Chapter 45 - Tales of the Past

The duel continued, and Yami still couldn't force himself to attack Dartz' knights, while the man himself had activated the third level of the Seal, making his power even stronger. It was looking grim for Yami and Seto. Dartz attacked Seto's Different Dimension Dragon, threatening to completely destroy the rest of his life points, but Yami saved his partner by sacrificing his own monster to block the attack. Only thing was, that then left the Pharaoh wide open for an attack.

"Or more like four direct attacks," Dartz laughed. "From my mirror knights! Also known as Rose, Pegasus, Yugi and Joey!" He had a menacing smile on his face as he watched Yami's expression grow darker. "Strike down the Pharaoh my 4 knights!" As much as Rose, Yugi and Joey fought against the order, they couldn't stop themselves from being pulled forwards, forced to carry out their attack.

Yami braced himself as the four Knights ran towards him, their swords raised. Rose was the first to reach him, and as she lifted her sword to strike, he held up his duel disk in defence, and there was a loud clang as the sword collided with the device. Yami stared at Rose wide eyed, her entire body was showing hostility, all but her eyes. They were filled with so many thoughts, he could barely decipher it all. What surprised him most however, was what he heard next.

'I'm sorry.' The two words caught him off guard, as he had heard them in his head, but it was unmistakably Rose's voice. In his moment of distraction however, her sword was able to push back his arm and it slashed across him, reducing his life points. Although it did no physical damage, Yami flinched from the attack, as it drained his energy just like all his other duels. Before he could pull himself back together though, Rose was gone and soon Yugi was slashing at him with his sword also. Yami had no time to prepare himself for the next attack, and he could only flinch again at the sword slashing at him.

Once Joey had done the same, he lifted his head up to see Pegasus approaching, and he tried to defend himself once again by lifting his duel disk up, and when the sword collided with the device, he could hear Pegasus talking to him.

'Please tell me you have the card I gave you,' he begged. 'That card unlocks the secret of the legendary dragons.'

Darts became impatient and demanded Pegasus to attack him, so the knight slashed at Yami with his sword, before returning to his place beside Joey. Kaiba then managed to summon Critias, and merged his dragon with Yami's Mirror Force Trap card. He then attacked Mirror Knight Pegasus so that the attack would be reflected back, but Seto's dragon had a special effect. It was able to absorb the reflection and turn it around on all four of Dartz' mirror knights.

"No Kaiba!" Yami protested, his eyes wide as he stared at Seto's dragon. The man simply ignored him, and declared the attack on the knights. Yami went to step forwards in worry for his friends, but Kaiba held his arm out to stop him. The attack showered over the knights, and Yami called out, "Yugi! Are you alright?"

Yugi, Rose and Joey turned to him as the reflection showered over them, but they didn't look worried at all. 'We'll be fine' he heard Yugi say, before the four knights disappeared, having been destroyed by Kaiba's attack.

Rose groaned as she regained consciousness, feeling a bit more than disoriented. "Ow, my head," he muttered, sitting up as she opened her eyes. She blinked a few times, before realising she was in the exact place that she had been before, surrounded by scores of people in the vast empty space, all who had lost their souls. She then noticed that Yugi, Joey and Pegasus were lying around her, slowly regaining consciousness as she had just done.

"Are you guys alright?" she asked once they had sat up.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Yugi said, rubbing his head as he looked around, not being very surprised to find himself back here. Joey simply gave her a thumbs up and Pegasus stayed silent, lost in his thoughts as he looked around the room. Rose sighed, while it was good that Seto had defeated the four knights, she was still unsure of how the two men would hold up against the third layer of the Seal.

The three friends sat in a little circle, trying to talk about trivial things to keep their minds occupied, while Pegasus did his own thing off to the side, obviously not wanting to contribute to the conversation.

"Oh come on Joey," Rose argued lightly, "Valkyria is much hotter than the Dark Magician Girl, she's more...cute."

"Nah," Joey waved a dismissive hand at her as he grinned, "Valkyria looks too serious all the time," he said with a laugh. "Hey Yugi, which duel monster do you think is the hottest?" he turned his attention to his shorter friend, who was caught off guard by the question, having been lost in his thoughts.

"Oh, well, I guess-" he wasn't able to finish his sentence however, for they were alerted to the arrival of yet another soul. As Yugi, Joey and Rose had seen before, whenever a new soul arrived a bright beam of green light would descend from above them and hit the ground, and when the light faded, a person would be lying in its place. Who they saw lying only a few metres away however, caused them all to gasp in shock. The three ran over to the new addition of souls, and stared down at him with wide eyes. Everyone was finding it quite hard to believe, for they were hoping with all of their might that he wouldn't have lost to Dartz, but it appeared otherwise.

Rose was the first to speak, stepping forwards and kneeling next to him as she tried to wake the man up. "...Seto?" The group watched intently as she carefully nudged his shoulder, and the man groaned, finally showing some form of life. After a moment, Seto opened his eyes, feeling quite dazed and confused.

"What the-?" He blinked a few times, and saw Rose kneeling next to him, with Joey and Yugi standing just behind her, all of them with creases of worry on their faces. Even Joey, which was quite surprising. Seto pulled himself into a sitting position, "What's going on? Weren't you all-" He stopped his sentence when he realised Yugi was standing there. "What are you doing here?!" he pushed Rose aside and stood up to speak sternly to the boy, "You were meant to be duelling Dartz!" Yugi had made a startled noise when Seto had pushed Rose aside and advanced on him, now towering over him with a stern look on his face. It made the boy feel quite uncomfortable. "Now get back there and win!" he demanded. Rose stood behind Seto fuming, and everybody seemed to noticed except the man himself.

"Kaiba, you've lost your soul!" Yugi said, "The Pharaoh is still duelling Dartz, but now you're here with us." Seto looked around at the three of them, and then noticed Pegasus over Yugi's shoulder.

He scoffed, "That's right, all of you have supposedly 'lost your souls', but I'm not buying into your game of hide and seek," he sneered. "I'm leaving," he finally announced, turning on his heel and walking in the other direction

Rose rolled her eyes, "Could he be more difficult?" She then groaned and went after him, grabbing the man's arm after he'd only moved a couple of metres. He stopped but didn't turn to look at her. "Don't you get it Seto? You can't leave," she said. "Even if you don't believe all of this, you at least have to understand that were trapped here. Look around."

Seto finally lifted his head and scanned his eyes around the room. Wait, that was just the thing, there was no room. Being as tall as he was, he could see over everyone's head, and see that there were thousands of people filling the vast white space, almost never ending. He finally turned to look at her, but what he said wasn't quite what she expected.

"Last time I saw you, you were unconscious in the helicopter," he noted as he looked down at her.

Rose crossed her arms, challenging his stare, "And right now, you're unconscious in Dartz' lair."

Seto looked to the side, as if considering a thought, "So this is all a dream..." he decided, before turning back to her, "I can live with that."

Rose suppressed the urge to roll her eyes, "Fine, this is all just a big crazy dream, now come back so we can discuss what we're going to do in this dream." Seto must have odd dreams quite a lot, because he agreed with a shrug of his shoulders and followed Rose back to the group, who were sitting down, waiting expectantly.

"So?" Joey asked as they approached, "What's the go?"

Rose sat down with a sigh, "This is all just a big crazy dream," she said as Seto sat down next to her.

He regarded the group before him with lazy eyes, "It better be an interesting one," he muttered.

Yami stared wide eyed at his friends who were now lying unconscious on he floor. First Kaiba lost his soul, and now the rest of his friends were gone, this was almost too much to bear. It also reminded him of a painful memory from back when he duelled Noah in that virtual world. Eventually all of his friends had been turned to stone, and he was the only one left, just like now.

"Don't worry Pharaoh," Dartz said in usual calm manner, as Yami turned back to face him,"I need powerful souls for me vendetta, and your friends are of no use to me, I simply wanted to have some quality time with you," he chuckled as he finished his sentence, making Yami narrow his eyes. "You know we've met before," he continued, "During your reign as King of Egypt." Yami's eyes widened, but he didn't speak. "We may not have been officially introduced, but I was there watching you."

"Go on," Yami urged, slightly curious as to what Dartz had to say.

"When the battle of Atlantis was over I thought the great Laviathon was gone forever," Dartz explained, "That is, until I met you."

"Hold on just a second," Yami interrupted, "What does that foul creature of yours have to do with me?"

"I thought you'd never ask," Dartz mused, "Let's take a look, shall we?" Yami was confused, until the room around him swirled and disappeared, and he was suddenly standing over what looked to be ancient Egypt. "Behold," Dartz announced, looking down over the city, "The Palace of the Pharaoh in the year 3000 BC!"

Yami stared down at it with wide eyes, before they moved to stand just above the throne room of the palace, and a painfully familiar figure stood before a large monster, wearing the Millennium Puzzle around his neck. "Is that...really me?" Yami murmured, staring down at the King. He watched as the Pharaoh stood up to the beast by summoning the mighty Obelisk, and relinquishing the beast. The sheer power that the man below him radiated made Yami almost speechless. "Why are we watching this?" he finally asked.

Dartz looked at him with an amused smirk, "Because, it was on this very day that I first realised the great Laviathon would rise again. And it's all because of you...and a particular friend of yours."

"What do you mean?" Yami asked.

Dartz' eyes were shining with amusement at Yami's reactions to these visions, so he continued. "Just watch," he cast his eyes downwards as the scene changed. They were now standing just outside the palace, and the sky was dark. Suddenly, something burst from the palace gates, a great hideous monster, even bigger than the one from before. Yami watched on as another figure followed, his cape flowing behind him as he chased after the beast on a horse, with Slifer following from the skies, obeying the Pharaoh's orders to pursue the evil creature. "But wait," Dartz said, "There's more." Yami was confused as to what the man meant, but soon another figure on horseback emerged from the palace gates, though this one appeared strikingly feminine. Before he could get a good look at the person though, the scene was gone.

"Wait!" Yami said, still looking below him which was now simply darkness. "Was that-?"

He was cut off by Dartz however, "See, when you passed me while chasing that beast, I sensed your life energy immediately, and I knew it was exactly what I needed. Yours alone however would not accomplish this task though, and lucky for me yours wasn't the only powerful soul I encountered on that day."

"What do you mean?" Yami demanded.

"You should know who I'm talking about Pharaoh," Dartz smirked, "There was a certain girl that I came across during your reign in Egypt, one that I'm sure you know quite well."

Yami tried to think back to the vision he had just witnessed, trying to think about the figure following after him, whether it really was a woman or not. "You mean...?"

Dartz continued, "A girl who held a millennium item on her chest, and managed to escape the brink of death within a matter of minutes," he explained, knowing that he would get an interesting reaction out of the Pharaoh. "One who I've already conveniently captured the soul of," he smirked.

Yami barely heard the last of his sentence, as his eyes widened, "death?!"

"Yes, your dear friend Rose had quite the spirit back in her day," he laughed then, "Of course you don't even remember what she was to you!" He couldn't contain his laughter by this point, pulling the Pharaoh's strings was much too entertaining for him.

Yami growled, "That's enough!" He was staring at Dartz intensely now, his eyes narrowed into slits. "Tell me, how did I know Rose? What was my connection to her?"

Dartz laughed at him, "You really think I'm going to tell you that? There's much more amusing things to tell you, like how you single handedly brought back the shadow games, and nearly wiped out your whole kingdom!"

"That's a lie!" Yami retorted, raising his voice as he stared down the man before him.

"I saw it with my own eyes," Dartz continued, "The way you conjured up creatures of darkness and used them to do your bidding. You are evil, Pharaoh, and there's no denying it!" Yami could do nothing but glare at the man as the continued, "And soon your soul will be given to the great Laviathon, and I'll be able to complete the task that I started centuries ago!"

No, Yami thought, I was a good and just Pharaoh...wasn't I?

Hey guys! Sorry it took me so long to get this done, Uni has been pretty hectic lately, and in the next 4 weeks, I have 5 assessment pieces due -.- ugh, that's not going to be fun. But anyway...

I have some good news! While this story won't be finished for a long, long time, I have come up with an idea for a sort of side story to this one. It's like Capsule Monsters, where the storyline isn't relevant to the main story, and there isn't a specific point in time where it all happens, but you still understand it...if that makes sense.

Anyway, this side story is simply another adventure that Rose and the gang go on, it probably takes place somwehere between battle city and the orichalcos stuff, so yeah.

Also, on my profile I've put up all the story ideas I have that I'm going to write when I've finished my current stories (Back and Forth and Crimson Eyed Shadow will probably be the first ones to get done) and I've put the side story up there, too. There's a name and a bit of a description so if you're interested, go and have a look, and tell me what you think!

Anyway, I've babbled on enough, hope you liked the chapter!

PharaohsThrone :)