Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh does not, under any circumstances in reality or otherwise, belong to me.
Author's note: Sorry, no duel this chap! Go down later to the capitol ATTENTION thing towards the bottom. *And hey, can I request something of my reviewers? I'm pretty sure I've asked this before—if I can just ask one thing, it's this: could we please keep the swearing out of the reviews, reviewers? :) I would really like that—please and thanks!
Thanks/responses:
Reviewers: The Trio of Twilight, Aqua girl 007, Kaya Croft, RedRosePetal (x10 in total), fan person, princess atemma, Khemet- Egyptian vampire, littlekuribohlover, & jak dragon!
Fan person: You admit defeat! Huzzah! Anevay is triumphant! XD Now we have to find jak dragon's Red Eyes and get out of here! Fighting is too dangerous! *-* We'll leave that up to the duel monsters and Mahad (who is my favorite, by the way). Off to find Ruby! PS: I like to think of you as a FFnet friend X) if that means anything ^o^
Khemet- Egyptian vampire: what a coincidence—I was sick all day today XP and on Easter! I couldn't even look at my candy without feeling sick inside. I can't believe you read all the way through in five hours! Haha that's awesome! And now I have a new opponent in How Dare You! XD I'll start: How dare you review multiple times! (Kidding, of course ;)
Littlekuribohlover: thanks! ^O^ I do my best. Sent you a PM on the romance thing.
Jak dragon: gee, thanks for the reminder! You've been so helpful ;)
Special thanks to RedRosePetal for alerting, favoriting, and reading every chapter of this story in almost one night! Hope you didn't lose too much sleep over it ;)
ATTENTION! I sort of misjudged the time on these things, so this is another filler chap (sorry) with the gang. I will have another chapter posted tomorrow. I've been working on the duel, and it will be posted tomorrow since I'm on spring break and have all the time in the world. Sorry! :O also, I've been sick all day and yesterday night XP otherwise I would have posted it.
WARNING: there will be some mature hinting with Atem and Mana—hey, what can I say? They're married. Man up! Or… woman up if the case needs be. Oh, never mind! Just read.
Mahad's Message
In the Muto's living room, Kaiba declined the notion to sit as the Pharaoh motioned for him to do so. To sit would be accepting their hospitality, and that was one thing he needed none of. He just needed his company's duel disks back—and a piece of that no-good Bakura.
Glimpsing Ryou, his eyes narrowed, "What's he doing here?"
Ryou shied away. Atem glanced at Kaiba, "He's not Bakura, Kaiba. His name is Ryou. He used to be Bakura's host, but don't mistake him for that snake."
Kaiba relaxed, "I don't believe in all those hocus-pocus mind tricks."
"Then why are you here, rich boy?" Joey asked, straight faced. "Why don't you take Ryou down right now?"
"Because I want revenge on Bakura, and obviously that isn't him," he said, folding his arms. For once he didn't bother insulting Joey. "He cost my company thousands when he stole those duel disks and decks. Some of those cards are just as rare as my Blue Eyes."
The discussion on Kaiba was dropped. They wouldn't admit it, but Kaiba was an extremely strong duelist and they may well need him in the upcoming fight. Besides, they all knew that Kaiba believed in the so called 'hocus-pocus' mind tricks—the fact was, he was far too stubborn to ever confess such a thing.
Gathered around the living room were Atem, Mana, Yugi, Joey, Tristan, Tea, Ryou, Mai, Duke, Hikari and Tsuki, along with half a dozen other random duelists. They had all moved to Yugi's because well, frankly their old hideout was overused and Bakura was sure to know about it—also, they were running low on food and supplies after hiding out there for several weeks. So in short, they were hungry.
Whether they were going to see anything of the Grandpa Muto's hospitality was yet to be seen. He was quite angry with Yugi for not coming to him earlier, along with the fact that he had vanished for weeks on end.
Grandpa Muto continued his previous rant on both Yugi and the Pharaoh.
"You should have sent me a message! You should have done something not to make me worry! I nearly had a heart-attack when you went missing, Yugi!" he gave his grandson a glare that sent daggers. Yugi and Atem flinched.
"Sorry, Grandpa," they said submissively. "Besides," Yugi added, "I didn't know how to contact you and Atem needed help! I mean, if I had known how to tell you I would have—"
Solomon Muto rolled his eyes sarcastically. "You managed to contact your friends," he said—accusingly.
Yugi recoiled. "I said I was sorry!"
Grandpa's dagger-glare turned to Atem, who bowed meekly. "We did say we were sorry. I mean, it's not like either of us knew he was coming—"
Grandpa threw his arms in the air, letting out a sigh of exasperation and causing both Yugi and Atem to jump backwards for fear of harm. Kaiba smirked at the scene. "Looks like the King and Prince of Egypt are in trouble."
They ignored him. The last thing they needed was drama with Mr. Egotistical. Besides, Atem thought dryly, he should be used to it by now, considering Seto was much the same way—though maybe not as bad.
Grandpa folded his arms, huffed, and left the room. Yugi sighed in relief while Atem cast him a worried glance. "He won't stay angry with you for too long, will he?"
Yugi shook his head. "Naw. He'll cool down eventually."
Everyone's eyes turned to Yugi and Atem. "So," Tsuki said conversationally, "What's the plan?"
Atem folded his arms, thinking. "For now, we should rest." He glanced at Yugi sheepishly, "Unfortunately, there isn't enough room here for everyone to sleep at the same time, so we should sleep in shifts. Some will rest here while others go out on watch for Bakura. We'll do it in…" he paused, "Let's see, we've got plenty of time to sleep and there are," he counted, "Eighteen of us not including Grandpa. We'll begin shifts at six."
Before he could continue, Tristan spoke up. "I think some of us should sleep all night, so we'll only have some of us looking for Bakura and sleeping in shifts." Nearly everyone nodded in agreement.
"Well, we know who's sleepin' all night," Joey said. Sure enough, everyone looked at Atem. He protested, but he was barely even heard. "The Pharaoh's sleeping and so is Mana."
Mana protested, too. "Hey!" she objected, "I can help! I don't need to rest!"
It was Atem's turn to speak: "Mana, you just got back from the Realm of Stolen Souls. You're staying here." She folded her arms moodily, but otherwise didn't say anything. Suddenly she smiled wickedly and turned back to him from her position on the couch.
"Then I vote that you stay here, too."
"Mana!"
"What? I stay, you stay. You got back from that creepy dimension, too, and before that you went through a lot." Atem's mouth dropped in disbelief. She smiled triumphantly, "So it's settled. We both stay." Atem sighed. He knew she had won—she usually did.
Yugi grinned, slapping Atem on the shoulder. "It's for the best."
"Right," Atem rolled his eyes.
And so, at seven (after devouring half of the Muto household food in front of a very disgruntled Grandpa), the others set out to search for Bakura as they did every night. They split up in pairs per usual: Yugi and Kaiba, Tea and Ryou, Joey and Mai, Tristan and Duke (which definitely wasn't a good idea), and Hikari and Tsuki (unsurprisingly). The other half a dozen duelists split up amongst themselves.
Atem watched them leave the game shop resentfully. He would much rather be searching than sleeping. Deep in thought, he only broke out of his reverie when a pair of arms slid around his torso. He jumped, but relaxed when Mana giggled. "Come on, jumpy," she coaxed, "Time to sleep."
"Sleep?" he asked sarcastically, turning and wrapping his arms around her.
Mana smiled wickedly. "Yes, sleep. It's kind of a thing people do when they're tired."
"I highly doubt we'll be doing much sleeping, Mana."
"Well, one can dream."
"Dreaming is yet another thing to do with sleep—which we won't get much of judging by the look on your face."
The wicked grin stayed. Twining their fingers together, Mana pulled him upstairs to the guest room.
Atem heard a sort of loud, excited squeaking.
Kuriboh?
Looking around his dream, Atem found that he was standing in Domino City at evening. Turning, something big, furry and brown shoved itself in front of him, cuddling up against him. "Kuriboh!" he exclaimed, pulling the furry ball away from him. Something was tied around him. He jumped up and down in excitement, or urgency, and squeaked again. Atem pulled a tied scroll off of Kuriboh, unrolling it and reading.
It was a message from Mahad.
He had gathered armies upon armies of monsters. He had sent messages to Tastan, Dartz, and Alexander, and each had replied that they would meet them with their own armies at the Palace in three days, where further strategy would be discussed. Atem couldn't believe his eyes. He might actually be able to get his Palace and the Afterlife back! Mahad sounded more than confident that it would work.
He beamed at the fuzzball, "Kuriboh! Thank you!" he searched around for some sort of paper to write on. Magically (since it was a dream) paper and a pen appeared, allowing the Pharaoh to scrawl his own message to Mahad, informing him that he would be there and ready. He left a small, personal message at the end:
Mana is safe and sound and we wish you well. Well done, Mahad, and thank you. I knew you wouldn't let me down.
-Atem
He reattached the scroll to Kuriboh. The furry creature zoomed and squeaked in excitement (or triumph), waving his claws around before disappearing with a small puff of smoke. Atem waved it away, and that was when he woke.
His eyes opened to see near darkness; it wasn't quite morning yet. He smiled to see Mana lying beside him on her stomach, still sound asleep. Before long, they would both be safe and sound back home. Mana wouldn't have to endure this anymore. She would live like a queen was supposed to.
Rolling to his side, he rubbed her back, nuzzling closer to her before falling back asleep.
In the morning, he told the others over breakfast about the message from Mahad.
"That's great!" Yugi grinned, "When do we leave?"
"I think we should leave later today," he said, "Mahad said we should meet in three days, but I want to be there early, just in case." The others murmured their agreement. Atem cleared his throat, "However, there's still the matter of whose going."
Everyone spoke up at once, but Atem held up a hand for silence. "I would just say Mana and I, but knowing Yugi, and you three," (he eyed Joey, Tristan and Tea), "You four will insist on coming."
"And me!" Tsuki piped up.
"And if Tsuki's going, then so am I," Hikari said, arms folded stubbornly.
Duke's hand went into the air, "Wait a second, I want to help, too."
Atem sighed. He knew this would happen. Ryou was the next to speak up: "Yes, I want to help, too!"
The Pharaoh waved his hands in the air. "Yugi, Joey, Tristan, Tea, Tsuki and Hikari can come."
"That's not fair," Mai huffed, "What about the rest of us, Pharaoh?"
"It's too dangerous," he said, "The rest of you can stay here in case anything goes wrong. That is my final decision."
Those chosen to stay grumbled about being left behind, but Atem was firm in this matter. Throughout the day, they packed supplies and rested for the journey. Sometime during their packing, Duke approached Hikari.
"Hey, Hikari," he said conversationally.
Hikari eyed him, "What do you want, Devlin?"
"Not devil?"
"I figure there's some good in you."
Duke just grinned, "When all of this is over, how about a date?"
"We'll see when I get back, won't we?" Hikari smirked.
"Is that a yes?"
"That's a minor maybe."
"Good enough for me," Duke said cheerfully, and before she could stop him, he kissed her hand before strutting away.
"Devlin," Hikari muttered, "What a player." Despite her muttering, she was smiling.
Mai was a bit disgruntled about not going, so Joey consoled her. "Come on, Mai, its safer here."
"Safer, Joey? And what about you?"
He waved it off, "I'm Jumpin' Joey Wheeler, remember?"
"Fine, but you owe me."
"One candle-lit romantic dinner date coming up."
"That's more like it," she smiled.
Yugi and Tea had more of a quite moment of assurance, considering they were both going. They smiled and gripped hands for a moment before swinging on their packs, ready to go.
By mid-day, the group was ready to get underway whenever Atem gave the say-so.
I did warn you about the Atem-Mana thing. Besides, it wasn't even that bad! Just a little hinty-hint, and as I did point out, they are married.
Sorry for the filler chap :P I promise that tomorrow's chapter will be full of awesome, action-packed fun!
So, go outside, reread, read my other stories, whatever—another update tomorrow.
-Anevay