Game Shop

Mai dug around the fridge with Bakura and Mokuba. "So you're technically in charge, but you don't have the ring? So we don't have power." Bull. Great security system but no security. They were eating the leftovers that wouldn't have gone bad yet.

"It's better to be inside an insecure home where there are plenty of other places to sleep for everyone, than to be outside. Stay warm beneath your covers. By daybreak, I'll have a better solution," Ryou Bakura promised.

"What better solution, the world fell apart!" Mokuba stressed. "I want Seto. Find me Seto, please."

"If he is out there. I will find him," Ryou Bakura promised. He stroked his brow. "The first night of many hard nights, but we can do this. I promise. Just get to your warm beds. It will be cooler than usual. The whole environment has been shifted."

"By egyptian gods," Mokuba said. "Why?"

Ryou Bakura couldn't answer. "Please. Just try and get some rest."

"But. How's the spirit inside-"

"The spirit is fine!" The expression changed, but the voice didn't. "I'm going to bed."

Hanasake's area.

"Th-the air is cold," Anzu said as she clung closer with Yuugi. The sands hadn't been in danger of shifting, and they wanted to figure out how to cross. Still, it looked steep. "We aren't making it to Bakura's side tonight, are we?"

"I-I-I don't th-think so." Masika was chattering much more. Her clothes were what Anzu gave her. A blue blouse and a skirt. She couldn't stop freezing. Jounouchi had parted with his jacket to help, but it didn't hide her shivering legs.

Atem had pants, a decent shirt, but his jacket was very light. Jounouchi's warm jacket was better for her. She still didn't complain though about the cold, just endured. Bodies truly can hurt.

"I'm sorry," Anzu apologized to her again. "I should have helped you dress more for the season."

"J-just . . . c-c-cold, b-been through worse," Masika said, barely getting it out. She was still looking around, just like the rest of them.

Then the man from before showed up behind them. "Masika."

Atem turned around with everyone else. So, he did come back.

"I need you to come with me." Then, he gestured toward Anzu. "You as well. We are fixing this mess."

"Wait," Masika spoke. "I want to know who I am. Anzu has nothing to do with this. Return us to the Game Shop, and then Atem will come with me."

"No, because we need her. You need to fuse together again," he instructed.

What?! "You can't do that, they don't have all the same soul parts. They are separated from each other."

"You'll kill her." Yuugi was no fool either, pulling Anzu even further away. "Don't put one hand on her."

"Fusion is impossible again," Masika warned him, "you would do nothing but kill me and Anzu."

"No, we wouldn't. You're more than a regular human soul, and if we don't get this corrected, the Pharaoh will be in deep trouble."

"Good." Jounouchi didn't care. "Look what he did to the world. To my world. Let him get into so much trouble, he's eternally punished for this"

Those were not the words to use. Atem went into defend him, but Masika was there first.

"We have Hiroto Honda," the man announced. "The Pharaoh has kept him from judgment yet, to make sure you obey."

"You better release him!" Jounouchi didn't get it. He didn't get it.

"Jounouchi." Atem rubbed his eyes. Yuugi was faltering quickly. "Stop." I'm sorry, Yuugi.

Honda.

I know.

It's a bluff. Tell me it's a bluff, Atem. Please tell me! I've held it together so far, but, but-

I don't think it is, Other Me. This Pharaoh is ruthless but he has a connection with Horus himself. Atem could do nothing.

"Are you ready to hear what happens if you don't give up, Masika and Anzu?" He spread his arms out. "Honda's body was taken from the grip of the sands for our purposes-"

"No, you're lying," Jounouchi yelled, coming unglued, but Atem pushed him back, holding him.

"There are worse things than dying," Atem yelled. "I'm sorry, but now we need to be worried about his eternal soul." He looked back toward him. "Tell us."

"He is stuck between judgment, but his soul is just right. If you don't come along, Masika. Katsuya Jounouchi, Shizuka Kawai, Seto Kaiba, Mokuba Kaiba, Mai Kujaku, and Tomoyo Hanasake will all be killed, held in judgement with Hiroto Honda, and then? Their flesh, blood and bone will be melted with gold to create new items to curse them to forever remain, trapped here in Domino City."

"Tomoyo Hanasake is dead," Atem said, seeing how much work they did for information.

"His soul can be be brought back by the gods, and his body lives. To get Masika, killing the host body is worth it," the man said.

"Stop this outrageous nonsense," Masika yelled. "How dare you threaten everyone just to get your way." Her hands became fists. "For what, why? Why are you doing all of this?" Several others were starting to appear. "I did nothing but save Bakura's soul from damnation."

If I could. The Dark Magician could do nothing or Jounouchi would have screamed it for himself. The amount of guards surrounding them. It only took one to kill them, and there were twenty around them.

Anzu started to move forward, while Yuugi tried to stop her. "It's me or everyone, Yuugi. I have to."

Atem, do something!

I'm sorry, Yuugi. I'm just a mortal man with no real power except to call the Dark Magician and he can't help us. They could kill us already if they wanted to. Hmm. The cats started to come around again, along with the lions. Someone has been helping us. Many things haven't been explained. Yuugi. We have to have faith.

Summon a god! Anything, try anything, please! They already took Honda, don't let them take Anzu away.

I tried to summon Osiris' Dragon before. He came and he went away, Yuugi. He won't follow me, just this other Pharaoh. I have no more power than you do. I cannot save anything.

"If you go, you won't be you anymore," Yuugi said holding her in a tight hug. "Anzu."

"I would have stayed," she said to Yuugi as she gave him one more kiss. "If this never happened, I still would have stayed." She brushed her tears. "I love you, Yuugi." She ran forward next to Masika and held her hand.

Masika tightened the grip. "We'll cease to exist, as we are. I'm sorry. I still don't understand why, even at the end."

Jounouchi and Atem both went toward Yuugi. To both hold him back, and to comfort him. Yuugi grabbed both of them. He loved Anzu with all of his heart, no matter how much time went by, he always would. Atem never even had to ask if there was another, no one ever conquered his other self's heart.

There were no words of comfort. Anzu wasn't leaving into the afterlife, she was destroying who she'd been. The person Yuugi had loved. Masika. After all you've done, your fate is to stop existing. What was the difference between Ma'at getting rid of an unworthy and evil soul and what was happening to her? A good soul. Both good souls. Her and Anzu. Never again. I am probably casting a death sentence upon myself, but I can't go on not protecting my friends! He threw his hand into the air. The ring was still on him. He had to do it. He had to try. "I summon the Winged God Dragon of Ra!"

If he was going for broke, he'd go for the biggest he could. He watched as the skies changed and the Winged God Dragon of Ra came to his aid. He didn't leave.

The guards looked astonished.

"You're not Pharaoh, why is the dragon god listening to you?" The man they had been speaking to said as he continually stared at it.

"Leave my friends alone," Atem warned all of them. "I will smite thee from this Earth." He watched all of them drop to their knees and bow down in the way Masika first did all those years ago.

Then. Yes. I knew it. Eventually he would show. Wearing an outfit of Egyptian clothes, and daring to wear the millennium puzzle on himself, he stood a small distance from Atem.

The leader in charge. Was there.

"You." His voice was deep. "Aren't being very smart."

Atem wouldn't falter. "No one gave you the right to come here and destroy the world."

"The state of mankind is reprehensible. I am giving the ones who survived a chance to prove themselves before I wipe the rest out."

"What does that mean?" He wasn't protecting mankind, he still meant to destroy it? "Billions of lives went agonizingly into the dark with no recourse! I will not let you rule, only to slowly have the rest suffer."

"Pharaoh, is a nice term. A quieted down term. Not even regarding a person, but the Great House a man of the gods lived in. Even now my subjects continue to add to it's wording," he said, "but it's not truly me. I was chosen as I passed on to become a god and rule my own empire. I am Set, named after the ancient god I revered. While the afterlife was satisfying, I found a gateway back and I looked through it. Into it. I saw the decay of today's world and took matters into my own hands." He started to glow. "I must thank Seto Kaiba for the safe return."

"You used your powers to escape and come here? No one stopped you?" No. Surely someone. How could . . .?

"Gods don't often like to go against gods," Set reminded him. "Especially for something as simple as mortals." Set took his staff with the head of a cobra and pointed it at Atem. "What makes you so special that you can defy me? You weren't even worthy of becoming a god."

"Atem got just as glowy as you are!" Yuugi's words weren't on the brightest side of smart, but he was enraged and miserable over what would happen to Anzu if Atem didn't stop them. "He was different last time. Maybe Atem had been a god, you don't know, you just cheated to come down to this world."

"It's a has-been dead king versus a god." Set put it into perspective.

"Ra is still following Atem," Yuugi pointed out. "Maybe gods don't want to start battles, but someone believes in him."

Set looked around them again, seemingly noticing what he missed before. The cats. "That's not for you, that's for her." He gestured to Anzu and Masika. "There is no one here on your side, Atem. No god is here to help you, and once she is gone from you, Ra will leave and you'll go down and be rejudged again. Especially for standing against a god!"

"Seto Kaiba never made that platform for you," Atem shouted toward him. "How dare you use it to cross over and destroy everything mankind has made of itself!" He was unphased by Set's words. "I don't care which king you were, our station was to protect the people. If this was really condoned, you would never have needed a platform. Your power would have brought you here itself."

"Pharaoh gods were confined to their own empires in the afterlife. Their own people. None of the others have made a sound, even knowing what happened. They are all content in their afterlife and they know nothing lasts forever. Even now, this is probably over. I doubt I will see enough to spare them. However, those who prove themselves worthy enough of survival will be welcomed into my kingdom in the afterlife when I detach myself from this world. Life will blossom again, taking whichever form it shall."

"On one hand, it's beautiful," Jounouchi said, caring none if he was talking to a god or not. "At the end, people are taken away and life begins anew. But? Mankind wasn't even close to being done, you stole those powers from the afterlife, or you could have made it here without Kaiba's contraption!"

Atem saw exactly what he wanted to do with that outburst. "Hurt Jounouchi, and I will send Ra onto you." Meanwhile. "Jounouchi, don't, or you will never live to see your own child."

"What's the use, even if I make it, this guy plans on taking everyone away anyhow. Why did Mai even get Mana if it was going to end like this, I can't believe it."

Keep it together. I summoned the Winged God Dragon of Ra. I can summon Obelisk perhaps, but the Dragon of Osiris will not come. I have to try again. He looked toward Anzu and Masika. "Why them? Still no one answers that basic question." Maybe the answer was in them.

Set took his hands, drawing an ankh in the air, and then dividing the line. Anzu and Masika froze as they both started to move into each other.

"Anzuuu!"

"Stop it, I command you!" Atem didn't even care about the chances. "Winged God Dragon of Ra, attack Set!"

It didn't move. Anzu and Masika both screamed as they started to merge. Their scream wasn't human, but like static echoes falling into each other. Then it stopped, and they both shot back from each other. As they each landed, the cats licked them.

"Osiris, God of the Heavenly Skies!" Set summoned with his own words. "Osiris, decimate Atem, Yuugi, and their ally!"

Osiris was coming, his second mouth was ready to attack. "Winged God Dragon of Ra." What should he do, attack? This Pharaoh had more than the backing of the gods, he was a god. "Protect my friends!"

The Winged Dragon spread its wings over them, sheltering them from the blast. Then? It went.

It left.

Instead, a new god Atem did not know appeared. A smaller god, about the size of him. One not summoned to the field by anyone. With the head of a cat but a body of a woman, she drifted in the air, wearing a green dress. Even Set was stunned by her appearance.

Then, another god, one with a lion's head and a woman's body also appeared. She did not float but crouched to the ground in a red dress. She snarled at Set.

"What is this?" Set asked the god with the lion's head. "You were on my side."

She didn't stop snarling.

Saying who or what any god was, was not easy. History, mythology, culture and time made several ideas run together. Yet, Atem had to try to piece this together. This lion and cat goddess were trying to help. Please let me get this correct. Names. The correct names. They held power.

"Is that Bastet and Sekhmet? The cat and lion goddesses?" Jounouchi was first to attempt it. After his time with Atem, he must have picked up a book on ancient egypt a time or two. "Bast? Basset?"

"I don't know." What would they be doing there? Without being summoned? Sekhmet could be helping the other Pharaoh, this horror might be right up her alley if the history he knew of her was correct. Once summoned by her father and/or husband, she almost wiped out mankind with her own bare claws. The other could be Bast. She was a protective god over woman. Birth. Cats. Fertility. The moon. Why would they care to show up for Anzu and Masika? Is Masika a goddess? No. Atem would have felt that kind of energy from Masika. She could never have been trapped in cards or lived inside Anzu. She even breathed in his mouth, and he only felt his power come back.

"Do you believe people deserve a second chance?" Set asked the lion goddess.

"No," the woman with the Lion head said. Her voice, thick and deep "People are a plague and they should all be wiped out!" She bared her teeth and roared. "There are bigger things that matter." She glared at Atem and then Yuugi. "I am currently called Sekhmet. Summon me and I'll be wiping your blood from my claws afterward. I do nothing for you! I am here for other reasons."

Okay, she was not an ally. I figured as much. She must be lending help to her sister. That means the other must be Bast or Bastet.

The cat god flipped a Seristrum, a tool for making music, in her hand over and over, like she was about to fight with the instrument. "Not them." Her voice purred, making the cats around them meow. "Even Sekhmet agrees." Her eyes glowed in the dark. "We are their protectors."

"Her protector," Set answered. "The tear should be one."

"Their protector!" Sekhmet and Bastet said at the same time. "They are two!"

"I watch over them as the goddess of protection," Bastet added. "Try as you might, you can't make them one."

Set ignored the warning and Anzu and Masika were brought together once again, and once again, it wouldn't work. They repelled each other.

"Why is it not working?" Set asked. "What did you goddesses do?"

"The tear is separated, it will never be the same." Sekhmet came toward Set, bringing out her ankh scepter. She pointed to Atem. "He is a nameless spirit become man." She pointed toward Yuugi. "He is Yugi of the Mutoh family. Together, they are Atem!"

Bastet pointed toward Masika. "She is a nameless spirit become woman." She pointed toward Anzu. "She is Anzu of the Mazaki family. Together, they are Masika, the first human tear of Ra!"

"I am Sekhmet," Sekhmet said proudly.

"I am Bastet," the cat goddess said.

They both moved back to back, both Ankh scepter and Sistrum facing toward Set. "We were once Hathor!"

"Smite humanity all you want, but we defend the privilege to be separate," Sekhmet shouted.

"No, don't smite humanity, not without a fight," Bastet disagreed. "You have a challenge for the throne and the winners will win the ruling over humanity. Whether it lives or dies." She purred. "We've been given a chance. Ra has spoken, Thoth has written. Would you like to play a god game?"

"A game? A god game?" Set smiled. "I have never played one of those. What's the difference?"

"The amount put up to play the game weighs heavy," Bastet said. "Very. Heavy. All players must win and lose."

"Ooh," Set said. "Yes, I would be interested. What's involved in the game?"

Then, Set and the goddesses disappeared.

"That? That was some freaky gods I'm not used to," Jounouchi said. "The lion looks like she wants to eat me alive."

"Sekhmet. She may have once tried to kill all of humanity. It . . . tasted too good to stop," Atem settled on. "Best not to mess with her." Masika and Anzu came over. "Are you two okay?"

"I am." Yuugi brought Anzu closer to him. "Are you okay?"

"I hope so? I don't think I should hope too much, Yuugi." She accepted his embrace back.

"Is it just me, or do these gods not seem like . . . like uhh . . ." Jounouchi was trying to think.

"Like we shouldn't even be involved in the terms of the game," Atem finished for Jounouchi. "Agreed. It is troubling, but they came of their own volition, and Ra, The Sun God." He left. "Gods don't just show up without a summoning unless they want to be."

"Whatever the deal is, they better make it good!" Jounouchi demanded.

Then, they all returned back.

Sekhmet moved forward. "I have one more role and then Bastet will take care of the rest." She moved toward Jounouchi. "Welp! You're at least a doable fighter of the choices I had, release the monster inside that we put in you."

Atem held his hand out toward Jounouchi, holding himself steady not to react badly. "Rise, Dark Magician." Even though Atem had cooperated, he found himself frozen.

When Dark Magician arose, Sekhmet grabbed a hold of him, biting onto his neck. He struggled and she let go. Then, she turned toward Jounouchi.

"No, no, down kitty." She bit on Jounouchi. "Bad kitty." Jounouchi rubbed his neck. "That lion bit me!"

"Suck it up," Sekhmet demanded as she licked her claws in delight.

Jounouchi held his neck where she bit him. "Oh, it stings!" His skin started to burn, healing itself into a marked scar. Atem saw the hieroglyphics on Jounouchi's neck from her.

Like it or not, Sekhmet's awesome power had been sealed into Jounouchi and the Dark Magician.

After Sekhmet left, they all found themselves being transported someplace else.