about the truth of where this power comes from, and its great capacity to cause pain and suffering…Yuugi—why are you smiling like that?"
"I'm smiling at you," Yuugi giggled softly as he felt a rush of warmth sweep up to his cheeks. "Just listen to you! You never would have said something so thoughtful when I first met you."
"Hm—I suppose that's true. And you, Yuugi, never would have said anything quite so daring."
"I guess we're both changing."
The Pharaoh nodded. "That certainly seems to be the case."
They stood in the hall a moment longer, lingering in a small pocket of stolen time, sharing one gentle smile. Somewhere in the distance, they heard another wall crumble into dust.
"Well, uh…" Yuugi rubbed the back of his neck. "I guess we better go down and meet everybody."
The Pharaoh nodded. "Alright. Yuugi, lead the way."
-xxx-
"There you are!" Mana exclaimed, face lighting up with a shining grin. "We were beginning to think that you two forgot about us! Though," she caught Yuugi's eye and winked. "I certainly couldn't entirely blame you…"
"Ha—w-what are you implying?"
"Oh, nothing…" Mana tried for an imitation of one of Seth's self-satisfied smirks but quickly erupted into a fit of giggles. "Oh, never mind. Just come look at all the food Master Mahaad made for you! It looks amazing!"
Mana beckoned them towards the dining table, which, in addition to a shimmering silk tablecloth and a long row of jewel-encrusted flickering lamps, was set to the edge of overflowing with dozens of bowls of succulent fruit, platters of roasted meat, baskets of bread—Yuugi didn't even know the names of everything laid out before him, except for, of course, the plate at his seat of the table.
"Oh wow! This is amazing!" Yuugi beamed at Mahaad—then at what he had created: A sizzling cheeseburger stacked high with crunchy mountains of lettuce, juicy slabs of zesty tomato and pickle, all oozing out oil and tang onto a field of crisp, perfect french fries that emanated out of the center of Yuugi's plate like rays of starchy, greasy sunlight.
"It's beautiful," Yuugi sighed, slowly rotating his plate so that he could admire Mahaad's craftsmanship from every possible angle. "But—I can't possibly eat all of this…"
Mahaad smiled and shrugged. "I know. Consider this spread a representation of the magnitude of my gratitude, for all that you have done for us all."
"Oh, please. You just wanted to show off." Seth scoffed from the other end of the table.
Mahaad's smile became a shade more indulgent. "There may be a small grain of truth to that accusation…"
The Pharaoh chuckled. "Be that as it may, Magician, I for one am quite impressed." He took a seat at Yuugi's side. "It feels as though it wasn't that long ago that I enjoyed some of these dishes myself. It's strange, to be so close to remembering, and yet…" He shook his head and smiled ruefully. "This one, however," he eyed Yuugi's cheeseburger with an uneasy mix of curiosity and suspicion, "is quite unfamiliar."
Yuugi laughed. "Yeah, everyone was pretty grossed out my first night here." He cradled the cheeseburger an inch under his nose and took a deep, ravenous breath—allowing the heady scent of beef and cheese to inundate him. He grinned and licked his lips, eyes closed and expression rapt.
The Pharaoh watched him with a small smile. "It appears that I'm missing out on quite the transformative experience."
"I wish you could taste it, too."
"Why don't you tell me how it makes you feel, and I will try to imagine."
"Well, uh, okay. I guess I can try—" Yuugi's gaze floated around the table, then settled on the cheeseburger in his hands. "It's hard to describe, really. I just know that being in that diner always made me feel really happy—and—safe…Grandpa would take me there after school sometimes when I was little, and we always got cheeseburgers and chocolate milkshakes together. But once I started high school we stopped going…I always missed it. I always wanted to go back." He gave small shrug. "But I never asked him to take me." He smiled, but his expression seemed small and far away. Then he took a slow, contemplative bite. "This one tastes just like the ones we used to eat!" He turned to Mahaad, beaming. "Thank you."
Mahaad nodded. "It is the least that I could do."
"It's really…" Yuugi's smile was so wide that it threatened to split his face in two. "I don't know what to say…I haven't felt this way in a long time." He paused. "It's silly but, sometimes I felt that diner was the only place that I could ever be really happy."
Mana slowly leaned closer to him, "Do you still feel that way, Yuugi?"
"I—" Yuugi looked at her wide, hopefully eyes. He turned to Isis, Mahaad, Seth, and—finally—the Pharaoh, all gazing at him as if they had known him for an eternity. As if they were the only people left on Earth, and they would remain there—together—even if everything else faded and crumbled away. "No. Now, I think I could be happy anywhere…"
"Well," Seth replied. "If you can be happy here then I certainly wouldn't doubt it."
"Yuugi…" Mana asked. "What are other places like? What—what is it like above the ground?"
The table fell silent.
Mana turned away from him briefly, as if she were embarrassed for asking. But when she met his gaze again her jaw was set, her eyes blazing with an intensity so hot and piercing that Yuugi felt it ricochet off his heart and rattle around his ribcage. She bit her lip. "I want to know what it's like out there."
"Well…" Yuugi began slowly. "That's a tough question. It's not great all the time. Sometimes people are mean, and sometimes people get hurt. Sometimes the reasons that people get hurt aren't very good. But—" He closed his eyes. For a moment he was in the park with Anzu, playing on the swings, straining to see who could make it further off the ground. He was in the game shop, unpacking boxes with Grandpa and struggling to decide which one they would play first. "There are other times when it's great—really, really great. It's funny—all over the world there are some many amazing places you could go and things you could see, but when I think about it, all my happiest memories were within one block of my house." He closed his eyes, and he was by the Pharaoh's side, helping to piece together his broken heart, watching hope take root and blossom across his face. "Or, almost all of them, anyway."
Yuugi was silent for a moment, but a small strawberry-red smile glowed on his lips and sent sparkles to his eyes. "I remember, this one time at school…I had just started junior high and I barely knew anyone. I was so scared…but one day we were having a school festival, and I brought one of our new games from the game shop. We all sat around the table, and we were all playing and laughing in no time." Yuugi chuckled. "I love games because I love puzzles, and figuring things out. But I've also always loved how they—how they bring people together. No matter where I've been, those have always been my fondest memories."
"Like senet!"
Yuugi turned to Mana in confusion. "What did you say?"
Mana stood, eyes wide, with one hand clapped over her mouth. The other trembled at her side. She was standing in the same long, gloomy hall, but in a moment—inexplicably—everything had changed.
"Like senet. The game we used to play—with the sticks and the marbles on the limestone block!" Cold, smooth stones between her fingers. She turned to the Pharaoh. "We used to play all the time! In your room in the afternoon, and we would play and then go out by the river and wade in the water—" Mischievous laughter. Splashing in the late afternoon light. "and you!" She spun around to face Mahaad. "You always told us to stop! You were afraid that we would get hurt…" Mud caked between her toes. Her damp hair falling in tangles and sticking to her neck and her shoulders. Mahaad's reprimands—he always tried so hard to be serious—but they had a way of making him laugh.
Mana began to laugh like babbling water and dappled sunlight. She laughed so hard that her whole body shook—hard enough to make her heart break open. "Don't—don't you guys remember? We were all there!" She clutched her chest—suddenly aware of how hard she was breathing. "We were all there—on the beach, running through the halls…Do you—do you guys remember it at all?"
Isis stared for a moment at her hands, then lifted her face. When she faced them, her eyes were wide and gleaming. "I remember the fig trees in the courtyard…" She began quietly, as if afraid that the sound of her voice would chase the memories away. "I remember…watching the floods wash over the fields, and the harvest ceremony." Her voice picked up, and she clenched her fists—clasping the precious moments between her fingers. "I remember waking up at dawn to watch the sunrise…" The sun was rising inside her now, illuminating the invisible landscape of her mind, dazzling her with a world overflowing with mirth and serenity—sun and air and running water. She blinked back tears. "I feel quite strange…"
Mana beamed at her, and for the first time in a thousand years of darkness, they recognized each other.
"It's amazing, isn't it?"
"I—I—" Isis run her hands up and down her arms, shivered in her skin, and pressed her hand against her check—first cautiously, then with passionate wonder. "I am myself again, aren't I?"
Mana nodded, smiled like a gleeful whisper. "I think we might be."
Isis' laughter trembled, then rolled and thundered like a landslide. She extended an arm, fingers shaking, across the table.
Once, in the years before the war, Isis had accompanied one of the Pharaoh's trading vessels on a trip across the Mediterranean Sea. She had never before ventured beyond the palace walls, and she had longed, in the moments before her departure, to pack up all the thick palace walls, cool tile floors, and high elegant ceilings and take them with her. But she was a Priestess, one of the Pharaoh's highest-ranking and most trusted advisors, so she did not allow her lips to tremble or her steps to waver as she watched her home dwindle away on the horizon. For a few days they had slid down the Nile, and Isis had been comforted by the gentle embrace of the surrounding shoreline. But out on the open water, tossed on jagged waves and thrashed with cold, endless onslaughts of wind, she had stood mute with terror, clawing at the mast as if her fingers could grind it into the familiar, comforting earth of her homeland.
That was how she clutched Mana's hand now—as if, by holding her tightly enough, closely enough—that touch could take her back home. As if she was already there. She sobbed now, because she hadn't allowed herself to cry back then, because for so many years he hadn't known how.
Mana and Isis laughed and cried together as they watched their fingers intertwine. Then, with a flash of insight and a mischievous grin, Mana reached for the nearest bowl of fruit and dug her fingertips into the skin of a glistening red apple.
Her breath caught at the back of her throat. "I—I'm touching it."
Mana pressed the apple against her lips and paused, just for a moment, before biting it. She studied the imprints of her teeth, grinning. "This is amazing," she whispered. "But it doesn't feel as weird as I imagined it would. It feels—so normal…" She turned to the rest of the table. "Hey—Master—catch!"
Mahaad caught the apple before he realized what he had done. He stood, jaw hanging open, turning it over in his hands.
"It's very—solid." He whispered, voice swelling.
Mana bounced on the balls of her feet. "Try it! It's so good!"
Mahaad paused for a moment, as if he couldn't quite bring himself to believe her. He cradled the apple an inch below his nose. "This is not simply some form of magic—an illusion?"
"Oh, it's pretty magical alright!" Mana beamed. "You have to try it!"
Mahaad slowly sank his teeth into the apple. His face seemed to light up as he chewed it. "I had forgotten what this color looked like…" he mused, half to himself. "And what it tasted like." His eyes flickered shut for a moment. "Now, I do not understand how I ever could have forgotten." He smiled, somewhat wistfully, at his friends around the table. "To think, I have gone so long without ever realizing—what was here the entire time—" He turned to Seth and held the apple out across the table. "Take it."
Seth bristled. "And reduce myself to the state of a blubbering imbecile like you?"
Mahaad rolled his eyes. "Priest, for once in your life, please put aside your insufferable vanity and—" He sighed, and his expression softened. "Just try it. Consider it a personal favor."
A moment passed, in which Mahaad maintained a small, imploring smile, and Seth's skeptical glare eventually went slack. "If this is some kind of trick…"
"It's not a trick," Mahaad grinned, placing the apple in front of Seth's place at the table. "I promise."
Seth glared down at the apple as if willing it to catch on fire or explode or disappear. Or perhaps he was hoping that he himself would vanish. He swallowed heavily, then extended a sole cautious finger, and, as if he were somewhat irritated by the spectacle of the whole ordeal, prodded the apple in the side.
"Alright—fine." He huffed, crossing his arms and turning away, "I tried it."
He couldn't elude Mahaad's smug laughter. "It's better if you eat it."
"Hey—hey!"
Yuugi almost jumped when he felt Mana prodding at his side.
"Hey—Yuugi, look!" Mana plunged her hand into the center of his plate, emerging with a fistful of french fries. "I can touch them! I can touch all of them!"
"That's great, Mana. You should try them."
Mana sank her teeth into a french fry and laughed. "This tastes nothing like the food we used to eat! But…I kind of like it." She smiled. "Thanks, Yuugi."
"Of course."
"No, really—thank you." She paused for a moment, then giggled. "Actually, I think I'm beginning to see why you like these things so much." Her eyes danced with shades of the swirling emerald sea and blistering summer sky. She leaned against his ear and continued in a warm, bubbly whisper that bounced around Yuugi's eardrum like a big, rubber ball. "Hey—I have an idea…"
Mana reached towards the center of the table and seized a handful of pomegranate seeds. She crushed one between her fingers then turned to Yuugi, put a finger to her lips, and winked.
"W-what was that for?!" Mahaad look around startled, still trying to brush away the pomegranate seed that had bounded off his cheek. "Mana—"
Mana giggled and interrupted Mahaad's brewing reprimand with a pomegranate seed lobbed directly at the middle of his forehead. "You're not fast enough, Master." Mana laughed. "You're supposed to catch them."
Mahaad's expression darkened, and he scowled across the table, hoping to rally support from this compatriots but finding—from Isis (who was silently chuckling behind her hand) and Seth (who simply smirked and replied, "She does have a point, Master") only a vaguely amused disinterest that amounted to—in his mind—an intolerable act of treachery.
"Alright," Mahaad's voice seemed to curve and dart across the table, as he reached slowly, with a degree of fastidiousness and restraint that several at the table (mostly Seth) found painful to watch, for an innocuously placed bowl of almonds. "Ah, Mana-there is much you still have to learn in the art of combat," Mahaad began, carefully measuring his words, gradually entrenching his fingers deeper in the bowl. "Please, allow me to instruct you."
Before Mana had a moment to react, she was caught up in a brutal barrage of almonds. They seemed to come from all directions! And—suddenly—there were more: pistachios, hazelnuts, even grains of rice and bunches of grapes—all soaring through the air, upsetting bowls and overturning glasses.
Quickly depleting her stock of pomegranate seeds, Mana reached for loaves of bread, cubes of potato and onion, crumbs of cheese, and hurled them down the table with a kind of giddy, exuberant ferocity that made even the Pharaoh turn slightly pale.
If anyone had asked them later, none would have been able to recall how or why it had happened—they knew only that in the blink of an eye their dignified dinner party had erupted into a dazzling starburst of infectious laughter, a downpour of every kind of food and drink that any of them had ever been able to recall or imagine, and a series of stains on their best silk tablecloth that not even Mahaad's finest sorcery would ever be able to rectify.
Yuugi too would have become lost in this fray, had it not been for the sight he glimpsed out of the corner of his eye—the Pharaoh's small, gray smile, and the way he stared with such passionately feigned indifference at his own plate of bread and cottage cheese. When he caught Yuugi staring, he replied with a small, morose shrug. "You see, Yuugi," he said, lifting his hand slightly above the plate, dropping it, allowing it to pass straight through without touching anything at all. "It does not work for me." He smiled, briefly, through a sheen of gloom, then turned back to the table. "They seem to be enjoying themselves."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize, Yuugi." The Pharaoh sighed, then looked down at the Pendant dangling around his neck. "It was a fleeting hope."
"No, don't say that." Yuugi bit his lip. "I—I think I might have an idea. Come with me."
-xxx-
"Yuugi, why did you take me here?" The Pharaoh's voice echoed off the walls of the dueling chamber and seemed to dissolve into cold shadow. They could still hear the faint din emanating from the dining hall, but the sound felt distant and dry here. The Pharaoh walked between the stone tablets, gazing up at their ferocious faces—frozen forever in a river of time that had long since drifted on and left them behind—unmoved and untouched—for eternity. He frowned at them, then looked away abruptly.
"Well, I just remembered something that Priest Seth told me, about how the spirits ended up in these tablets in the first place. And I was thinking about what Grandpa told me…about how each of my Duel Monsters cards have their own spirit. And I was thinking of all of you, trapped in here together." He paused, lingering in front of a tablet bearing a design remarkably similar to his own Celtic Guardian. "It just kind of makes sense, doesn't it? You can't ever be free so long as they're all trapped down here."
The Pharaoh frowned and furrowed his brow. "Are you suggesting that we—let the spirits go?"
Yuugi nodded. "Yes! That's exactly what I'm suggesting."
"But why?"
"You said yourself that you were nervous about your powers coming back, now that you know where they come from. I think you'll always be afraid of getting your memories back so long as these spirits are still trapped here." Yuugi turned to face him, and looking into his eyes, the Pharaoh suddenly thought of cool water and fresh air—the kind that blew directly off the water in a light, brisk gust. He shivered. "You'll always feel guilty until you set them free."
The Pharaoh stared at Yuugi, then slowly turned up to meet the glower of the Celtic Guardian. "I'm not sure that I know how."
"Then we'll get the others! I'm sure if all of us work together we'll find a way to do it!" Yuugi's smile fell when he saw how little it did to soothe the Pharaoh's spirit, how he and the Celtic Guardian seemed to stand together as if they had both been suspended in stone. "I just want you to be happy," Yuugi murmured. "Because you're my friend."
The Pharaoh turned to him, and while it looked like a question was forming on his lips, he remained silent. He frowned, turned back to the Celtic Guardian, and with a small shrug, placed his palm on the surface of the stone.
And then the world exploded.
Or at least, for a moment that was what Yuugi thought had happened. The ground shook, the walls rattled and set chunks of plaster raining down. A single crack sprouted at the Guardian's feet, blue-white and electric like a bolt of lightning. It was quickly joined by another, then another, until the tablet was crisscrossed by surging rivers and roaring tributaries of thunderous, dazzling light.
With a clatter that made Yuugi's ears ring, the stone fragments became loose and fell to the ground. What remained where the stone had stood was a towering figure of soft, sparkling mist. It reminded Yuugi of images he had seen of the Milky Way in his science textbooks—on the surface so dark and immense and frightening, but—if you looked into the places between the darkness—shimmering with a chaotic slurry of vibrant, sentient light. And yet, there was more to him than that. As Yuugi looked closer he could see a delicate network of veins and arteries, a field of firing neurons, and—emitting a light that seemed to swallow them all—his enormous, pounding heart.
The figure surveyed them for a moment with a kind of stern reverence. Then he bowed, nodded first to Yuugi, then to the Pharaoh, spread his arms, and began to soar up through the ceiling.
He dissolved into starbursts and sparks that fell down on them like summer rain.
Yuugi laughed. It was the only thing he could do. His laughter was the sound of the stars burning inside him.
"You have to do the rest of them! We have to go out there!"
"Yuugi, we can't—we can't simply leave."
"Of course we can! Just look!" Yuugi pointed to the ceiling, and that was when the Pharaoh saw it—the hole the Celtic Guardian had left in the ceiling, and their gateway to the stars.
-xxx-
The Pharaoh staggered through the sand. "Yuugi!" He called. "Wait—please."
Yuugi spun around and grinned at him. "Isn't it amazing?!"
The Pharaoh took another deep breath. He gazed again at the horizon—wider and more empty than anything he had ever seen—at the sky—rich, warm, and infinitely deep. He looked at Yuugi, but it was more than looking. He wasn't sure if he knew the word to describe it; he felt like he was fumbling around in darkness, feeling for the shape of something that he could not name or visualize. He ran his fingers through shadow, tracing the contours of whatever it was that was hiding inside him and wondering, desperately, what it would look like when he brought it out to examine in the light.
He didn't know the word, but thought that perhaps, for now, he didn't need to. All he knew was that looking at Yuugi was standing in the cool, open air. It was breathing in the starlight. It was watching the specters of his broken and shadowed past stream upwards into the sky and knowing that they were going exactly where they had always wanted to be.
"Look!" Yuugi said, pointing towards the sky. "It's beautiful."
The Earth had not stopped shaking since the Celtic Guardian had been released. Every few moments, another silver blast would break through the endless layers of ancient stone and sand and leap out into the sky, leaving behind a glistening cloud of pale blue stars.
"I never knew that I could do this," The Pharaoh mused, finally catching up to Yuugi.
Yuugi looked up and winked at him. "I bet you're glad you listened to me, huh?"
"I am, as always. It feels quite strange…" He paused. "Yuugi—"
"Hey, what's going on?!" Yuugi and the Pharaoh turned to see Mana racing towards them. "Why are you out here? What's—" She froze, face turned to the sky. "Wow."
"We let them go," The Pharaoh replied. "All the spirits that have been trapped here."
"It's beautiful." Mana wandered towards them, not quite able to take her eyes from the sky. "All of them?" She added quietly.
"All of the monsters we could find in the dueling chamber." The Pharaoh frowned when he saw a trace of—something, another emotion he could not name— reflected in Mana's face. "Mana, what is it?"
"Well, I mean…" She took a small step closer, looking away until the last moment, when she turned to face him. It was the first time the Pharaoh could recall that Mana had looked directly at him without flinching. "I mean…all of us?" The silhouettes of Isis, Mahaad, and Seth appeared in the distance behind her. "Can—can we go, too?"
"I—" The Pharaoh did not know where to look. His face deflated slightly, his shoulders slumped. "I don't know, Mana."
"What is this?" Mahaad cried, gesturing towards the towering beams of light. "What's going on?"
"All the spirits…"
"They're free."
They stood in a small knot. Their skin seemed to glow in the starlight. They marveled at the roundness of the earth, the rush of wind against their skin and through their hair, the way their feet left footprints in the sand.
"To think that we were all apart from this for so long…" Isis' hand drifted to her collarbone. "If only we had known what we were relinquishing."
"The matter was beyond our understanding," Mahaad replied. "And beyond capacity to change it. But now, perhaps—"
"Maybe anything is possible." Mana's voice sparkled. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Yuugi and the Pharaoh.
"Look! Is that—" Yuugi's voice disappeared into the white, rushing roar that made the air ring and resonate with triumph. Yuugi shivered and felt small under a pair of wings that stretched—like a second sky—to the far edges of the horizon. He felt as if he had been rattling an old, rusty lock that had suddenly and quite unexpectedly burst open in his hands. His eyes began to water, but Yuugi could not recall ever having cried like this before. Crying was cold, lonely, closed off, and afraid. But Yuugi didn't cry for those things now—he cried for open doors, falling walls, the two halves of his Grandpa's favorite card that were still nestled in his breast pocket—and the feeling that they weren't quite so broken after all.
"The Blue-Eyes White Dragon?" Mahaad murmured, clasping Seth's shoulder.
"She was always quite beautiful," Seth whispered. He turned to Yuugi, and smiled.
The Pharaoh cleared his throat and spoke to Yuugi in a soft, slightly uncertain voice. "Um, Yuugi, I was wondering if you would join me over here for a moment?" He inclined his head in a direction away from the others.
Once they were out of the light of the departing spirits, the Pharaoh turned to Yuugi sharply. Even in the dim light Yuugi could see his eyes flare—but his expression burnt out quickly. For a moment he simply stared at Yuugi as if he could see directly through him.
"Yuugi," he began slowly, "why do you not hate me?"
"W-what?! Why would I?"
The Pharaoh looked up at him with the intensity of a narrow obsidian blade. But when he spoke, his voice was melting ice—still cold, but rapidly dwindling away. "I trapped you here. Away from your family—your hopes and your dreams." He sighed and gazed over at the other spirits. "I was so heartless and cruel. And yet, you never hated me, not even for a moment. Why?"
"Well, I—I don't know, really. I was afraid of you. But—well, I guess I try to believe that everybody is capable of doing the right thing, once they realize what the right thing is."
The Pharaoh nodded. His hand flickered at his side, as if about to reach for Yuugi's. But he held back. "I understand that now. And that is why you must go."
"Wha—but—your Pendant! We're almost finished! In just a few more days I bet we could—"
The Pharaoh shook his head. "No, Yuugi. Look at all these spirits here. They were trapped in stone—I kept them here for so long. But now, they're finally free. You told me that you chose to remain here because you were afraid to face the outside world—but, Yuugi—a stone tomb is no place for a living soul." He closed his eyes, and recognized, at last, the object that he had been seeking. A small fissure of light fell upon his hand, and he could finally see the full shape and scale of what he held. He opened his eyes, and saw Yuugi. "That is why I must let you go."
"But we're so close—"
"I'm not so sure…" The Pharaoh gazed down at his Pendant. "What could I ever learn of the meaning of compassion—of love—by keeping you as my prisoner? By forcing you to reside here, paving my road to the afterlife, while your own life passes you by? Don't you miss your own life, Yuugi? Your own time? You spoke so fondly of your home…"
Yuugi's voice was small grains of sand scattered on the wind. "I do miss my grandpa." He stared at the spirits grinning at one another in the starlight. They were more human than spirit now, perhaps now more human—Yuugi thought—than he himself had ever been. And just what had he planned to do when the Pharaoh's Pendant was completed? No one had offered him a VIP pass to the ancient Egyptian afterlife. For that matter, no one had offered him a return flight to Domino, either. Yuugi suddenly felt the whole of the horizon narrowing down to a thin line, a path that pointed only one way.
"Yuugi…" The Pharaoh's voice sounded so plaintive, so breakable and bleak. "The kind of life I have lived—if you could even call it living—hiding in shadows, refusing to face myself.." He rose slowly and stood directly in front of Yuugi, making it impossible for either of them to look away. "I would not wish that type of existence on anyone, especially you. Yuugi, you have given me so much. Please—let me—this is the one thing I can give to you."
"But—you would just stay here forever—and—and I'd never see any of you again!"
"I know." He turned away briefly, giving Yuugi just enough time to spot the tears forming in his eyes. "But we will have our memories of our time together."
"You—you would do that for me?"
"It is the only thing I can do."
Yuugi gazed at the Pharaoh and somehow knew that they had stumbled upon the same set of guardrails.
An evil spirit had no need for handholds or instruction manuals. The dark magic of the Millennium Items blasted through every conceivable barricade. But the Pharaoh had discovered that humans had their own type of magic, a force strong enough to bend his heart and urge him to put down his rancor. Perhaps he could still shoot flames from his fingertips, perhaps he could still send a stab of fear into Yuugi's heart.
But could he? Somewhere in those hours reassembling his shattered Pendant, in the space between their fingertips, that desire had dried and fallen away, and the Pharaoh sensed—knew—that reviving his bloodlust would be as impossible as forcing the sun to set in the east. Dark magic, malicious spells, unconscionable power, a crown a throne and a sword—they seemed poor consolation prizes for renouncing the iron chains of love. He felt himself bound hand and foot, unable to act, to do anything at all, that violated the resounding chorus of his heart.
"Yes, Yuugi," the Pharaoh repeated. "It is the only thing I can do. I think, if I encouraged you to remain here, I might entirely cease to exist…"
Yuugi nodded, and he understood. Because it was the same feeling that had urged him here, when he was so certain that he was Grandpa's only hope of salvation.
They fumbled in the dark of unfocused freedom, but love, once found, could only lead them in one direction.
"And you will still have your stories." The Pharaoh continued.
"Ha—you're right." Yuugi laughed softly. "I have a lifetime of new stories now. I wonder what I should tell the kids at school…" He stopped to study the Pharaoh's face—to commit his every feature to memory. "You'll remember me, won't you?"
The Pharaoh nodded. "I couldn't not."
"Well, thank you. For everything."
The Pharaoh took a tentative step forward, then placed his palm into Yuugi's chest, the same way he had for each of the spirits trapped in the dueling arena. "Tell me, Yuugi," he murmured, head sloped downward so that their foreheads nearly touched. "Where would you like to go?"
-xxx-
"Hey, where is Yuugi?"
The Pharaoh did not reply. He sank onto a boulder, rested his chin against his fist, and gazed at the sky. Some of the spirits were still skipping among the stars, tripping over each other's tails, stretching their wings, taking their few first steps on feet and on paws that still suffered from eons of neglect, then setting aside the ache and the awkwardness and erupting into a sprint.
"Hey—Earth to Pharaoh!" Mana waved a hand in front of his face. "Did you hear me? Where's Yuugi…? What happened…"
The Pharaoh turned towards her slowly. "Yuugi has returned home. To his grandpa." The Pharaoh's voice seemed to come from somewhere very deep and dark—the depths of the ocean, or a very deep and troubled sleep.
"W-what?!" Mana gaped. "Why? Did he—did you two fix the Pendant? Did you get your memories back?!"
"No."
"Then—then why would he leave? Does….does he not like us anymore?"
The Pharaoh had returned his attention to the sky. "I let him go."
"W-why?" Mana's arms were shaking. "Why…"
"Because it was the right thing to do."
"What's going on?" Mahaad, quickly followed by Isis and Seth, glanced between Mana and the Pharaoh. "Mana, why are you upset?"
'He—he let Yuugi go!" Mana cried, burying her face in her hands. "I-I never even got a chance to say goodbye. And now we're going to be stuck here forever!" She tore off into the distance, looking neither at what lay behind her nor at where she was going.
"I should go find her…" Isis murmured, gently following Mana off into the darkness.
The Pharaoh sighed.
"Is this true?" Mahaad asked. "Has Yuugi really gone?"
"It's true." The Pharaoh replied. "I'm sorry. I know you were all looking forward to leaving the palace. But this was something that I had to do."
"Sorry?!" Seth spat. "You're sorry?! Do you have any idea what you've done?!"
"Seth, please…" Mahaad muttered.
The Pharaoh bowed his head. "I knew that this would be difficult news for you to hear. But believe me when I say that I did not have a choice. Letting Yuugi go was the right thing to do."
"Great," Seth huffed. "But what about us?! You couldn't have held off your great barrage of moral insight until after we'd gotten our lives back?!"
"No," The Pharaoh looked up at him, eyes wide and slightly bewildered. "I couldn't have. It's really quite simple. I realized as I was watching these spirits here—" he gestured towards the spirits in the sky above them. "I could never overcome the darkness in my heart by holding anyone captive. Forcing Yuugi to help me revive my inner compassion would have been nothing but an exercise in futility…it would have been wrong…"
"But Yuugi was happy here," Mahaad countered. "He said as such himself."
The Pharaoh shrugged and sighed. "He was happy here because he has so rarely known happiness anywhere else." He narrowed his eyes at Seth and Mahaad. "How could you expect him to remain happy here, when the two of you are so eager to leave?"
"Well—uh—" Mahaad and Seth exchanged a culpable expression.
"I never said I wanted to leave." Seth declared, crossing his arms and scowling.
"Perhaps not in so many words, but…" The Pharaoh paused. "I am fairly certain that that was your true intention."
Seth snorted.
"No, the Pharaoh is right." Mahaad hung his head. "If our experiences with the evils of the Millennium Items have taught us anything, it is that we cannot use others as a tool to advance our own ends…" He watched Isis and Mana off in the distance. Isis was helping Mana up—she seemed to have stumbled over a rock.
Seth threw himself down on the sand. "So, that's it? Now we just get to sit and rot here—forever?" He snorted. "In that case it would have been better if he'd never come at all."
The Pharaoh looked down at him with a small frown. "Is that really the way you see it?" He leaned back on his boulder, a small smile gracing his lips and settling across his cheeks and eyelids. "Yuugi's presence here has changed so much that I thought completely immutable. For the first time that I can remember, I feel hope, and happiness, and," he brought his hand up to where the Pendant still hung, only partially formed, above his heart. "And loss. I thought I would never have an opportunity to experience any of those feelings again, I thought there would never be anything more to me than blind anger…But Yuugi has shown me that that doesn't have to be the case. Can you really claim that things were better before than they are now? When we hardly knew each other, when we did not care? We're…friends now. It's affected all of us. And scoff all you like, Priest, but I can see that the change has moved you, too. I've seen you give Mana pointers on her magic instead of scolding her, why, I've even seen your fondness for Master Mahaad—"
"Don't say that," Seth growled. "Don't even think it."
The Pharaoh chuckled. "Well, you can try to continue to deny it. See how long you can last. But I don't think it will be long before even you must pay heed to the invocation of your heart. And when the time comes, you too will discover that there is no concept of choice."
They sat in silence for a few minutes, watching the stars drift across the sky.
"Hey—hey guys!" Mana came sprinting towards them, kicking up clouds of sand. "We had a great idea—come here!"
Mana and Isis stood in front of the Pharaoh, clutching the Millennium Necklace between them.
"We thought that since the Millennium Necklace can see into the future, maybe we could use it to see Yuugi again! To check up on him! And well," she cast a sharp glance to the Pharaoh out of the corner of her eye. "Because some of us didn't get a chance to say goodbye to him."
The Millennium Necklace began to glow, and before any of them had a chance to predict which slice of Yuugi's future might appear before them, they found themselves floating in the air, somewhere inside a dark and dazzling arena. Light and sound assaulted them from all directions, the walls and ceiling and even the air itself seemed to shake with waves of thunderous applause, shouts, and discordant, grisly music.
"Where are we?" Mahaad asked, wrinkling his nose is displeasure.
"Is this some kind of dueling arena?" The Pharaoh asked. His eyes darted among the faces in the crowd. "But where is Yuugi?"
"Look! There! Oh no—Yuugi!" Mana pointed to the far edge of the arena. They could just barely see Yuugi, slumped over and obscured in shadow, staggering towards them. His hair was in disarray, his face sported several cuts and bruises. As Yuugi stepped into the light, the entire arena seemed to warp with a roar of metallic, maniacal laughter.
"Yuugi!" The Pharaoh felt his heart curl into a fist. "But—why!"
This vision vanished as quickly as it had come, and the spirits found themselves once against standing on the same Egyptian sands. In the silence that settled over them, they could still hear the laughter that had seemed to edge Yuugi on the brink of destruction like the brutal edge of a butcher knife.
"Yuugi—" The Pharaoh continued to reach out, clasping at empty air, as if trying to claw through the enormous crevasse of space of time that separated them.
"What was that?" Mana asked, voice dissolving. "You said that you sent him back to his grandpa! So how did he get there?!"
"I-I don't know, Mana." The Pharaoh chocked. "I did."
"But he's hurt! And he's there are alone…"
The Pharaoh stamped his foot, sending torrents of sand flying in every direction. "Yuugi!" He roared. He yelled until his voice was flayed to cinders, until the stars blinked out like spent lumps of coal and the sand melted into glass. With every bellow he reached deeper into his lungs, straining for any remaining seam of darkness and destruction and despair and hurling it all until the very air around him was black and raw and sour.
And yet, he remained alone.
Yuugi was gone.
And the Pharaoh continued to call his name until his throat was dry and his veins were stripped and in tatters.
"We have to do something," Mana whispered. "We have to help him!"
"What can we do?" Mahaad asked, voiced muddy and low. "Yuugi is gone."
Isis pursed her lips. "Then we must go to him."
Mana spun to face her. "Really?! We—can we really do that?"
Isis lowered her eyes. "I'm not sure what our magic is capable of. Before this evening I would not have known that we were capable of leaving the palace walls." She turned to Mahaad. "Could your powers bring us to him?"
Mahaad shook his head. "The spell that entraps us here is very powerful. I think that if any of us were capable of breaking it, we would have succeeded quite some time ago. I know that I have certainly tried…"
"You tried before," Mana added. "Before Yuugi came. Before we became—" She gestured towards their bodies, now nearly solid. She looked to the Pharaoh, nearly doubled over on the sand, still silently repeating Yuugi's name. "Before we became like this."
"I suppose that's true…"
"Isn't it worth a try?! We can't just leave him there all alone, can we, Master?! No—" Mana's jaw set, her eyes flared, and her staff appeared in her hand. "We can't! Not after everything he's done for us! Tell me what spell we need to get out of here and I'll do it myself!"
"It's very difficult magic, Mana." Mahaad twitched slightly. "Even if were able to leave this land, I'm not sure what would become of us, since the spell itself has not been broken…"
"I don't care! I just—I have to know that he's alright! I have to see him again! I—I—" She paused as she felt the Pharaoh approach her. "It's the right thing to do, isn't it? I—" She felt a wave was rising inside her, picking her up and carrying her to somewhere she had never expected to be. "We have to do it, don't we? If someone doesn't want to come then f-fine—but—but I have to help him. I—"
"I will come with you, Mana," Seth spoke quickly, as if hoping to get the words out before he himself noticed that he had said them. "And I will offer him what assistance I can."
"I will come," Mahaad added.
Isis nodded.
"Well, that settles it then! Except—" Mana turned towards the Pharaoh slowly. He simply gripped the top of Mana's staff.
"Alright, Mana," He replied. "Take us to Yuugi."
Mana beamed up at him. "Thank you."
One by one, they placed their hands on Mana's staff until it became warm and began to glow. Mana closed her eyes, pinched her lips, and tugged on her memories of summers in the sand, board games on the beach, remembering how to smile again, when she was so certain that she had forgotten how…
Her knees were shaking. Mana could feel her heart tremble and knew with a certainty she couldn't describe that this was the feeling of it becoming lighter, and of her body becoming vulnerable, and becoming whole. She felt the Earth rattle through her like lightning, and somewhere, in the shaking, she felt a narrow hole—a tunnel.
She smiled, invisibly, to herself, suddenly understanding how their duel spirits felt when they had reached up into the sky. They were all going exactly where they needed to be.
