Author's Note:

Hi guys! This one took a while for many reasons, but I suppose what it boils down to for you is an even more ridiculous wait than usual. A note about the content of this chapter-a part of it deals with carnivals. I was unable to find a great deal of details about what Japanese carnivals are like, so it's based off of my background of American carnivals (which I rarely go to anyway). Just so you know, the song referenced in the shop is a real song called Give Me Love by Hey! Say! Jump! Also, please forgive my reference to the wrong ancient culture's mythology in the title. I couldn't think of a better description for Yugi's situation than that of Atlas, so it seemed fitting.

I'm extremely grateful to you guys for all of your support and for putting up with my rambling author's notes, long updates, and experiments in writing for 25 chapters!

Thanks,

TheEagerScribbler

Summary:

Yugi and the others have endured a kidnapping, a battle, and three shadow/penalty games, and the loss of one of their own. For now they must heal and desperately grasp for any advantage that they can get their hands on as they try to come up with a strategy and timing for their final confrontation. Everyone is exhausted is struggling to cope with what they have experienced, but Yugi is taking it especially hard. He has begun to see shadows but has no idea what is causing this phenomenon. Is Bakura behind it or is it all in his head?

Atlas

"I'm gonna try to knock em' down. I really need one of these babies for my deck!" Joey pointed at pins at the back of the booth directly in front of them. The Prize was some card that Yugi couldn't see from where he was standing.

"Not if I win it first!" Tristan smirked.

"Hey, shut your pie hole. You don't even duel in competitions!"

"Who says that I need it for that?"

"No carnival prize is as sweet as victory!" They had decided to go to the carnival, which they usually enjoyed, but this time they had forgotten why they usually didn't go with Joey and Tristan. The two seemed to feed off the carnival atmosphere, and like little boys they had to constantly one-up each other. It was stressful.

Yugi and Tea watched them with amusement tinged with a hint of embarrassment. He had always liked the games, bright lights, and the sugary sweet smell in the air but he could do without their arguing. Sometimes Yugi and Tea felt like they were their parents instead of Akari' rolled her eyes at them and stood up. "As fun as it is watching those two make fools of themselves I want to go get some cotton candy. Do you want to come with me or should I just bring you back a blue one?"

He took one last look at his friends, who had been so distracted by their argument that they forgot about the game. "Sure, I don't mind going with you." They weaved around people as they walked hand in hand in hand in order to find the cotton candy stand. As they walked they found themselves waving at many old friends and neighbors. After not being able to relax in his own home here, surrounded by friends and acquaintances smiling and giggling as they miss easy targets and crack jokes he finally felt at home. There were no shadows here, not the weird kind that he had been seeing.

The vender selling cotton candy turned out to a regular at the shop. "Hi Yugi! Hi Tea! You want the usual, right?"

"Thanks Luke. How's that new strategy working out for you?" Yugi asked conversationally.

Judging from the grimace on his frequent customer's face it was not going well. "It's...going I guess. I think I have more work to do considering that I didn't score well in the last tournament."

"You're a good duelist. You can't have done that bad!" Tea protested.

His shoulders sagged. "I made 49."

"That's not so bad. Considering that there's usually so many competitors that's a solid score, and I know that you can raise it from there!"

"It was a neighborhood thing, so there were only 50 of us," he said miserably. At first he opened his mouth to offer to stop by his house, but he didn't want to put him in extra danger, so quickly decided to instead ask, "Why don't you send me your deck list? Maybe we can think up some strategies together."

"Thanks, but I need to figure this out on my own. Knowing the King of Games would be an unfair advantage."

Yugi nodded. He could respect that. "Ok. Well, you know where my shop is if you change your mind."

Together they walked around for a while just enjoying the atmosphere. Akari seemed to be enjoying herself too. The girl was competitive and loved carnival games. When she spotted them she waved and then ran up to them. "Look at what I won!" It was an enormous stuffed Kuriboh."

"Wow. You must have gotten to high scores to have won that thing!" Tea remarked.

"It was so unfair. The guy knew that I'm your daughter and doubled the rounds that I needed to win for each prize. It's not like you were the one playing," she huffed, "It's not like you can inherit a skill. If I were any other person's kid I would have won it in half the time!"

"At least you've managed to win it now. That's what important. Come on, let's go see if they have a ferris wheel. We can do that! I have a feeling that you've already managed to hit up most of the other stalls."

"Is there anything else?"

If she was anything like he was at that age she had probably already made the rounds and was about ready to make them a second time. "Well, you could always go on the tunnel of love with your old dad." He put an arm around her and drew her closer. "But, something tells me that you'd rather go with your mom on the Ferris wheel or get an ice-cream cone."

"Let's go mom, before dad gets all sentimental on me again!" She started dragging tea towards the ride, leaving Yugi alone with the food that his wife had bought.

Before he realized it Joey, Tristan, and Mai were at his side. "There you are Yugi. We've been looking everywhere for you since I've gotten here!"

"Mai! When did you get here?"

"I managed to convince Ren to come in about 45 minutes early in exchange for covering 45 minutes of a shift the next time that she asks me. Since I'm the boss I didn't have a problem with that," she shrugged. "Now I was thinking that all of us need to do something together once we find that wife of yours. Where is Tea anyway. We need someone else to help keep you boys in line!"

"She's with Akari on the ferris wheel. She should be done sometime soon. What did you have in mind?"

"Well-"

"Hi Dad! Can I go with Rachel to the new exhibition at the Black Crown? Invitation is by word of mouth only. Apparently, they're giving a sneak peak of the revamped Dungeon Dice Monsters game. There's going to be demonstrations and a competition and everything!" He and Duke had a friendly rivalry as owners of competing shops, so it was unsurprising that he hadn't told Yugi.

"Sure, just keep your phone with you at all time, stay in direct life, and if anything, bad should happen tell Duke. We've been trying not to involve more people in all of this, but has been through some of this before. He was there during the Battle City Finals. He'll believe you."

"Thanks! I'll be careful. I promise!" She threw her arms around him in her excitement. "I promise that I'll have my phone on at all time and that stuff!"

"Now that the kiddies are gone, how about we do something with just the five of us. It's been a while since we've been able to do anything fun."

"Let's go for some noodles!" Joey exclaimed.

"You boys always think with your stomach. Isn't there anything that you'd like to do besides eat?"

Mai had a point. Eating would only take up so much time. Doing something else couldn't hurt. "How about we just take a walk on the pier? We could all use some fresh air and exercise."

Tristan opened his mouth hesitantly before asking, "What about Bakura?"

"No matter what we do there's a chance that he'll confront us. At least this way we're making ourselves stronger by taking breaks. Throwing yourself into a task at 100% all of the time gets to you after a while."

"Lead the way then Yug, since this is your idea."

"Sure!"

Yugi was beginning to wonder if this was a bad idea. Yugi tried not to react as he spotted a shadowy blur out of the corner of his eye. A quick glance told him that there were no shadows in the room. Instead of his growing anxiety he tried to focus on conversation that his friends were having as they walked.

"Didn't there used to be something else there?" Tristan pointed at a store selling cell phones.

Joey stared contemplatively. "I think this was a video rental place back in the day. They had videos and cassette tapes."

"Now that I think about it that's a weird place for a video rental store. No wonder they went out of business!"

Yugi took a bite of his cotton candy. "If I remember right the guy who ran the star said that someone needed to be there for the people still holding on to their VCRs, and because of that he waited too long to carry DVDs. By the time he started selling he couldn't keep up with the market. There were already too many places to buy them."

"I'm impressed Yugi. Is there anyone in Domino that you don't know?"

He merely shrugged. In a business like his most people stopped by every now. Domino was still the Duel Monsters capital of the world and everyone knew at a least one kid. His shop was known for card games and role playing games, but he also sold traditional board games too. Nearly everyone made their way to him eventually.

"Sorry, that was a stupid question. Of course you'd know everyone. You're the most friendly one of us all and you're just so sweet and eager to please. You're like a puppy, even now that you're all grown up," Mai teased.

Over the years he had grown used to her teasing remarks and shrugged off. "What does that make Joey?"

"I don't know. A mutt?" Tristan looked at Mai for confirmation.

"I'd say he's a pitbull. He can look scary, but underneath the rough exterior he's a big sweetie." She gave him a playful peck on the lips.

"That sounds right to me. Did you know that Joey was bully in school before he and Yugi became friends? He put on this whole tough guy act but his bark was mostly worse than his bite."

"I grew out outta that!"

"It's true that you've grown out of the bullying, but you still act all tough." Yugi pointed out.

"What do ya mean that's an act? I'm tough as nails!"

Mai snorted in a rather unlady like way. "This is coming from the man who cried while watching the Titanic with me?"

"It was a beautiful movie!"

Tristan stopped in front of shop advertising a new card set. "Guys! Let's go check out the card shop. I wanna see if they have any good good warrior cards. Sorry Yugi, but sometimes they have different cards."

"No offense taken," Yugi shrugged. Sometimes that's just how things were-a lot of good cards were obtained through people selling old cards, so what you get depends on who walks into your store.

They browsed the counter for good cards. "Good afternoon Mister Wheeler. Is there anything that I can help you with?"

"Nah, I'm just lookin', although…" He scanned the counter, "Do ya happen to have a Gilford the Legend?"

"Not up front I'm afraid, but I can always check the back. I know that I got two in recently, but you're not the first person to request that card." The man left them all alone with the only other customer besides them.

It was a young looking man with the barest hint of a beard on his chin. He was mouthing along to Give me love, which was playing softly in the background. Suddenly he froze and stared at Joey. "M-M-M-Mr. Wheeler. Wow, what are you doing here with…" His eyes widened as he registered who the others in the shop were. "Wow! I can't believe you're here instead of Turtle Game Shop. That thing you did with Time Wizard was just wow! I never knew that card could still be relevant! Can I please have your autograph?" He patted his pockets and found a pen but no paper. "Can you sign my forehead?" Yugi could hardly hide his grin. Joey wasn't as recognized as him or Seto, but he longed for that recognition. To be asked to sign a man's face would make his week.

Joey grinned smugly. "Sure. Who should I make it out to?"

"Just Mori would be just fine."

"Sure thing." Joey quickly signed his name on the man's forehead and took a picture with him before Mori ran away.

"See that? People still know who the champ is around here...besides you Yugi. There's no beatin' the King of Games!"

"Sure there is. I've lost before, and one of those times was to you, Joey."

"When was that?" Mai asked. "Surely we'd all know about it Joey Wheeler beat the King of Games. He'd never stop talking about it."

"It wasn't you that I dueled, it was the Pharaoh. It doesn't count. The Pharaoh was the one who lost both of those duels. That's how you wound up in the belly of the beast."

"That Pharaoh and I were a team!" He protested. "We made decisions together."

"Still don't count." Joey insisted.

Yugi sighed. Joey really wasn't going let this go. "Fine. You can't deny that I lost that duel to Jaden Yuki fare and square."

"I'm not entirely convinced that you didn't just let him win because he was a kid," Joey huffed.

"He was no older than Yugi was when he defeated the creator at his own game." Tea pointed out.

Joey rolled his eyes. "Even if you did lose, and I'm not say'in you did, then that would make you number two and me number three."

Tristan grinned evilly. "Actually that would push you even farther back. That would make Kaiba number 3. "

Joey was shooting death rays at his long time friend with the intensity of his glare. "Cheer up Joey, you're still in the top 100. You've come a long way from the guy who needed luck to win all of his duels for him."

"Why I oughtta-"

"Come on Joey, I think we've done enough window shopping. If looking at Duel Monsters Cards is enough to rile you up then we're going to find something else to do." Joey and Mai hauled Joey and the others followed.

"Wait, you forgot your card!" The owner shouted behind them.

"Fine, what else can we do?"

"I've got an idea." Joey exclaimed.

Twenty minutes later they were sipping comfortably sipping milkshakes for their usual booth. "Do you know what this needs?" Tristan asked, stirring his straw around his milkshake glass. "Liquer. I could really use a buzz right now."

Tea made a face. "That's disgusting! Who does that?"

He shrugged. "I have this work buddy who introduces me to all sorts of weird stuff. It's actually not too bad."

"I was just thinking, why do all of our get togethers involve food?" Tristan asked, slurping his vanilla milkshake loudly. "When did we all become such boring adults? Sure, I sometimes still go to the arcades and get drinks with some work buddies, but when was the last time you went to the carnival, or went ice skating, or did something that was not related to work or a duel monsters promotions or Akari? I love doing stuff with the kid, but it's just not the same."

Tea rolled her eyes. "Tristan, do you realize that almost all of our get togethers have always involved food? We've been going to this place since it opened when we were in high school. The only difference is that now I have to watch my figure and we have another female here."

"Tea has a point. If you think about it, our friendship was cemented by food."

"You'll have to remind me Yugi, there's been a lot of food in our lives since then." Joey snagged his wife's milkshake and took a sip out of it. "Yum. I love chocolate."

Mai snatched it away. "Then get your own!"

"Fine." He signaled for the waitress to come and ordered a chocolate milkshake.

"Burgerworld. I'm talking about Burger world." Yugi clarified. He turned to Mai. "Tea worked there while we were in school, even though it was against school rules. We just wanted burgers but Tea saw us and…" he glanced at his wife, "Wasn't happy."

"Didn't you throw our food at us or something?" Joey narrowed his eyes as he tried to remember.

"That was also the first time that I noticed Yugi acting differently since putting together the puzzle." She chimed in. Everyone involved tried to avoid mentioning the reason why Yugi acted differently. "I didn't work there long, but it was memorable." Yugi's memories of that night were fuzzy at best, but he remembered Tea being taken hostage by an escaped convict. He had never seen that look of wide eyed terror since. She was horrified and grief stricken when her daughter was taken, but that incident at Burger World was a lifetime ago, one in which she had been just an untried, scared girl and Yugi was just a boy with an ancient artifact and three fledgling friendships.

"That was when you really opened up to us and told us about yourself."

"I don't know about you Tea, but I refuse to get old, and all of this reminiscing is making me feel wrinkly already."

A boy trying to squeeze between tables accidentally tripped over Mai's foot and spilled his milkshake all over Mai. "Watch it Grandma!"

"Why don't you watch it!" Yugi hissed at the boys. "Go home before I call your mother. I know where you live." He was Luke, one of the neighborhood friends. How easy would it be teach that boy a lesson? He could feel his muscles tensing up to reach for his puzzle. The boy was clearly vain, so he would fail the test. His punishment was that he, and only he would, we see himself as old. The waves of fury kept crashing against his chest with every beat of his heart, but he would control them. The punishment wouldn't hurt the boy, so there was really nothing wrong with it! It would be fine. A hand touched his arm, anchoring him to reality, reminding him that he was about to lose his calm.

To Yugi's surprise, it was Mai, not his wife that touched his arm. "Yugi, stand down. It's fine, he's just a kid. Everyone over the age of twenty looks ancient to him. He didn't mean anything by it."

"Go." He growled through grit teeth. The boys ran off. When they were gone Yugi let himself unclench his teeth. He was sweating from the exertion of restraining himself.

"Yugi, you okay man?" Tristan asked, eyeing him carefully.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I just think it's sleep deprivation. I haven't been sleeping well lately."

"Why don't we go home and get some rest?" Tea reached into her purse and put enough money to pay for both her and Yugi and the table. She took her husband's arm. "Let's go. If we hurry we might beat Akari home and get some peace and quiet!"

As Yugi came down from whatever it was that possessed him he began to feel increasingly guilty for ruining their evening. They had deserved a night free from all of the trouble that he had brought into their lives. They deserved better than all of this, and it was making him so angry! He couldn't help them, and deep down he thought that should something terrible happen, and he wasn't naive enough to think that something wouldn't happen, he was beginning to doubt that he could save them. He was the one who had unlocked the shadow games, he was the one who failed to stop Bakura, and he was the one who got them involved in the battle between him and Bakura. If he didn't know them they would have been far safer.

"I'm sorry," Yugi whispered.

"It's not your fault. You've had too much on your plate. You've always taken too much on yourself and now it's catching up with you. You were never alone in this, but somehow you seem to feel like it your sole responsibility to stop Bakura."

Yugi stared at her. How had she known what he was thinking? She must have read his face because she rolled her eyes. "I've known you since you were in high school and I'm your wife. I know you well enough to guess what you've been thinking. Even then you always tried to spare others pain, even when you knew that you couldn't defend yourself. Now let's go in, it's starting to get chilly," How odd, he hadn't even realized that they had walked all of the way to his house.

They had both just settled on the couch, cuddled up against each other under a blanket watching some movie when Yugi's phone buzzed with a text from Akari. Asking if she could stay over for the night. It had gotten dark and she didn't want to travel alone.

The two looked at eachother for a moment, unsure of what to do. "I don't like the idea of her not being here for the night,"

"Wouldn't traveling put her in even more danger? It's going to get dark soon, and there will be no shortage of shadows. She might be safer away from us. He won't know where she is, and if she's not here she won't get caught in the crossfire if anything should happen."

In the end they decided to let her stay there, but the decision had consequences for him and Tea. They spent the whole night worrying. Tea squeezed him tighter. "What if she has a nightmare?"

"Then she'll call us."

"What if she's attacked?" Honestly, Yugi worried about that too. She had no real means of defending herself, and she had already been kidnapped.

"She'll challenge him to a duel, and when she wins he'll be bound by his own shadow magic to let her go. But I that's not going to happen, not tonight." He still worried, but if he mentioned his worries it would only give her ideas and make her fears seem more real. She didn't need to know that he pictured her lying on the ground like Aiko after she lost the shadow game, with her limbs sprawled out and the same look of terror on her face. Who knows what that poor girl had gone through? He thanked whatever gods existed that his own daughter did not have to experience whatever Aiko did, and prayed that she never would. "I'm not sure how I know this, but I can just feel that he's planning something."

"Is this a puzzle thing?" She wondered.

"No, it's a strategy thing. No matter how friendly he is with the shadows his host body is only human, and it will need time to rest after large displays of magic. He'll also need time to plan. Bakura isn't just picking us off based on luck. He has a strategy for all of us. These shadow games are tailored to each one of us-there's no way that's no accident."

Once again Yugi saw a shadow out of the corner of his eye. Tea noticed. "You're doing it again."

"Doing what?" Yugi asked.

"That thing that you do where you stare straight in front of you, like you're trying to ignore something." She studied his face carefully. "Are you seeing them again?"

Suddenly Yugi squashed an irrational urge to snap at her. He had to be honest with her, but the way she said it sounded like an accusation even though he knew that she didn't mean it like that. "Yeah, I am. I'm just tired. I think I see them more when I'm stressed," which was all of the time, but he didn't say that.

"I'm going to be okay. Everything's going to be okay." At that moment he wasn't sure who he was trying to convince, himself or Tea.

"You should talk to the Pharaoh about this. Maybe he'll have an idea of what's happening."

"How am I supposed to do that? It's not like I have a direct line to the afterlife!" He regretted the words the moment they left his mouth. "I'm sorry. I really didn't mean it like that. It's just that it's frustrating-things would be much more simple if The Pharaoh was here. He understood the intricacies of shadow magic far better than I ever could."

She lightly kissed his cheek. "I know. Here's what we're going to do. I'm going to take a bath, then you're going to take a bath, and we are going to try to relax and act like normal parents whose child decide to have a sleep over."

"What do they do?"

"I don't know, that's a good question. I suppose we'll just have to figure it out like everything else. Maybe we should play a game after dinner."

"How about Duelists Unleashed?" It was the new game released by Kaiba Corporation that he had been meaning to play.

"No way! We're playing Dance Dance Revolution. Do you think that I'm stupid enough to challenge the King of Games?"

"I would have let you win a few rounds!" She was his wife after all, he didn't mind losing a few rounds to her if it made her happy.

"If I win I want it to be on my own merits."

"That's not fair. You'll have the advantage there!"

"Exactly! This time you'll get to see what it's like for the rest of us to play you at something." She patted his arm. "It'll be an educational experience. When was the last time that you lost at anything without purposely trying to lose?" He would sometimes purposefully lose to Akari when he was tryig to teach her how to play Duel Monsters, especially when she was very small. Seto called it coddling, he called it remembering that small children couldn't be expected to as emotionally mature as older children and adults.

"You're on!"

Tea went to cooking dinner and she refused to let him set foot in the kitchen. "You should be resting. Go sit on the couch and put something on!" Another shadow flitted across his vision.

Yugi turned his eyes towards the puzzle. "I really hope that you've got some answers, because I've got none."

He got no answer, not that he had expected anything. Still, he found the familiar weight comforting." He may have gone years without it, but wearing it around his neck felt like the most natural thing in the world. Did the others feel this way about their items? Pegasus seemed pretty comfortable with his eye, and Ishizu didn't seem to mind her necklace, but did that mean that they felt the same sense of completion with their items that he felt?

Yugi traced the hieroglyphs on the puzzle and found himself being lulled into a relaxed state by the homey, spicy scent of curry and comforting familiarity with which he traced each line.

"Difficult day?" The Pharaoh perched next to Yugi on a crate on what Yugi supposed was his high school's rooftop, judging from the view. He recognized the row of familiar shops that he used to pass every day on his way to class. He couldn't view their signs, and many of of them had been gone for years, but he could still distinguish the old convenience store from the electronics store.

"Not exactly." The pharaoh quirked an eyebrow, clearly expecting further elaboration. "I've been seeing the shadows again. I thought that they were gone, but suddenly they're everywhere, and then...there was this boy. He called Mai old and I just snapped. I don't know what happened. One minute I was fully prepared to scold him, and the next I was ready to challenge him to a penalty game. I feel like I'm losing it. I feel like I'm…"

"Look at me Yugi," The Pharaoh said kindly, but firmly, " You are not going crazy."

Yugi looked him in the eyes, but didn't really hear him because he was wrapped up in his own sense of panic. "Am I losing it? Am I…" Yugi began to tremble, "...Am I becoming evil?"

"Listen to me. A soul like yours could never truly be evil. If I know you as well as I think I know you, you are are trying to carry too much of the burden alone in order to protect your friends. But Yugi, if Kingdom could not be governed or saved alone is it is not hubris to believe that the world could be saved alone?"

"I've never tried to save the world alone!" No matter what happened his friends were always there beside him keeping him in line, giving him hope, rescuing him, and working as a team when the job was too difficult for one person. They were the reason he was still alive today.

"Perhaps not, but you take the blame for every defeat, failure, and struggle that your friends and family endure. Do you not consider them your equals?" The Pharaoh held up a questioning brow.

Yugi felt his fingers curl into fists. "Of course I do!" His friends were some of the strongest people that he knew and were unwaveringly loyal. Even if they were not blood relatives they were all family, even Seto.

"Then surely you believe that they have the agency to choose their own actions."

Yugi groaned. "Why do you always have to be right?"

"That's my job," He reminded Yugi.

"Being a Pharaoh has made you full of yourself." Yugi teased.

"You could stand to be a little more proud, you know." He shot back.

"Isn't pride typically considered a bad thing?"

"You truly are a man of your time!" The pharaoh laughed. "I still stand by what I say. Men with pride don't throw themselves in front of a bus when there is another way to save them."

"I never did that!" Yugi protested.

"It's a metaphor Yugi."

Here they were reverting back to being teenagers again. What was it about being around an ancient spirit that made him feel so young? "I know it's a metaphor. I still don't do that."

For a brief moment Yugi thought that he saw his old friend's expression shift into one of despair, but it quickly vanished.

"You do, and you don't have the slightest clue how dangerous it really is."

Author's Note:

Hi guys! I'm sorry for this really, really, really long wait. I struggled with this chapter and tried to write it a couple of different ways, but nothing stuck. Please let me know what you think with a review.

-TheEagerScribbler