Title: Gambling With Destiny
Author: Phoebe Delos
Series: Yu-Gi-Oh! DM
Story Summary: A twist of fate during the Ceremonial Duel leaves everyone saying goodbye to the Yuugi they didn't expect to lose. The pharaoh, lost and alone, must place his trust in a mysterious stranger if he wishes to have any hope in winning his partner back from an old enemy.
Story Rating: Teen for Language, Violence, & Occasional Dark Tones. Rating may rise later due to sexual tones or other warnings.
Spoilers: The end of the series, and anything prior. That includes a certain spirit's real name. Expect some mixing of anime and manga facts.
Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! isn't mine.
Notes:

:: Chapter Fourteen ::

His eyes were buzzing- No, no that was his head. His eyes were just struggling to open. Even before his mind was alert enough to remember why, a part of him know that it was desperately important for him to wake up. The impulse alone dragged his scattered mind up out of the languid, hazy fog that had been as much a relief as suffering… And in the brief in-between of unconsciousness and awareness, Atem thought of the puzzle. The shattered darkness.

"… What…" His mouth tasted awful. He coughed, spit blindly off to the side in an effort to clear away the grainy bitterness clinging to his tongue.

"Ow-"

He stalled, mid-wiping his mouth on his still-soaked jacket sleeve, trying to place that voice. Jeu- It was Jeu. Craning to sit up, Atem fell backwards again with a grunt when an unexpected pain shot up his back and shoulders.

"Atem, are you- …where are we?"

"I don't know." He tried moving again, and rolled as quickly as he could to his side as he looked up and about. It wasn't quite pitch black thanks to some dim light peeking in through cracks and holes in an unfamiliar ceiling. But there were no windows, and he could just make out a long, seemingly endless hall of collapsing walls… On the other side of what could only be prison bars.

Silence hung in the air like a spoken word as Atem slowly rose to his feet - a movement to his side alerting him to Jeu doing the same - and moved closer to the bars, feeling along the cold metal beams until he realized old stone surrounded a wide, barred door. He shook it harshly in one quick, testing motion.

It didn't given an inch.

"...we're trapped," he said, the truth echoing brittle and cold in his own ear as he let go again, pressing himself up to the bars to peer into the darkness as Jeu spoke behind him.

"And my cell phone is gone. Who could have… I know it was that guard who grabbed me, and kicked you, but I didn't get a proper look. I was out so fast, and he was shadowed in the security station when we came into the palace. I didn't even think to look at him closely… Do you know how we got here?"

"Not really," he answered, giving up his hunt for clues in the shadows and turning around to face the nearly invisible girl. "He knocked me out, too… And going by how my back feels, I was dragged here by my arms." And he didn't bother hurting himself further by reaching back to check, but he would bet his deck that Yuugi's jacket was torn up on the back, where it had scraped on stone as well as sand as Atem was dragged into their unexpected prison.

"…that sounds about right," she murmured, and Atem didn't have to see properly to know that Jeu was rubbing her own shoulders.

Silence fell again as they stood there, mute, both tense with their effort to take the situation in stride. But however logical they tried to be, the truth of their predicament? The danger they were likely in seeped through to their bones like the lingering rain water through their torn clothes. And after only a few moments of quiet, accompanied by the distant echo of rain, Jeu tentatively spoke up.

"Atem? I can't be sure. I never saw it… But I think this is the old palace's dungeon."

"I think so, too," he acknowledged as he clenched his fingers, flexed them, clenched them at his side, pressing his anxiety into the movement to keep it from his mind and voice. "But, how can it be so intact? And these bars- They have to be new. Why would someone renovate this place?"

"Why, in preparation for you."

Atem sucked in air through his nose and held it, stock still, at the intrusion of a third, unknown voice. The voice of a man, calm, even, smooth as silk. It left his ear aching to catch more even as it made his skin crawl.

Before he could fully comprehend it there was a click, and a proper light shone in the space. An electric lantern had been turned on in the hall beyond the door, not far from the prison door. And reclined against the wall beside it was the shadowed figure of the speaker. He rose in unhurried movements and walked around the light, coming into proper view with his hands clasped behind his back.

"-Tariq Banoub?"

Atem turned at Jeu's breathless naming, the confused shock on her face prompting him to look back and reconsider the named stranger. "You know him?"

"Yes, he's- He's an archaeologist who helps preserve the palace. I met him years ago. He… He's part of the team I asked to…" But Jeu was stumbling too much to finish what she was saying, a slow but undeniable terror sliding into her gaze as she stepped closer to the door, stalling at Atem's side. "The Items… Banoub, what have you done?"

The Items? The calm Atem reached for cracked as his mind struggled to take in what Jeu meant. She had… She had had the destroyed chamber excavated, hadn't she? To try and find the lost Items. Atem had never heard anything else about it, assuming it was still in progress.

Apparently not.

Atem's hand was clenching one of the bars again before he consciously considered the action, supporting his pull forward into a forceful stance as he glared at their captor. "What do you want with us? Do you have the Items? Are you connected to Him?"

Banoub let Atem's interrogation slide passed him like wind, offering little more than an empty, nauseatingly unmoved smile in answer. He seemed so ordinary... He looked like any other resident of Luxor. Straight hair fell in his face, so dark a green it was nearly black, and his blue uniform surrounded him in an authoritative, yet mundane air. And yet the way Atem's blood froze at that smile was all he needed to know, he was right.

Rather than breaking the silence with words, Banoub stepped closer, not even breaking his stride as he reached into one of the wide cracks in the stone walls and pulled out two hefty, familiar objects.

Duel disks.

It wouldn't be accurate to call what Atem felt 'shock'. The moment the equipment came into view the once king's glare only solidified with expectation, a wordless reaction sliding through his own thoughts that could easily be summed up as 'of course' as Banoub stalled before the bars and finally spoke again.

"If you want me to let you out of that cell, you will have to duel, and win. Do you agree?"

"I don't see how I have a choice," Atem ground out.

But Banoub did not hand the duel disk to him. Instead, he shook his head with an air of amused impatience. "No, little king. You do have a choice. You can refuse, stay here, and take your chances on some miracle, pray I haven't cut off any chance of rescue... Or you can accept, risk failure, and win your freedom for yourself." The man's eyes narrowed and flashed with an unnatural light, some cackling, triumphant emotion in its depths making Atem's stomach twist. "So... Choose."

"...Atem-" Jeu breathed just behind him, trepidation screaming in her whisper. But he didn't need to look back at her face or hear her unsaid warning to understand her. He knew. He heard the poisonous glee in that demand. It was a trap... Somehow, it was a trap, even when they were already caught.

But... This was it. This was the calamity he had been expecting for weeks, had been almost actively hoping for in favor of the lost unknowns of the quiet days in the apartment, with grains of sand falling one after another into the abyss that was the Seventh of October. And even as he saw the error of ever hoping for this... Atem recognized it for what it was. A path finally set before him. A path of thin ice and quick sand and roaring fire and churning darkness... The path he had been waiting for all along.

The path that led, somehow, in some way, back to his partner.

He put out his hand to the devil.

"I accept."

Banoub's smile didn't shift at all, looking for all appearances like Atem's agreement had been a foregone conclusion, and bypassed Atem's outstretched hand to toss the duel disks through the bars to land at their feet… Both duel disks. Atem stared at them uncomprehendingly until Banoub reached into another crevice, a crack in the floor just a yard or so from the cell, and pulled out a third disk.

"-no," Atem said, stumbling into the denial but gaining steam fast, glaring fire at the 'guard' even as Banoub didn't react, clipping the disk onto his arm without a single glance up. "Only I agreed, why are you giving us both-"

"It's alright." Atem choked on his protests, clenched his teeth, and turned to find Jeu reaching down to take one of the duel disks. "I still have my deck from our duel."

He couldn't bring himself to mirror the strained smile she offered him, his ire collapsing into earnest, stifled worry as he whispered to her. "You shouldn't play with that deck. You'll be at a disadvantage, and who knows what Banoub is planning."

"Atem, didn't you once play with a deck that wasn't your own? That belonged to… Yuugi's grandfather?" Jeu asked, the insistence behind her question faltering with the naming. But she recovered it just as quickly, meeting his gaze with a furrowed crease between her large, narrowed eyes. "That deck did not represent your own heart… But you won with it, all the same."

"That was different," he insisted, even as he heard himself floundering where he should be stubborn. "I didn't even build that deck, but it had grandp- … aibou's grandfather's feelings were bound up in those cards. That made them strong."

"Exactly. You managed to conjure the strength of his will through his cards, even without him there. Won with cards not meant for you, because of the strength behind them," she insisted, the determination flattening her mouth into a line softening again as she slid into sheer, beseeching appeal. "I want to help you… If I duel with these cards, wrong for me or not, shouldn't that be enough?"

Atem stared at her, knowing he must be openly showing his dumbstruck wonder and conflict, but unable to wipe it from his face as he quietly answered. "…alright…" He just couldn't help it, or explain the strange feeling filling him. Suddenly it felt a little easier to breathe, even as dread ran in his veins at the idea of dragging her into that fight. There was nothing for it, and he forced his attention off of the relief shining on Jeu's face as he picked up the last duel disk. "-I'm trusting you."

"Thank you."

"That's very sweet," Banoub said, drawing Atem and Jeu's wary gazes back to him, but there was nothing to see save that same laughing, frozen grin. "But before we begin- I think you should check your own cards, little king."

Atem stared, frozen, a ball welling up in his throat that ached and was impossible to swallow or speak around. But, slowly, reluctant to break his watch on that sickening smile, he looked down at the cards he had taken from their holster, fanning out the lot of them in his hand. The familiar monsters and spells and traps all looked the same, undamaged, untampered with... And yet something did gnaw at him as he stared and found nothing wanting in what he saw. And as his suspicions shifted to what wasn't there, Atem realized why.

"...the God Cards..."

He heard Jeu's sharp intake at his whisper, but whatever she said to lost in the ringing in his ears as he raised his wide gaze from his cards back to the man beyond the bars. "What have you- You took them?!"

Nothing. Banoub just looked at him- Almost seemed to look through him, and Atem snapped again. "Answer me!"

"-shall we begin?" Banoub asked, sliding over Atem's demands without so much as a flinch as he raised his duel disk before him and activated it. "4000 life points each, none of us attack on the first draw. I will take the first turn."

Atem kept staring, kept glaring, but there was nothing for it, and a tense side glance at Jeu and her frozen, troubled expression highlighted the truth all too well. They were in no position to be making demands. Atem didn't know why they were getting a chance at winning their freedom back, how the 'guard' knew who the pharaoh was, or why he had trapped them in the first place. But even knowing it was likely futile, he couldn't help but pose one last question as he put his stripped deck into his duel disk. "...this doesn't make sense. Why would you want to duel the two of us together on your own? Alone?"

"Oh... I am never alone."

The unexpected reply was a mere whisper in the dark, and Atem tensed in expectation of seeing someone else emerge out of the shadows beyond the lantern. But no one else approached them... Not from the hallway.

At first he thought it was nothing but a trick of a light, how Banoub's black eyes faded into empty, bottomless gray, as though the darkness was draining right out of him. The following seconds put potential truth to the impression as a flicker beyond the stranger's form caught Atem's attention, prompting him to focus blindly over Banoub's shoulder... Only to jolt back in flabbergasted shock in time with Jeu's choked "What-?!" as the man's shadow rose off of the floor, quivering in its flimsy tangibility before it quickly began to morph, to gain substance even as it drew away from the man that had cast it, shifting to stand at Banoub's side instead of at his heel.

-The Wicked Avatar?!

The comparison was inevitable. The shadow stood as a smoky, black copy of the archeologist. But as Atem stumbled for clarity amid his shock the differences were all too quick to show themselves. For the copy was no summoned monster, but an exact replica of their keeper, right down to the duel disk that looked to be perfectly functional despite its blacked out coloring.

Atem heard a strange, choked whimper and looked back at the original, Banoub's eyes – now a bright, healthy orange – were near completely dilated with clear, paralyzed terror... And when Atem slowly looked back at the shadow Banoub had cast, it opened its own eyes to reveal narrow, freezing cold ice blue orbs.

That hated smile curled at the lips of the dark double.

"This... is a Duel of Sacrifice and Shade, little king."

"Please," cut in the true Banoub before Atem could hope to find his own voice and respond or question, the archeologist's deep voice choked and strangled and high where the shadow's remained as smooth and languid. For a brief, horrid moment, Atem's stomach twisted threateningly at the broken desperation on the man's face as he looked at his doppelganger. "Don't make me- I'm so tired-"

The shadow, or shade as it may well be given the thing's words, turned to look at its near-crying double and stared, unblinking, eyes going wide and pupils appearing where there had been none before. But the pupils were wrong, somehow, long and thin, and they flashed white within the pale blue. Looking into made Atem's own head go foggy and he made himself blink, catching a breath he didn't remember losing as he looked away. He shared a quick, alarmed, lost look with Jeu before daring to look back at their enemies again, only to find that the true Banoub was completely, unnaturally taciturn. He was staring at his duel disk and wouldn't look up. Not when Atem stared at him, and not when his blacked out double spoke.

"Now then... I believe I said I would have the first turn?"

"-you aren't Banoub," Jeu protested, her glower as baffled as it was accusing. "What are you? What have you done to B-"

But she didn't get to finish, quickly stumbling into tense silence as they were all plunged into darkness- Only to get pulled instantly back out by the sudden burst of numerous, tiny little lights.

Atem jumped instinctively back from the closest ones, only to stall as he registered what the lights actually were. Candles... Dozens of candles, gathered in four, distinctive groups before each of their feet. And in each group, there were two different kinds of candles lined up side by side. Two rows of white candles with white flames... And two rows of black candles with black flames. And it took no more than a few seconds amid Banoub's whimpers for Atem to count them, and feel his stomach turn to lead at the obvious conclusion.

40 candles... 4000 life points...

"What are these for?"

The flat, dark question might have been half-rhetorical, but Atem still pinned his focus on the shade as he awaited an answer, clenching his teeth all the harder when he, it, whatever it was merely grinned at him, evading once more.

"Ah, trust me, it's so much better to show than tell."

"-and what if I don't let you?" Atem asked as he tensed his facial muscles into a black smirk, the better to hide the fact that he was bluffing. "We haven't activated our disks yet... What if we just refuse to duel, after all, and decide to wait for help?"

"...you think you can still back out?" The shade's chuckle bounced sickeningly off of the walls amid the stale, dead air. He played one monster in face-down defense position, set three more, and pinned Atem with that smile of his and spoke again only when he was clearly done with his first turn. "Look around you."

Focusing warily beyond the mysterious enemy, Atem went still as he realized that the world around them, on both sides of the bars, had faded into a gray nothing. The shadows and even the lantern had disappeared into a haze, explaining how the only light remaining came from the one hundred-and-sixty candles that burned at their feet.

It was... It was just like what he had seen when Yuugi had disappeared... and in his nightmares...

"Atem-" Jeu's voice cut through the fog of his own mind, drawing his dazed maroon eyes to her with a focusing blink, only to find her just a tense as he, but her mouth and brow set with a determination that stay steady as she looked to the false Banoub. "So it's a tag duel... What's considered a win?"

"Surviving as a unit, of course. If one of us loses, we take our partner out with us," the shadow answered, his constant small grin sliding into a full, undeniable leer as his gaze drifted lazily between the two captives. "Though... The cost of that loss may… vary."

For once, neither posed a question to the obvious jab. Both knew, as Atem could tell from a single shared glance with the girl, that the shadow would not explain himself.

Not when he could make them learn his meaning first hand.

"I sacrifice my Familiar-Possessed Aussa to summon Granmarg the Rock Monarch, using its effect to destroy the... the, 'dark' Banoub's face down monster."

Atem couldn't blame Jeu for the stumble, as he himself still wasn't certain what to call that shadow who took his destroyed card - Stone Statue of the Aztecs, as it turned out - off of the field and put it in his graveyard.

Atem had deduced in the first few turns, played at a virtual stalemate of summons and destruction without any damage to actual life points, that the God Cards must not be in either 'man's' deck. Perhaps it was presumptuous to assume, but the once pharaoh had studied those cards backwards and forwards in his effort to incorporate them into his own deck. There was nothing about the playing style of Banoub and his shadow – who seemed to share the exact same deck, given their similar plays of rock monsters and destruction spells – that sung of an effort to bring any of the three gods into play.

That didn't mean they weren't dangerous, though, even without a single god card. Even the archaeologist, who played with shaking hands and terrified eyes and answered none of their questions when they posed them, was proving problematic, managing to clear the field twice with Dark Hole and Torrential Tribute, taking out Atem's Dark Magician Girl the Dragon Knight with the latter in the previous turn.

But Banoub's luck was apparently running out. Jeu turned her uncertain frown on him.

"Battle… I attack Banoub's Gigantes with Granmarg."

The man was shaking, and moved as if to play his set card before the attack could connect. But his hand froze before he could flip it. Banoub grit his teeth as if in pain and looked beseechingly to his black copy, who simply stared back with those empty eyes of his.

Was... was the shadow talking to Banoub in his mind? Or actually controlling his actions?

Before Atem could breech the topic, Banoub's monster shattered into pieces. As his first five white candle lights snuffed out Banoub's loud breaths hitched strangely. He dropped his cards and reached up to clutch his shoulder in obvious pain as he began to buckle over.

"N-no..."

"Get up," the shade hissed without looking at his apparent host, or puppet, or whatever he was to him… And where Jeu remained frozen in shock, Atem broke out of his enough to snap at him.

"What is happening to him? What have you done?!"

"What have I done?" the shade asked, some amusement sliding back into his blank blue eyes as he dismissed the rising Banoub to focus on Atem. "I wasn't the one who attacked him."

Jeu didn't respond to the obvious jab, but Atem could see it had struck her all the same. After a long, hesitant moment of looking at her already summoned Injection Fairy Lily, she announced her play with a couple movements and quiet words. "I set one card, and end my turn..."

Atem didn't say anything, or even glance at her too openly, but he still felt a stab of empathy for the girl. She could have taken out Banoub's other monster, Sand Moth, with Injection Lily Fairy's effect, but she had not. He knew that it would have been a risky move– She would have to use up 2000 of her own life points to pull it off, but he knew without asking that she wouldn't have made the move, even without the cost. To put Banoub, as apparently unwilling in this fight as they were, through such pain... They would both do better to focus as much as possible on the shadow version of the archaeologist.

But as Atem acknowledged that fact the shadow took his own turn. Looking at what he had drawn, he gave a short, two-note chuckle before announcing his play. "I remove eight rock monsters in my graveyard from play to special summon Megarock Dragon." The fogged, isolated space felt like it truly vibrated beneath the stomp of the gigantic, dinosaur-esque monster that appeared beyond the bars, its eyes and very body giving off a horrid red glow as it roared in their faces. "And it collects 700 attack points for every monster put out of play to summon it. That would make its attack… 5600."

5600?!

And Atem didn't have any monsters out due to the earlier destruction cards played! Still... Still, he could handle it. Strength wasn't everything. He still had Mirror Force set.

But as he prepared himself to play the trap, and potentially face something blocking its activation, the shade focused on Jeu, his smirk back in place as he proclaimed his move. "Battle- Megarock Dragon, attack Granmarg!" Before Atem could find the breath to- To what? Protest? Yell? He couldn't do anything- The dragon spit out a red blast. It zipped right through the bars and took out Granmarg.

Jeu had done nothing in the face of her monster's destruction save tense and cover her eyes with her forearm to block out the bright attack, and for one, brief moment, Atem thought that perhaps she was fine. But slowly, one after another, her candles flickered out. By the tenth one she was shaking, and as the last white flame went out she fell to her knees.

"Jeu!"

"D-don't move!"

Atem hadn't even realized he was moving. But his feet slowly stalled after only a few steps, and he was left staring in frustrated helplessness at the fallen girl, her covered face and staying hand. As the candles finally ceased blowing out –only eight black flames left when the countdown stopped – Jeu rose back to her feet, barely catching herself before she fell again. "I'm, I'm fine! Just... Focus on the duel..." It was a lie. He didn't have to see her face to know that when it was clear in the way she hunched in on herself. The way her voice echoed with some strange, alarming distance.

And when she finally raised her head and he saw the blood running freely from her nose and eyes, he snapped.

"Why are you doing this?!" The shade didn't even flinch under his screams, but Atem didn't care. He wanted to take that smug, superior face and hold it over his own candles. See if his skin could burn, if those copied, blacked-out clothes of his could catch fire and get a real bonfire going. "If you want me dead, why did you drag them into this?! You had me already! Why didn't you just kill me?!"

"Fair is fair, little king... And my word is my word," The damn shadow said, untouched by Atem's wrath as ever as he slid back into vague references the pharaoh did not understand, his icy eyes marginally widening and his smile turning feral. "I swore I would not shed your blood, and I will not... Unless the clock runs out, or you place my blade to your neck by your own will."

….how could any of that fight be considered by 'his own will' when it involved prison bars and threats? Who could that creature be but The Devourer himself, when he spoke like that? If he was The Devourer, and had made such an oath to not touch Atem… Who had he made that promise to?

But Atem could not focus on such mysteries. The Devourer's turn was not yet done.

"Shall we finish this, then? Guardian Sphinx, attack Jeu Ravin directly."

Atem tensed, looking to Jeu with his heart in his throat. Just when he thought that it was truly over, that it was really the end, Jeu played a card from her hand, and Atem found he could breathe again. "I activate Poison of the Old Man, which can either drain my opponent or heal me. I choose the second effect... My life points go up by 1200." It didn't completely protect her, but as Injection Fairy Lily fell beneath the Guardian Sphinx's attack only one candle went out, the rest preserved.

Just as Atem was about to relax, seeing Jeu scrap through with no more than a wince, though, The Devourer let out a quiet laugh and whispered "Very well, then... I end my battle phase, set one card, and end my turn."

...that meant it was Atem's turn. He had only his Mirror Force set, and no monsters on the field. He would have to rely on the five cards he had in his hand, six once he drew, to get them out of there. Keep Jeu in play, and take out The Devourer, if he could.

And the only way he could start, was to face the cost of damage for himself.

"I activate Dark Magic Curtain, paying half of my life points to summon the Dark Magician!"

"Atem-" Jeu could manage no other argument, or had none to begin with, but Atem heard the protest all the same, sense the concern and alarm even without looking her way. But there was nothing for it- It needed to be done, and he braced himself for the impact

-and nearly keeled over at the fire that seared through him.

He teetered, hunched forward and in on himself as he fought to control his breathing, and not vomit at the way his very bones balked at the mysterious force that wracked through him. It wasn't the pain- That was excruciating, but he could have faced that! But... He had not been prepared by how truly invasive it was. How it ate away at his spiritual heart even as it felt like it was punching holes through his literal one. Was his soul being destroyed? ...no, no not destroyed... Battered? Yes, but, it felt like it was... receding too, somehow. Or was being pushed... And everything felt so... numb...

"Atem... Atem!"

"Bit off more than you can chew?"

The mingled beseeching and mockery fell naturally on his ear, but were slow to filter through his brain. It took some blurred moments for Atem to raise his head again, feeling woozy, faint. He could taste blood in his mouth, even though it didn't overflow onto his face... yet.

"I... I activate Thousand Knives," he managed, and the motion of setting and activating the card became a focal point to anchor his mind onto. He couldn't quite shake the off-kilter sense that he was somehow not fully there, but his muscles remembered his intended play well enough to move two steps ahead of his trudging mind. "That allows Dark Magician, to instantly destroy one monster, on the field... I choose Megarock Dragon."

"Y, you can't, though-" Banoub cut in, the interruption drawing Atem's dizzy attention as much as how the archaeologist stumbled, and how he was beginning to cry as he nonetheless turned over a card and announced the card like he was ripping out his own fingernail. "I activate- My Body As a Shield."

No one spoke as the spell card appeared and blocked the intended destruction, Banoub sobbing as fifteen of his candles burst out with the cost of its activation, Jeu and Atem struggling as much to keep standing as to comprehend why he would sacrifice himself like that. It was finally The Devourer who severed the silence with his false sympathy. "How alarming for all of you. All of your white flames are out. And whether you win, or lose, with any of the black ones out..." He chuckled as if to himself, shaking his head as he smiled with far too wide eyes.

Atem swallowed back any comment that threatened to slide out, assessing the field. All of his own white candles were indeed blown out, as were Banoub's... And Jeu had lost more than half of her black ones. Atem had long gathered the underlying threat that they would likely die if they lost the duel, but... But what happened, if they won without those black lights?

He didn't want to find out.

"...nice try," Atem said, playing another card. "But I had two copies in my hand- I play a second Thousand Knives, and take out Megarock Dragon."

For half a breath Atem expected it to not work again, but the knives flew between the bars and struck the hologram undeterred, taking out the overpowered stone lizard. The shade didn't say anything in response, but Atem didn't stall long enough to investigate, afraid that the pained dizziness in his skull would inhibit him again if he delayed another moment. He gave a sharp wave of his hand that nearly knocked him off of his own feet. "I then equip Dark Magician with Magic Formula, bringing his attack up to 3200. Battle phase- I attack Guardian Sphinx with Dark Magician!"

He would take out The Devourer's last monster, chip away at his life points, set Magic Drain to protect himself and Jeu, and pray that the girl would play a Draining Shield or some other card to recover her lost black candles... And then they would win.

"Call of the Earthbound," the shadow announced, his smile dark as he played the card. "When my opponent declares an attack, I can choose the target of the attack for myself. And I chose Sand Moth."

"What?" Atem said, too groggy and thrown to properly cry his bafflement. But Jeu was adamant to at least try to express hers.

"Y, You would have Atem take out... But Banoub will lose-" The two would both lose, as the powered up Dark Magician would take out the monster and every last one of Banoub's life points and candles with it!

Before the shadow could answer, though, the archaeologist gave a loud sob, his hand shaking as he looked from his 'tag partner' to Atem and back in clear, torn confliction. Just a bare instant before the refocused Dark Magician destroyed Sand Moth Banoub turned over his set card and screeched, "I activate Magical Cylinder, which- Which means you'll take Dark Magician's attack yourself!"

"-no!" Jeu screamed, but Atem barely heard her broken cry over the strange buzzing that exploded inside his head. He felt oddly dizzy, like he was sinking. For one, brief moment, he thought 'this is it'- That the trap had already hit him, blown out all of his candles, and he was dying.

But Jeu's cry was no blind denial.

"I activate Dark Bribe!" the girl yelled, playing her own set card as Banoub stared in horror, dropping his cards even as Jeu stumbled through her play, shaking just as much as the archaeologist. "It negates your trap, and you draw a card. Dark Magician still attacks!"

"No..." Banoub let out a broken sob, but there was nothing for it. Even Atem couldn't— He couldn't stop it. Dark Magician's attack succeeded thanks to Jeu's intervention, and Banoub fell to his knees. Blood red tears streamed down his face as his candles went out one after the other, until they were all gone, the final flicker plunging Banoub and his corner of the fogged space into nothing.

There was a sickening thump of Banoub's hidden body hitting the ground... And then the quiet echo of hands slowly clapping.

"Well done," The Devourer congratulated, and Atem grit his teeth around the black emotions that roared through him.

"You... Who are you? Why did you drag him into this? What do you know about my-" Atem choked on his last question as he actually looked at the evil copy of the fallen man and saw that he was disappearing, too. Not into the mists around them, but simply dissolving into nothing. And even as he would never mourn the loss of him, Atem watched that dark, leering thing dissolve with an unsettled mind.

His chance at answers had just gone up in black smoke.

The mist went with The Devourer, or whatever he was, and within four or five blinks it was all gone. The candles, the fog, the shadow... The only remaining evidence of the duel was Banoub, lying in a gathering pool of his own blood just beyond the bars, the hazy pain echoing in Atem's own body, and-

"Jeu?" Her name cracked out of his throat as the girl tripped forward, catching herself for a breath only for her legs to give way and drop her in a kneeling heap on the floor. Atem bolted across the room, stuffing his cards into their holder as he ran. Thus his hands were free to support Jeu's back and shoulder as she tried to rise, and failed. "You shouldn't try to stand." Neither of them should be trying to stand, given that Atem's own muscles felt like they were turning to jelly and that strange distant feeling had never left his head.

But just looking at Jeu... There was something different with her, something beyond the blood still dripping lazily from her nose and the dazed darkness in her eyes that he could not name but still made his pulse flutter restlessly.

But she was still with him, still herself enough to look wrecked as she stared beyond him to the body on the floor. "I killed him..."

"You did not-" Atem clenched his jaw and eyes shut against the words, the lie that nearly tumbled out so thoughtlessly. He slowly, fervently corrected himself, and her. "We did that... But you didn't know what would happen. You couldn't have known." That Banoub would die, as the amount of blood made impossible to deny... And Atem had certainly not known what he was dragging Jeu into when he agreed to let her fight beside him. That she would end up saving him, and be left bleeding in his arms.

But she shook her head, grim yet steady as she denied him. "I knew... I knew enough. I just… I couldn't let him do that to you." Her gaze turned back on him, and Atem's throat clogged with something heavy and worn and overflowing with a relief that made him want to break down and cry because it was finally safe to.

But it was just a feeling, and even if it lingered and made him clutch Jeu's shoulder a touch tighter than necessary to hold her up, he needed to stay steady. They weren't free yet... A point Jeu emphasized herself as her attention slid back to the prison door. "Are we still stuck?"

Turning to follow her gaze, Atem considered Banoub's body with a reluctant but accepting note of where the bloody man lay, a spare foot or two beyond their cell door. "I think I can reach him through the bars. He likely has the keys on him somewhere. Are you okay to-"

"Go on," she urged, pulling herself up out of his grip. His hands jerked to follow her but he stopped just short of touching her and let them slowly drop away. Jeu was staying up just fine on her own, and threw him a small grin when she realized he was still hesitating. "I'm not going anywhere." He couldn't help but smile himself at the girl's show of strength. But the expression was painful to hold. He let it pass away as quickly as it came, and got up.

Moving over to the door, Atem slid back down to his knees and stared beyond the bars. Was it some trick of that dark fog's magic, some higher fate, or just a coincidence that Banoub had collapsed just close enough that Atem could reach out and search through the dead man's pockets? He didn't know, and there was no real point to mulling over it, or regretting what he had to do. He had faced far worse necessities before. So, after a somber moment of staring at the corpse lying face down in his own blood, Atem slid his arm and shoulder through the bars.

Banoub's first pocket offered nothing, already soaked through from the bleed out and staining Atem's hand in his search. The second was a stretch to reach, and when Atem managed to get his hand inside of it he found no stolen cards there. But he did feel some metal and worked to pull it out-

A sun. A bright sun of gold on a long chain being taken out of a chest of the same shining metal. The chest covered in symbols and words of a lost language. The chest being closed again with a lid. A lid with images upon it– Two Kuribohs, one winged, one wingless, between them the Eye of Wadjet–

Atem jerked, fell backwards until he hit the ground gasping for air like he had been drowning. The room was swimming, but just as he had left it– Had it just been a moment? A minute? An hour? He, time didn't feel right, even as he knew that he could not feel time.

But, as he slowly came back to himself and recognized the room about him, looked at what he had fished out of that pocket, he realized... Perhaps that was simply the effect, of being thrown into the future.

For he had taken something else from Banoub's pocket alongside the sought cell key. In his hand, he held the Millennium Tauk.

"...I..." Atem began, swallowed, and tried again, forcing himself up on an elbow with his eyes still dazedly locked on the familiar, unlooked for, but welcome necklace. "I just saw something. Something important. Maybe, something I'm supposed to look for?" He didn't remember ever seeing a pendant like that sun before, and yet the image of it burned in his mind like a hot coal, searing his brain with the certainty that it was his.

But as the Item's power faded away something else prickled in his mind, prompting him to spread his focus beyond the Tauk and realize… No one had answered him.

"Jeu?" Craning around, Atem's curiosity exploded into horror as he saw– She wasn't sitting up anymore. She was flat on the ground, her cards everywhere, her eyes shut, blood dripping freely down her face.

"–Jeu!"

Atem scrambled up, tripped across the room without ever fully standing, leaving the Tauk and key where he found them as he raced to reach the girl and gather her back up in his arms, lightly shaking her when she still didn't open her eyes. "Hey! Wake up! You can't just– Not now..." His yells devolved into nothing but dead pleads, bare whispers as he went still, and just stared at Jeu's slack face. Ice replaced his blood as a sudden, freezing, strangling question occurred to him.

The black candles... She had lost some of them. More than half of them. Did that mean... Was the cost of that, that... Even when they had won... Could she still die?

"I... I have the key," he choked out, beseeching her to answer even as he knew, even as his brain screamed that she could not hear him. "I'm getting you out of here– Just hold on! We'll get you-" But he couldn't support both of them, and the instant he tried to pull her up they both toppled over, sprawling across the stone. Everything went still, silent, both remaining where they fell. When Atem finally found the will to pry his face off of the ground his gaze fell on one of Jeu's fallen cards. It took one moment to recognize it, and he was lost- Too hurt to stop, too worn to care, too tired to question himself.

He clenched his eyes against the tears, but Draining Shield remained burned into his mind as he balled his hand into a fist and slammed it against the stone.

The ancient, broken dungeon echoed with the sound of its lost king's scream.