When Sirius saw Snape, he fully considered hexing him on principle. However the fact Yugi wasn't shying away from him like he did most Death Eaters, and that Mokuba actually looked worried for him stayed his hand.
Mokuba empathy ability told him when people were genuinely bad or not in an instant. The fact he wasn't giving Snape the evil eye or doing anything meant the man wasn't as Dark as Sirius always believed.
Once Snape sat down and got his bearings back, the door opened to reveal a surprised Draco, Greg and Vincent.
"I don't believe it. I thought you were dead!" said Draco in shock.
Snape could understand why. Most of the Inner Circle had been taken early on. The fact it had taken months for him to be snatched was surprising, though it gave him time to prepare for it.
Once he learned about the fact that no one was being forced to returned to England (Seto Kaiba had offered him a job and a fully paid scholarship for him to learn advanced chemistry when he learned how good Snape was at Potions) Snape agreed to have his Dark Mark removed and was granted sanctuary...after he broke Sirius' nose, gave him a pair of black eyes and a broken arm. Bakura had been impressed, because Snape had done it all without the use of his wand.
"Oh no!"
"What's wrong Midget?" said Bakura.
"I sent my paper on Egyptian History to the Language professor by mistake! And I have an essay due today!" said Yugi.
"I'm sure he'll figure it out," said Seth not looking up from his new manga.
He was absolutely addicted to One Piece, if for no other reason than the Pirates of the Carribean movie he watched last week got him hooked on the Pirate genre.
Yugi was having a panic attack until a few minutes later an E-mail came from his Language professor.
"Dear Mr. Muto,
Rest assured I have forwarded your paper to the correct teacher, and I still expect your essay tomorrow at the latest. However, if you want some more time, you can do an extra credit for class. To make it easier for you, you can write a ballad about Ancient Egyptian History...but make it factual please."
Yugi breathed a sigh of relief. He still had to finish the book the professor assigned, and he had barely started.
He wrote back that he would do the extra credit, and then worried how he was going to write a ballad.
"By the way Yugi, did you know that the college you now attend online happens to be magical in origin?" said Seth.
And like that, the proverbial light bulb came on. He could write about how the Millenium Items came to be!
His eyes fell on the movie Seth had watched last week, and he remembered the song they sang in the first part. A slow grin came to his face as he figured out how to go about this.
Bakura, Seth and Marik all read the ballad Yugi wrote about the Millenium Items. It was more or less accurate, and once he gave them the tune to go with it they could see how he came to this.
"Ballad of the Millenium Items," said Seth.
"The King and his men
Saw a means to an end
And through blood and soul
Paid the heathen god of old
To claim the Shadows as their own
The Kingdom saved
The price is paid
And vengeance is foretold
By Shadow's call, two brothers are bound
To retake what was stole
By Goddess's grace, a child was saved
And eternal glory was granted
The God of Kings, never once claimed
Was given a mortal soul
The King of Thieves, by honor bound
Would reclaim the stolen souls
The Prince of the Land, in bloodstained sand
Bound the Shadows to his will
The Prince of Thieves, child of another land
Returned to his time, yet Fate's hand on his future
Forever marked his soul
Seven Items, created by death and shadow
By blood they are one, and by blood undone
The Shadows shall reclaim the throne."
Bakura read over the ballad.
"Not bad runt. Maybe a little rough, but still pretty good."
"Think the teacher would like it?"
"Considering it's the only one that gives a rough description of why the Items exist, he should. Want some help tightening it up a bit?"
"Yes please!"
Yugi's language professor was so pleased with the ballad that he agreed to overlook the homework Yugi had needed an extension on.
What Yugi had been unaware of was that it was a way of adding to the history of magical Egypt, and that he had passed an unspoken test. He found himself with new teachers and more interactive classes.
Yugi even brought Yami to his new classes, though he later felt it was a mistake.
Not because Yami had acted like a complete ass (which he did) but because the people there had been so fascinated that they poked and prodded him and treated him like a specimen to be examined.
Yugi's only consolation for that time was that he had gotten quite a few friends after it, who felt sorry he had to deal with such a blowhard living in his head thanks to a cursed artifact.
Of course that was nothing compared to what happened a week after that incident.
It seemed Seth's unspoken threat had gotten through to the English, because there was a sudden influx of people from Europe, many surprised anyone had brought them home.
There were also a few crying children, clearly too young to attend most magical schools and missing their parents. Within a few days of the news, a man with tribal markings came to return them home.
His name was Ardeth, the leader of the Medjai clan which most of the newcomers belonged to.
Yugi recognized the name in a heartbeat, because he had seen some of the conversations Seth had with the man. While he worked out a way to get the groups back to their location in the desert, Yugi tentatively approached him.
Ardeth didn't need an introduction, as Seth had mentioned the boy to him a few times. Seeing as how Yugi was quite interested in the history of the clan (and wouldn't press matters if told why) Ardeth agreed to let him come visit sometime during summer vacation as long as Seth came with him as a guide.
Oh, and he left the Pharaoh back home, since Ardeth had no desire to meet a man Seth had spoken of so vehemently.
Hearing the way Yami acted when Yugi brought him to meet his professors only cemented this opinion.
Yugi crashed on Seth's couch with a groan, and to the surprise of all who knew the boy accepted the beer Bakura handed him without thinking twice.
That usually only meant one thing.
The Pharaoh had driven him to drink and made his week hell.
It was a good thing for Yugi that they liked him well enough not to get him plastered and leave him out to dry.
They had done that quite a few times with the Pharaoh and Malik, and the results had been funny as hell. Yami was still trying to get the blackmail photos that Kaiba had so thoughtfully posted on a site that his fans had frequented. Mokuba had laughed his ass off when he heard about it.
What really worried Yugi was that the number of fans after Yami's pants had doubled afterwords.
In short, Yugi fully blamed Yami for most of his headaches. About the only good thing out of dealing with the Pharaoh was that he would soon be rid of the man one way or another.
And as it so happened, Seth had told the boy that once the hangover was gone he might be ready to deal with Yami once and for all.
Once he got his deck assembled anyway. A few cards had yet to come in, and as far as Yugi was aware, Yami had no clue that he had made another deck, specifically to deal with his darker half.
In the event that removing Yami would kill Yugi (he is the Hikari after all) Seth was more than happy to become the boy's Yami in Atem's stead. If it meant being rid of the Pharaoh, well, that would make his day even better.
At the very least after the Ceremonial Duel he wouldn't have to deal with the non-aggression pact made with Shaadi.
Yugi didn't care that he was underage, considering the fact he had to deal with Yami all bloody day and no amount of pain relievers would help (his friends had been utterly unsympathetic, seeing as how they were part of the Pharaoh's fan club, particularly Anzu) he had decided to hell with it all and went straight to Seth's house.
Mostly because he knew for a fact they had alcohol and didn't give a shit about underage drinking laws.
Old enough to kill and other fun things, old enough to drink until your liver died on you.
"What did he do this time?" asked Ryou with all the attentiveness one would give a train wreck in action.
Watching Yugi turn into a Mini-Bakura/Seth had that effect on people.
Or, as Bakura had so eloquently put it, watching the chibi get a God's-be-damned backbone without the blowhard ruining it.
The irony was that Solomon Muto liked Seth and Bakura more than he did his grandson's dark half. The main reason being that the brothers didn't rely on magic for everything...if they didn't like you, they would knife you end of story.
Hell, Solomon liked Kaiba more than he did Yami, and the ornery teen had put him in the hospital once!
Seth was counting down the days. Yugi had set a date for the Ceremonial duel and according to Seth, he had to wear the Puzzle one last time for the bodies to separate. Yami would get his own body of course, but he still had to wear the puzzle.
Yami had been less than pleased to discover Yugi was ditching him and his group to hang out with Bakura and learn from the man instead of him.
The irony that the Prince of Shadows preferred the company of the Prince of Thieves was not lost on Seth.
Yugi was on the couch, beating Bakura at a particularly violent video game which involved a lot of fake blood and digital graphics. The fact Yugi didn't even bat an eye at the sight of entrails, blood and other unspeakable matter just made Bakura's day.
The fact said midget was kicking his ass, less so.
A stray thought came to Seth's mind, and for some reason refused to go away.
So he voiced it aloud.
"Just out of curiosity, what do you guys plan to do once the Items are finally sealed and the souls released?" said Seth, turning another page in his book.
Yugi didn't look up from his game, but Marik looked up from the laptop he had swiped from Seth.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean what are we going to do once the Items are gone for good and the Shadows are unsealed? I mean we can access the Shadows anytime we want so long as we know the Pharaoh's true name, but what are we going to do once the Items are gone? I don't know about you, but I really don't want to be in this dimension when the Gods finally get pissed off at the magicals and set the plague off on them that will remove their magic and forced them to change."
Yugi finally paused the game and looked at Seth in surprise.
"You can dimension hop?"
"One of the perks of being a Chosen is that you can jump worlds in order to 'spread the word' about whatever gods you serve. Or in this case avoid boredom."
"Where would you go?" asked Yugi.
All he had to really look forward to once Yami was removed was that summer with the Medjai.
Seth smirked and held up the book he was reading.
"One Piece?"
"While being King of the Pirates doesn't really appeal to me, being a pirate sailing a sea we have never been to before does."
"And it's almost identical to what we do anyway, only we'll be on the water mostly," said Bakura knowingly.
"Plus, while the English dubbed sucked ass, the original Japanese was actually quite decent," said Marik from the computer.
"Not to mention we've read quite a bit so we would know what was about to happen."
"And I want to try the Baratie! I mean they have fighting cooks, what's not to love about that!" said Seth with glee.
"Question," said Yugi.
"What?"
"Would the dumbass be able to follow us, and can we return at any time?"
"No to the first, yes to the second, though there would be a recharge period after each jump. Why, you want in?"
"I wouldn't have to deal with Duel fanatics, the Pharaoh or Anzu. What the hell do you think?" said Yugi flatly.
The others winced.
"You do realize that killing is pretty common, right?" said Ryou.
"I don't care. I've seen so many lose their lives during Shadow Games that it doesn't really affect me like it used to. At the very least I would be making a choice on my own without his royal annoyance trying to influence it."
Bakura and Marik snorted in agreement.
"When did you set the duel?"
"In two months. Gives me time to test out my deck and get the card in the mail."
"By the way, did you ever solve who the Red Dark Magician was?"
Seth cursed. It had completely slipped his mind dealing with Snape.
He quickly bookmarked his manga and vanished for three hours.
When he got back he had the oddest look on his face.
"You aren't going to believe this. The Red Magician is Ba-Ku-Ra before the Realm was sealed. Apparently some of his magic was sealed in Mahado before he became the Dark Magician and it resulted in split sorcerers. I'm guessing the rest of your memory went into him," said Seth in disbelief.
Bakura paused in devouring his steak.
"You have got to be fucking joking. My missing memory is in a secondary Dark Magician?!"
Yugi brought out the card and compared the two. Much to his horror, there was in fact a resemblance. The only reason Seth could think of that kept Bakura from picking up on the fact was the lack of scar under his eye.
Bakura was less than pleased to learn the missing portion of his soul was in the Pharaoh's Ka beast, even if it was a variant.
However, Seth had another suspicion.
"Yugi, before you go into the Ceremonial Duel, I want you to learn how to summon your Ka beast."
"Why should the midget learn that? It's obvious that he'll end up with something like Kuriboh," snorted Marik.
"Maybe, but I think not. We all know that while split souls are similar they can produce different beasts. It may be possible that Yugi will summon the Red Magician instead of the Original."
"Which would make him slightly weaker or as strong as the Pharaoh himself," said Bakura.
"And that would give him the advantage of surprise he would need," said Seth.
Bakura looked Yugi dead in the eye.
"You're going to learn Shadow Magic. Not that child's stuff the Pharaoh would have you learn, but the real kind."
"The Puzzle gave him access, he just needs control and power," said Marik.
And with that, Bakura upped the runt's training. It would be a rough two months.
If you want the tune to hum that ballad to, look up the opening song that the prisoners sing in Pirates of the Carribean: At World's End.