14. Interference

Even though he'd known as soon as he'd heard Blue-Eyes' roar, Kaiba was still having a hard time processing what he was seeing. Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon had somehow shifted herself into attack mode and destroyed Ultimate Obedient Fiend.

Julius was no less stunned. "Th-that's not possible! A monster from the field cannot defend against my guardian monster!"

The three-headed dragon folded her wings and settled back into defense position next to Obelisk, and Kaiba wrenched his eyes off her and looked at Yugi—no, not Yugi; the other Yugi—the Pharaoh—Atem—in time to see him give Kaiba a brief nod. "Thank you, Kaiba."

Kaiba shook his head. "I didn't. I—" He closed his jaw with a snap and looked out across the field. Sara was slumped with both of her hands and her forehead against the barrier as if it were the only thing keeping her on her feet. Kaiba's eyes widened in alarm. "Sara!"

She looked up, keeping her hands out to support her weight. "It worked." She sounded surprised but drained. "I didn't really think it would, but it did."

Julius whipped his head around to glare at her. "You. You contemptible little cow! How dare you interfere! It was bad enough that you very nearly ruined everything by finding the desecrated tombs before sunrise, giving me precious little time to cover the fact that I was in Luxor when I should have been in Cairo. But at least then you remembered your place and alerted me first. You are my student, do you understand me? Everything you know or think you know is because of me. For this betrayal, I will destroy you!"

Kaiba exploded. "You listen to me, you insignificant waste of air. If you threaten her again, if you say one word to her or so much as glance in her general direction, I will annihilate you. And I'm not talking about a mere game, dark or otherwise… Monarch."

"You think you can threaten me, Seto Kaiba? You forget how my protégé came to be here! She is conscious and in her own mind merely because I granted it. But she is still under Reshef's sway. One word from me, one small hand motion, and she—"

He stopped short, suddenly finding himself at the receiving end of Dark Magician's staff.

"I would carefully consider my next words if I were you," Yugi—no, Atem—said, his voice so low and threatening it practically rumbled out of him.

Julius's eyes were ice as he glared from Dark Magician to Atem to Kaiba, whose own gaze did not waver. At length, he took a step backwards. Dark Magician lowed his staff—but only slightly—and the Pharaoh let out a slow breath. He turned to face Sara. "You are the girl whose Ka became Blue-Eyes White Dragon." It wasn't a question.

Sara looked a little alarmed to be directly addressed by this man with Yugi's hair, dressed in Egyptian raiment, who had been summoned out of the air. She looked to Kaiba for… support? Confirmation? Assent? He wasn't sure what he could give her, so he just gazed back at her. She would have to find her own answers.

She closed her eyes and sighed. "I don't know. I just—she speaks to me." She nodded at Blue-Eyes and Kaiba closed his eyes, pressing his lips together.

He didn't pursue it further. "Thank you."

Kaiba opened his eyes and directed his attention to Julius. "Now if we're done with the childish off-field tantrums, Professor, can we get on with this? I've got better things to do with my time."

The Pharaoh looked over his shoulder, shaking his head with an amused smirk on his face. "You haven't changed, have you, Kaiba?"

Kaiba rolled his eyes. "Are you gonna duel, or what? Because if you can't finish this thing, my turn is next."

"Oh, I can finish it." He turned back to Julius. "I believe it's my move."

Téa kept her hand against the barrier, as close to touching Yugi as she could, while she watched Atem duel. It was surreal how his mere presence on the dueling field both erased the past three years as if he had never left them, and validated that in a sense he never really had. With the exception of the Egyptian clothing and the dark skin, everything about him was at once so very Yugi and so completely not Yugi. Trying to gasp where they fit and where they diverged was like trying to differentiate between the oxygen and nitrogen molecules in the air. Only the solid feel of the divider, which felt like warm glass against her hand, and knowing that Yugi—her Yugi—lay just beyond kept her grounded.

Atem drew, but before he could so much as add the card to his hand, Julius activated a trap card. "I'll use my Graverobber to take a card from one of your graveyards—the whelp's, to be specific." The little gnome-like creature with a pick and a shovel gave a shrill giggle as he jumped into Joey's graveyard and returned a moment later with a magic card. Julius addressed Joey. "Remember your Hyper Refresh card? It's an instant magic card, which means I can activate it at any time, so long as I have no monsters on the field and the total attack of the monsters on my opponent's side of the field is higher than my Life Points. I have 8100 Life Points, and the combined attack of Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon and Obelisk the Tormentor is 8500. This means I get to double my Life Points, giving me a total of 16,200 Life Points.

Téa blinked, trying to remember if she'd ever seen a duel where a player had that many Life Points.

Atem looked almost bored. "Do you think that's a problem for the Egyptian gods?"

"God, singular," Julius corrected. "You have one god on the field, with only 4000 attack points. I know you have Ra in your hand, but you don't have enough monsters to tribute for him."

"Don't I?" Atem pulled a card out of his hand. "If you recall, Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon is not really a single monster, but a fusion of three monsters. So all it would take to have three very powerful monsters on the field is one card." He turned the card he was holding around to face Julius. "De-Fusion."

Julius's jaw clenched as Atem slipped the card into his Duel Disk—Yugi's Duel Disk—and Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon separated into three Blue-Eyes White Dragons. Each with 3000 attack points. And Ra's attack points were based on the attack of each of the monsters tributed to summon it.

"Hear that?" Joey asked, cupping his hand to his ear. "That's the fat lady singing for ya, Julie buddy!"

Atem pulled another card out of his hand, holding it out before him. "And now I sacrifice these three Blue-Eyes White Dragons…."

The three dragons disappeared, and a yellow glow surrounded Atem. Téa closed her eyes, not wanting to remember the last time she'd seen the Winged Dragon of Ra summoned—in the Ceremonial Battle that sent him to the afterlife. It didn't help her nerves any that Yugi had defeated all three gods in that duel….

Atem began chanting in Egyptian, and the glow got brighter until Téa could even see it through her closed eyelids, like the sun itself had descended into the chamber. A roar like rushing wind drowned out Atem's chanting, and when the light dimmed enough so that she could open her eyes, Téa could see a huge sphere hovering in the air above Atem as he raised the card in his hand above his head. "I summon the Winged Dragon of Ra, god of Egypt!" The sphere cracked open, with golden rays of light bursting out from within. It unfolded, revealing a huge yellow dragon with an astounding 9000 attack points. Still not enough, however, even when combined with Obelisk's 4000 attack points. But she knew Ra had many special abilities, and Atem activated one of them.

"And now I sacrifice 3499 of my own Life Points—all but one—to increase Ra's attack strength by the same amount. That gives Ra an attack of 12,499. Combined with Obelisk's 4000 attack points, that's almost 300 more than we need. You have no monsters on the field, no traps left, only one card in your hand. You're through, 'great' Ramesses!"

"I am never through! Dark Dust Spirit! Iw sedjem eny. Iw iash i! Iw ii eny!"

A ghoulish monster with a red body covered in purple spikes burst onto the field high above the duel. It had a red, skull-like face, glowing yellow eyes, long white hair, and was radiating some kind of energy. Kaiba called out a warning. "That's Dark Dust Spirit! It destroys every monster on the field when it's summoned!"

Atem's response was immediate. "Dark Magician, use your Dark Magic Attack to block Dark Dust Spirit's effect! Mana! Iw sedjem eny. Iw iash nisu! Iw ii eny!"

Dark Magician pointed his staff at Dark Dust Spirit, but instead of the usual single blast like a green laser beam, he created a glowing green shield. Dark Magician Girl materialized out of the air beside him and immediately pointed her own staff, bolstering the shield against the energy radiating out from Dark Dust Spirit.

Mai gave an indignant cry. "He can't use side monsters to destroy monsters on the field!"

"And we weren't supposed to be able to use field monsters to defend attacks from the side monsters," Kaiba replied.

Téa shook her head, trying to follow what was going on since nothing any of them were doing fit the rules of any duel she'd seen and, as Kaiba pointed out, even seemed outside the rules that had been in place for most of this duel.

Atem looked like he was feeling the strain of his two guardians' efforts. "Joey! Mai! Kaiba! I need your help! The key to summoning your monsters is the Egyptian incantation. Call your monsters!"

Joey looked over his shoulder at Téa. "The same thing we said to call Atem?"

She shook her head. "No, that was for all of us to call him together." She tried to remember what Marik had told her.

"How Atem did it, then?"

Sara called out to them from across the field. "No, not unless you're the king. It's 'Iw sedjem eny. Iw iash i! Iw ii eny!'"

Kaiba was the first to get it, with Joey and Mai close behind. "Blue-Eyes White Dragon! Iw sedjem eny. Iw iash i! Iw ii eny!"

"Red-Eyes Black Dragon! Iw sedjem eny. Iw iash i! Iw ii eny!"

"Harpie Lady! Iw sedjem eny. Iw iash i! Iw ii eny!"

The three monsters appeared, hurling themselves into the fray and going after Dark Dust Spirit directly while the two Magicians held off his effect with their staffs. Before any of the monsters could actually attack, however, Dark Dust Spirit disappeared. He didn't disintegrate like he'd been destroyed—he just winked out of existence like a hologram when the Duel Disk generating it was turned off. At that exact moment, the force field separating Téa and the other spectators from the field evaporated under her hand, sending her toppling forward into the "bench" area. When she recovered from her surprise, she scrambled forward, gathering Yugi into her arms and pulling his head onto her lap. "Yugi!"

"Dude, the barrier's down!" Tristan sounded as surprised as Téa was.

Joey, still focused on Dark Dust Spirit, didn't seem to hear him. "Where'd he go?"

"He took the barrier down to make his escape," Atem said. "Ramesses is gone as well."

Kaiba roared in fury. "WHAT? How can he be gone? We were in the middle of a duel."

"Not just a duel—we were in the middle of a Shadow Game," Joey said, "and he was about to lose. How the hell does someone walk out of a Shadow Game? I didn't think that was possible!"

Atem shook his head. "It's not. He must have used Dark Dust Spirit to remove him from the field and take him deeper into the Shadow Realm. Its other special ability is that it returns to its owner's hand at the end of the turn that it's summoned. Ramesses knew he couldn't win, so he used it as a diversion and to help him escape. But he's still in the Shadow Realm. He can't have left, not directly." He looked up at Dark Magician and Dark Magician Girl. "Mahad, Mana, go find him and report back to me."

They both bowed and disappeared. As soon as they were gone, Atem collapsed.