Kaiba
That blowhard! He was living in past and I was gonna snap him out of it.
"I don't owe you an explanation! This debate is over!"
He wanted to know why I'd played one of my own cards from my own deck and then shouted that nonsense at me? Just who did he think he was talking to?
I hadn't been intending to use Induced Explosion that way, but like hell I was going to tell him that now.
From the look of it the canyon had been only way in and out of the Pharaoh's little vacation spot and just narrow enough to make a perfect choke point. Call of the Haunted was just another distraction, so I'd left Atem and Isis to their delusions to get something useful done. My plan had been to use a controlled Explosion to blast free enough rocks to seal the exit into the desert. Their precious Magician wouldn't have been able to escape, or not without using a spell or summoning a new monster. Thanks to my Duel Disks we'd have known the moment he'd tried anything and I'd have been able to take him out.
Short of putting up official KaibaCorp demolition signs with that ridiculous picture of a Blue-Eyes in a hard hat that the marketing team were so proud of I'd been ready to follow through, until the Magician had jumped me and I'd had to improvise.
"My Pharaoh."
For once I appreciated Isis's dull Egyptian drawl as she lured away the death glare Atem had been trying to tattoo the side of my face with. His anger made my skin crawl, which was new. Usually I didn't care about redundant things like that but now, knowing how irritated he was after we'd started making googly eyes at each other last night, it felt different. Pathetic. I ignored such pitiful pangs of sentimentality and turned to see what Isis was droning about now.
"I sense something is amiss." She added and both of them turned to stare at 'Mahad', or 'Andro Sphinx', or whoever, like he was a live bomb that had begun to count down to zero. I rolled my eyes at their dramatics. I couldn't 'sense' anything.
I kept my sights on the Pharaoh, trying to gauge what it was he thought was about to happen. His eyes abruptly widened, like they did whenever one of his opponents activated a devastating trap card on him.
"He's casting -" Atem shouted, only to be interrupted by Andro Sphinx. Apparently he was done kneeling in the dirt like a pitiful third tier duelist.
"-Magician Navigation."
The ring of glyphs that featured on most of the Dark Magician related cards spun up on the ground in a flash. A pulsating black hole in the floor that looked suspiciously like a singularity spawned under the Magician's feet and with an apathetic stare Andro Sphinx let himself sink into. That figured. Swords of Revealing Light was surrounding him on every side except one so of course that was how he'd try to escape. He disappeared from sight through the void on the ground like he'd melted into it.
"After him!" The Pharaoh commanded, the muscles of his arm straining as he lashed his hand around to discard Swords of Revealing Light and the Celtic Guardian. He thanked his monster as it despawned with a curt dip of his head and ran at the magical rabbit hole. "Quickly! The portal won't stay open for long." He shouted as he jumped into it and vanished down the damn thing.
"Tch!" I sprinted to keep up with him and then slid to a stop as I reached the edge of the portal's circumference. He was right, the diameter of it was shrinking, fast.
"Hurry up!" Barking back at Isis didn't get her moving any quicker. It was an annoyance but I waited for her. There wasn't any point in digging myself any deeper into the Pharaoh's bad books by ditching his priestess. She nodded to me as she caught up and I took that as her way of saying 'thank you' before cautiously stepping into the portal one foot at a time. As soon the top of her head disappeared into the magical paddling pool I jumped in after them.
"Ghnnn!" I gritted my teeth and prepared for the worst as I free fell through a dark twisting tunnel. The empty vacuum was disorientating. It didn't feel of anything. It wasn't hot, or cold and there was no sound. Without something to look at the only evidence I hadn't gone blind was that I could still see my hand in front of my face. I clenched my fist in anticipation.
Wherever this thing was going to let us out it would be irritating. Our enemy had the advantage and could abuse it however he wanted. Marooning us somewhere in the middle of the desert would be a smart move, or out at sea. Even dropping us off of a cliff would do the job. I kept my Duel Disk close, ready to take on whatever was coming next.
There was a shift in the air as I got to the other side. That was the only way I could tell that I'd landed as I staggered free of the portal's mouth. Wherever I was it was pitch black. There was nothing but trapped heat and darkness along with the subtle shifting sounds of linen to my left and the soft slapping noise that Atem's earrings made against his face whenever he turned his head too quickly. My best guess was we'd come out in another cave, or knowing this place, a tomb.
I didn't like guessing games – duels with the Pharaoh had conditioned me to despise them. I refused to play one a second longer than I had to.
"Zwwwwwp." The area was lit up with a massive bloom of light from my Duel Disk.
Beside me Atem and Isis pulled their arms over their eyes to block out the sudden brightness before slowly lowering them again as the glare passed. My devices would beat the dull glow the Millennium Puzzle was able to put out any day. Holograms were light so of course the units could be used this way if wearing the worlds least practical flashlight on your wrist was your thing. I held up my arm for Atem to see and silently pointed at the button I'd used to active the Duel Disk's omni-directional projectors. Just as I predicted he copied the gesture to active his own without needing to be told any more than that. He glanced over his unit curiously as the yellow light of his UI fought against the blue of mine. The two battled over the features of our new location.
"Where are we?" I muttered, casting my arm around to spread out the field of illumination.
Our lights bounced off the sharp corners of a room that was the shape of a truncated square pyramid, with a tall vertical shaft that extended upward like a massive chimney. It looked like a large chamber that fed off into several alcoves that were just out of sight, hidden in darkness.
The layout was familiar, but it shouldn't have been.
It looked almost exactly the same as the vault I'd built under the Kaiba Mansion to store my cards in. The idea of it was idiotic, but the intense feeling of deja vu was difficult to rationalize. I flashed my Duel Disk towards where the elevator back up into the house would be if this really was my card vault. Of course we were thousands of years too early for one to be there, but it aggravated me when a long and steep stone staircase leading down the elevated platform we were on took its place as a parody.
I turned around to finish completing a three hundred and sixty degree inspection of the place. As my Duel Disk directly illuminated the walls the sight sent a shock to my system.
"What the-?"
Lining the walls from the floor to the ceiling were thousands of stone tablets. The carved images were rough in comparison to the work of Industrial Illusion's illustrators and graphic designers, but the duel monsters were easily recognizable regardless. A lot of them were from the older card packs – monsters from the earlier generation of the game before Pegasus started over exerting his artistic license and making up stupid-looking new cards from nothing. Ironically with Effect Monsters replacing their vanilla counterparts in most duelist's decks these were now some of the least played creatures in all of Duel Monsters.
"It appears we have emerged within the Shrine of Wedju." Isis noted in a hushed voice, like if she spoke too loud she'd wake up the wall decor. I scowled at her in the low light and apparently she took that as an invitation to explain more about this gaudy tourist trap. "It is a holy place." She whispered, "The tablets of the gods rest here, along with the creatures exorcised from the hearts of sinners and sealed into stone."
Atem's sandals slapped against stone floor as he cautiously walked around the square platform we were standing on, pointing his Duel Disk into every shadowy corner. "Where did Andro Sphinx escape to?" The Pharaoh's usual loud-mouthed projection was missing so it looked like even he felt the need to treat this place with Isis's typically superstitious reverence. The yellow and blue lines of light from my Duel Disk divided Atem's face in two and vied for territory across his stiff expression as our Duel Disk's cast attractive shadows around each of his muscle groupings.
I joined Atem in doing a final once over of the place, pointing my overblown flashlight down into the depths of the precipitous drop that surrounded our platform on all sides before drawing an inevitable conclusion. "He's not here."
"We're just east of the palace." The Pharaoh mused with a pensive frown. I didn't know if he'd said that for my benefit or not but it seemed unlikely while I was out of his good graces. "We must find him before he's mistaken for Mahad by the palace guard, or escapes into the city to threaten my people."
I didn't care what or where this place was. All I wanted to know was why it looked so much like my damn vault. The stone tablets lined the walls exactly where my card trays should be – the only detail missing was my custom Blue-Eyes statue. I turned to double check, just to make sure.
"What!?" I snapped as my holographic projectors roved over something impossible. This place was mocking me with its likeness.
The Pharaoh and Isis ran over, coming to a stand still and wearing matching expressions as they got a look at what I was scanning my unit's light over. It was a crude picture and the pose was stiff but the stone tablet was definitely of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon.
My Dragon didn't get to be here! I wouldn't allow it. There were other monsters from my earlier decks surrounding it too, Battle Ox and La Jinn, along with some from the Pharaoh's deck. The Dark Magician card stood out, only because there were few other monsters around with such moronic hats.
"These are my cards!" I'd chosen them myself, I even remembered the booster pack La Jinn had come out of. They were from my deck; one I'd made independent of anyone or anything else. Why were they here, grouped together like an old deck list from Duelist Kingdom?
The Pharaoh frowned. "Many of the monsters from both of our decks are sealed here." He noted.
He couldn't cross the void between the platform and the chamber walls put still reached out a hand and as if he wanted to touch the tablet depicting his Dark Magician to brush away some dust, his look becoming a lot darker as Isis's softened up to look hollow and haunted instead. "Though Mahad is here in my afterlife an irretrievable part of him will always be locked in this stone." He inclined his head to the tablet like it could see him before turning toward the narrow stairs that would take us down to the exit of this so called 'shrine'. "I won't allow him to be bound again, especially within his own body!"
His eyes burned as he got fired up, all five foot nothing of him seeming to ripple and radiate with energy. Words weren't needed, just a meaningful glance over his shoulder and I knew to follow his lead as he made for the first step with his ruined cape billowing behind him like it had caught the wind even in this airless place.
Isis didn't move for a second. She stood in front of the tablet like it had petrified her before snapping out of it and touching her hand to her heart. I followed the Pharaoh as he descended the steps and could hear the pad of Isis's shoes behind me as she eventually did the same. She gave the tablet a despairing backwards glance, the sort of one Mokuba had given me whenever one of my private tutors showed up to escort me away from him and back into another one of Gozaburo's mandated lessons. If even Isis was breaking her mask and throwing around such puppy dog eyes then that definitely meant whatever they thought had happened to lock the Magician into that slab had been bad.
That prepubescent punk Noah had turned Mokuba and me to stone before, but that had been in a Virtual World where programming routines could do whatever the hell they wanted to our digital avatars. Real people having Duel Monsters pulled out of them or being magically sealed into rocks was just more nonsense. Despite how implausible it was there was no auguring with the evidence lining the walls. Trying to consolidate my observations of the magical bull in this world with the scientific certainties of the real one gave me a headache.
The Pharaoh and I really were to different for 'this'. This was all solid evidence that we should call our 'thing' off. It was probably better that we were figuring out such an innate incompatibility so early on. That way neither of us had to waste our time investing any further in the other.
Ending it was sensible and practical, especially while he was so pissed with me.
It also wasn't something I wanted to do.
Stupid as it was, I wanted those weird-feeling touches and unlikely lip locks to continue. Every time they happened it was like I could feel Atem's appreciation and respect for me in a way that words had never been enough to communicate. I needed more of that, and I wanted to keep flipping over the unknown cards in his deck - the ones that made up who he was. It gave me the same excited anticipation I barely remembered feeling a long time ago, when Duel Monsters was freshly released and my biological father would occasionally buy me a booster pack. In those days I would carefully tease open the foil packaging and slowly slide out each new card, because no matter the spell, trap or monster's attack power every one of them was valuable. I hadn't felt that way about anything in years, not since I was that kid scrounging up cards for my first deck.
Damn it. My boot loudly scuffed against one of the steps as I stamped down on it with irritation. This was my first argument, with him since we'd started 'messing around' – if that label even still applied anymore, or had ever applied in the first place.
I was used to keeping my cards close to my chest – that was the best way to crush an opponent, but Atem wasn't an enemy this time. I needed to adapt my strategy. The first step in doing that was knowing what the purpose of the adaption was and I'd just figured that out. I wanted another shot at the touchy feely hand holding nonsense. That wasn't going to happen if I kept playing by our old rule set. In every product's life time there was a choice to either double down on what you knew or innovate. Shouting matches with Atem had never been a problem before, but things weren't like before. 'Before' was in the past. That took doubling down off the table.
I smirked in the chamber's gloom. That suited me fine. Innovation played to my strengths. Besides, I liked a challenge.
Tempting as it was to leave the Pharaoh to stew on things for a while before setting him straight, negativity had a way of sticking around and soaking into everything like a bad smell. I knew that well enough.
It was time to deal with this.
"Hey-" I caught his wrist as he cleared the final step.
Pillars lining the exit to the outside world framed him. The sunlight breaching the shrine's entrance back lit his body, making the dark red parts of his hair glow just as brightly as his eyes. The natural light creeping through the entryway traced all the outer contours of his silhouette, emphasizing the strength of his muscles, the richness of his skin tone and vaguely making it look like he was glowing with some inexplicable aura.
Despite the heavy heat of this place Atem's skin was cool to the touch as I held his arm between us, watching him pause mid step and level those arrogant laser eyes on me. Apparently he knew why I'd grabbed him, if his stiff statement of "Kaiba. There isn't time for this now." was anything to go by.
That was fine with me. Making it quick suited my purposes.
Isis didn't spare a glance as she passed us by and continued through the doorway. I had to hand it to her, she knew when to get the hell out of Dodge. The daylight devoured her as she escaped out the exit and it felt better to know I wasn't gonna have a third wheel watching me.
"Induced Explosion-" I began. That hadn't been what half our argument was even about but he'd asked so fine, I'd let him know what I'd been thinking just this once.
His eyebrow perked up as he stared at me, apparently interested to hear what I'd say next despite his previous comment. Searching for a way to phrase what I needed to without sounding simpering or weak was harder than I'd thought it would be.
"I had a reason for playing it." Was what I landed on. "I didn't use it because of you." Technically I had, I'd used it to try trapping his Magician in the canyon because that mattered to him but I didn't owe him anymore of an explanation than that. The Pharaoh's eyebrows pinched together and he studied me with a point blank stare that should have been off putting, but wasn't. Atem was probably assessing my tone and my face. It's what I would have done. "Everything else I said; that's still valid." I concluded for him, to make that crystal clear.
He could take it, or leave it. Apologizing was something I was still getting used to with my own brother, in my own mansion – spilling my guts here where anyone could listen in just beyond the doorway was humiliating. I wasn't sure it'd been worth the sacrifice of my pride until a moment later when the tense frown he'd been wearing let up.
"Alright." He concluded, like he had zero doubts. The look he gave me wasn't warm or friendly, but it was confident. I'd take that third option over the other two any day.
His wrist maneuvered in my grip until he could grab my arm back and clasped it for a second before we parted. I knew we were 'good' again when his blue-tinted lips cut into a smug smirk and he flicked his head towards the Shrine's exit with a goading "Come on. Andro Sphinx will stand little chance against the both of us."
The arid Egyptian breeze was a relief compared to the humid darkness of the shrine.
It tossed around my coat and Atem's cape and hair as we marched down a long outdoor boulevard lined by large statues of ram-headed lions. The detail of the sculpts flanking us as we passed them by was impressive for the backwards time we were in, knowing the level of expertise and amount of man power that must have gone into quarrying the stone and then chiselling it into shape. From here I could see that the wide promenade stretched out to join with the looming structure of the Pharaoh's palace. Isis was up ahead, but I doubted sprinting to catch up with a vassal was the done thing for a king, especially within sight of his own castle, so instead we power-walked side by side.
Atem paused. I didn't bother turning around to see why until he called my name a second later.
"Kaiba."
He was looking pensively at the floor and shifting his weight between his feet. It was almost imperceivable and the only nervous tell he had. I'd never noticed it in person, in fact I'd only caught it for the first time when re-watching old footage of his duels to study for my holographic Pharaoh's authenticity.
"Now that we've returned to the palace things will become -" He hesitated, eyebrows knitting together in concentration as he fished around inside of his head for the right words. "-more formal." He eventually decided upon.
I rolled my eyes.
He peered up at me tentatively, like he was still debating saying something more.
"We won't be able to carry on as we have." He noted.
'As we had' was vague. Did he mean we couldn't keep arguing and making up, or we couldn't keep stealing kisses like horny high schoolers? Most likely both.
"It's your country isn't it?" I countered deadpan, already seeing exactly where this conversation was gonna go. "I thought the 'Pharaoh' could do whatever he wanted." I threw in a smirk of challenge which only made his serious expression intensify.
"He can." Atem agreed, throwing some warning into his voice. "But a wise one doesn't."
I crossed my arms, not impressed at all by that pearl of wisdom. It sounded like he was quoting someone, or something - it was in the abnormal inflections he'd used.
"Relax. I get it." I bit back. Of course I got it; who the hell did he even think he was talking to? "In case you forgot, I have an empire of my own to run." I got the merits of not trying to run my company into the ground, or actively sabotage my own credibility as its leader. That was probably the bigger issue here, since Atem was going to be stuck spending the rest of eternity playing king with this little bunch of moronic minions.
"Yes." Atem agreed, hesitantly, like he was working his way up to something he didn't really want to say. "But you come from a more modern society."
I scoffed. Sure, I wasn't going to get lynched or burned alive for being caught messing around with a guy - if that's what this conversation was even about - but the discovery would still probably tank KaibaCorp's stock for a while and rattle my shareholders and investors. Those old fossils had a stubborn view of the world and didn't like anything that shook it up.
"You're the Pharaoh. Like I said, I get it." I concluded for him, guessing that this conversation was more of a courtesy or managing of expectations than anything else, since we were about to be back in his palace and he was the Pharaoh. If this was a KaibaCorp exhibition I wouldn't let him embarrass with me in front of my public so I could relate.
I grimaced as I thought of something annoying. "Do I have to bow?" I snarked sarcastically.
Atem's apprehensive expression crested into a small grin at that. His eyes flashing like a red alert warning before he blinked slowly to hide the suspicious look.
"Only if I tell you to." He parried smugly.
"Hnh. That's a 'no' then."
Behind his mild smirk Atem huffed with amusement. We set off again in tandem toward the entrance to his palace.
Yugi
I guess it made sense that even in Kaiba's Soul Room technology worked exactly the way it was supposed to. I wouldn't have even thought about the cell phone still in my pocket if that hadn't been the case.
Yami was stuck in the main room and couldn't move far enough away from the holographic projectors in there to see the door's clay seal, so I decided to bring a photograph of it to him instead.
The camera on my phone flashed in darkness. Snapping a first picture of the seal worked, but even with the flash on dust and dirt left over in the grooves made the inscription hard to make out. The clay crumbled under my fingers a bit as I brushed the grit away. It felt very fragile so I pulled away from it quickly.
Grandpa had been telling me stories about his adventures and discoveries in Egypt for as long as I'd been old enough to say 'Pharaoh'. I new better than most people not to go messing with this kind of stuff. Clay seals like these - especially tomb seals - tended to carry mean curses and sharing my body with an ancient Egyptian Pharaoh had taught me this kind of thing wasn't to be taken lightly.
I wasn't as good at it as Grandpa, not by a long way, but he'd taught me enough to make me pretty confident reading simple hieroglyphs. Grandpa loved to share his knowledge and it was a family joke that he'd tried to make junior Egyptologists out of everyone in our family in his enthusiasm. He was a great teacher but even with all his lessons I still couldn't read these ones. It was like they were jumbled or mixed up.
The flash went off again as I took a second photo. It was a lot clearer than the first. Yami and Seto watched me with interested eyes as I walked back over to them holding the phone out in my hand.
Yami took it from me cautiously as I handed it over to him and gripped it carefully, like he wasn't sure if it was going to slip through his fingers or not. The screen turned black in the minute it took me to get back to him and pass it between us. It made me smile to see how effortlessly Yami pressed the button to light the screen back up and entered my pin - just from muscle memory. I probably needed to change that. Actually, did Yami knowing it mean Kaiba knew the code to my phone too? That thought was a little creepy.
That feeling faded back a bit as Yami frowned at the screen before shaking his head. He answered my question before I even needed to ask, sounding a little bit discouraged.
"I can't read it."
"Is that a cell phone?" The little Kaiba questioned from his door. The look he gave the device as Yami handed it back to me was completely new. The blue of his irises seemed to shine as he stared at my cell with a wide-eyed look of complete fascination.
"It sure is." I chirped, handing it over for him because it looked like he might implode in disappointment if he didn't get to inspect it closer.
It seemed like even at this age Kaiba was already interested in gadgets.
I'd almost forgotten how much cell phone technology had changed since I was little. Seeing Seto's total and unguarded curiosity was sort of charming.
But this was still Kaiba after all. A bead of sweat dripped down my forehead as he instantly started trying to pull it apart, turning it around in his hands to the back and testing the seams for a way into it. The front camera flashed as he managed to partially peel off the battery cover which made him flip my cell and inspect the front instead.
"Whoever disturbs this chamber will meet the Guardian's fangs." He read skeptically from the screen.
"Huh?" I glanced over his shoulder as he looked up from the photograph on the screen and scowled at me. "How can you read that?" I asked.
"I dunno." Seto shrugged, already dismissing that to spin the phone around again and finish sliding off the back.
"Do you know what this Guardian is?" Yami questioned from the side of his door, staring at Kaiba as the little guy paused his dissection of my phone to reply. It looked like I couldn't hold his attention but at least Yami could.
"Duh. It's the thing that just roared. It guards everything in here." Seto mocked, losing interest in my phone now that Yami was talking to him again.
That seemed counter-intuitive. How could it be a guardian when it had just done so much damage to this place?
Yami read my thoughts as I glanced at him and echoed them out loud for Seto to answer.
"What sort of Guardian destroys the very place it's charged with protecting?"
Seto's reply was bored and simple. "It used to be nicer." He scowled at the battery pack in my phone and turned back to me, suddenly disinterested with the device. "Something happened to it." I took back the two halves of my phone and slid them back together as he concluded. "That's why the doors don't stay shut."
I guessed that was the information he'd been holding back.
Based on the sound the 'guardian' made I already had a pretty good idea of what it was. Also Kaiba could act crazy and say some unexpected things but was pretty predictable, when it came to stuff like this at least. Honestly, I think I'd be more surprised if it wasn't a Blue-Eyes White Dragon.
Yami nodded at me and crossed his arms thoughtfully. "Is there anything else you can tell us about it?" He demanded and narrowed his eyes as the little Kaiba tilted his head to the side slightly and smirked mischievously.
"You're gonna get devoured." He told us and then loudly slammed the door to his room in our faces.
Atem
There hadn't been any sarcasm or cynicism in Kaiba's face as he'd crafted an apology that was all but evident, despite the fact it lacked any of the usual words.
I expected that all the sand in Egypt would turn to water and the desert into a great sea before I ever heard the stubborn duelist mutter something as compromising as 'I'm sorry', or openly admit to his own failure of character. What he'd said still lacked any true explanation or justification for his actions – all he'd seemed willing to offer was the notion that such reasoning did indeed exist, even if revealing it would be too open of a gesture. His steely eyes had glared the ferocity of his intent into my face far more effectively than the words themselves and that was what I had accepted.
Now he was keeping stride with me again, facing forward with single-minded focus as we neared the entry way to my throne room. True feeling was beginning to return to my fingers and toes as my heart started to pound like a drum to the rhythm of our shared footsteps, the familiar tentative comradery that accompanied all joint campaigns with Kaiba heating my blood with exhilaration. If he felt the same way then his stoic face revealed nothing, but nor did mine. We were well matched in our determined expressions.
Isis lingered ahead of us, waiting as dutifully as ever for me to assume my rank and enter the chamber first. She bowed as I crossed the threshold.
"Guards!" I commanded. "Secure the doorways."
My priests Karim, Shada and Shimon were gathered in the throne room discussing business among themselves. At my bellowing entrance that conversation ceased and all eyes fell upon me. With matching bows and near perfectly timed acknowledgements of "My Pharaoh." They fell to one knee before me as I ascended the stair case to stand in front of the throne. Their attention didn't break for any length of time, though each of the priests took turns fugitive glancing at the pale version of the Seto they were familiar with as Kaiba strode past them towards the back of the chamber.
"When did you return, Pharaoh?" Shimon asked, a note of concern entering his voice as he looked over my appearance along with those of Isis and Kaiba as they took up positions in the room. Much like Yugi's grandfather very few things slipped passed Priest Shimon. His brow creased, clearly unsettled. He knew full well my personal preference was to be clean and well presented. A handsome appearance was necessary to satisfy the Gods and a Pharaoh should always be garbed in clean linen and shod in white sandals. As I stood before him now I was far from immaculate. His well-meaning worry warmed my spirit. I would have liked to set the elderly priest's fears to rest but there was no time.
I held up my hand for their silence. Ordinarily I would bid them to rise and explain the situation in less formal words, but we had only a short window of opportunity in which to act.
"Mahad, did he pass through here?" I demanded of them.
Karim and Shada exchanged confused glances before Karim answered with a succinct. "No, Pharaoh."
"And he still hasn't played another card to sneak off on either." Kaiba gruffly interjected from the side of the room. He'd found one of Seto's favorite shadowy corners and slipped into it as if he belonged there. The illusion of hiding was lost however, as the light of his Duel Disk illuminated him for all to see. It made his face look sharp and his eyes overly-tired as he swiped through the devices 'cards played' log.
"He can't have gone far." I concluded from that information. Not if Andro Sphinx was on foot as it seemed he must be.
I turned away from Kaiba and back to my priests, straightening my back to address them.
"Mahad is not himself. His body has been possessed by a servant of Anubis." I announced to the room. The news made Shada's brow furrow and Karim's eyes widen slightly in shock.
Even before the bandit Bakura had cast his dark shadow over me and my priests there had always been the ever-present threat of palace spies, thieves or assassins. Unlike during my life there were no threats beyond angry snakes and scorpions in this afterlife. Since claiming my place here it had been a time of peace. The sort that my Father would have been proud to have known. We had been here in this world for just long enough to have begun to forget the daily dangers that once dogged us. It took a fraction of a second for Karim and Shada to recompose their stunned expressions but once so they wore the faces of my loyal and most trusted Sacred Guardians once more. They each nodded in understanding and their features grew attentive and focused. Not for the first time I was stuck by the great honor it was to be surrounded by and blessed with the loyalty of such unwavering souls.
"Karim." My priest kept his head bowed as he rose onto his feet, the strong muscles of his body involuntarily twitching in anticipation of my next order. "Seal the palace gates and all entrances into the city. Allow no one in or out."
"Yes, Pharaoh. I shall see it done." He turned to several of the men lining the room, "You, come with me." He commanded them and with a handful of the palace guard he swept out of the room. My patience with Andro Sphinx's attempts to flee was at an end. It was time to finally trap him, even if it was to be in the palace with us.
In the corner of my eye I saw Isis clutch nervously at her neck, seeking the reassurance of the Necklace that she no longer wore.
"Don't worry. I won't allow him to escape again." I assured her. This I vowed. Until Mahad was himself again none of us could rest easily and Yugi's spirit couldn't be safely freed from whatever dark corner of the Puzzle he was currently enduring. Large as my palace was it wasn't infinitely so; there were only so many places in which to hide. We would find him.
Now I turned back to Shada. "Rotating shifts of lookouts and archers are to be assigned to the palace rooftops and balconies. He must not escape into the sky."
"It will be as you say." Shada confirmed, silently gesturing to another pair of palace guards to follow him as he too departed from the throne room.
Finally I turned to Shimon, bidding he rise with the wave of my hand. His joints did not appreciate long amounts of time spent kneeling and with a grateful smile he slowly found his feet and folded his hands behind his back.
"Where is Seto?" I asked him. I'd noticed my High Priest's absence the moment I'd stepped into the room but only now was there an opportunity to address it. For a moment Shimon's eyes curiously darted over to Kaiba. He was still swiping through his Duel Disk but could apparently sense another's gaze on him. He glanced upwards to stare defiantly back at my priest before returning his attention to his device and pretending to ignore everyone and everything.
With an interested hum Shimon's eyes returned to mine to reply. "Still in the healing chambers, I'm afraid. The High Priest hasn't awoken since your battle against Anubis." Still? It had been days. "The blow to the back of his head was quite a strong one, so the physicians say." I cast my eyes around the throne room, over to the section of wall that had been colored red by the long smear of Seto's blood after Anubis had cracked his head against it. The mark was gone now, as was any other evidence of the battle. It seemed the room had recovered from the ordeal quicker than my High Priest had. I opened my mouth, only to have my next order anticipated fully by the priest before me. "I'll have the healers inform you of when he wakes." Shimon added and I nodded with thanks for his insight.
"What may I do, Pharaoh?" Isis asked, taking a step forward from further back in the room. Her hands were clasped dutifully in her lap and her shoulders were squared in a picture of resilience, but I knew full well that Isis must be just as drained by our time in the wilds as Kaiba and I were.
As much as I understood that she wanted to help, to be part of the force working to return Mahad's body to him, I knew as I saw the hitch of her shoulders slump for a second in well-veiled exhaustion that I couldn't ask any more from her for now.
"Isis, I wish you to rest and restore your strength." I told her sternly, knowing that was contrary to what she was hoping to hear.
She opened her mouth, as though to protest my command, but thought twice as Kaiba's eyes flicked up from his Duel Disk to pointedly stare at her. She caught his solid blue leer and returned it with her own. I didn't know what silent message was being conveyed between the two, or that they had formed any sort of bond to facilitate such communication in the first place, but whatever the wordless exchange was Isis slowly closed her mouth and then turned back to me. With abject hesitation she bowed at the order. "Yes, of course."
"Wise advice, my Pharaoh." Shimon chuckled. An amused undercurrent of suggestion ran through his words. "Perhaps that could stand to be heeded by others, as well." He scratched his nose, feigning an absent-minded innocence as I stifled a sigh at his none too subtle hint.
Though it was tight lipped the priest's jovial manner at least brought a small smile to Isis's lips and she blinked slowly before stepping away. "I shall see to it that early meals are prepared and the royal baths are warmed, should whatever heedence Priest Shimon is recommending be observed." She noted conspiratorially and at that softly glided out of the room.
Just the suggestion of a hot bath made my muscles ache as if raising their hands in support of the idea, but how could I rest while Andro Sphinx still held the ability to escape? With affection my Father had always chided that the delegation of tasks was my greatest weakness. Even as I was trying to correct that, the idea of sitting idly by and doing nothing or assigning tasks to others when they were things I could do myself never sat well. Once Karim and Shada had confirmed my orders were in place perhaps then there would be time for a bath.
A jolt of delirious sensation cut through me as a new and interesting idea sprang to mind unbidden. Perhaps I could coax Kaiba into joining me?
I doubted he'd agree to it without some kind of challenge or a taunt. That made the idea even more attractive. The throne room was not the appropriate place for such thoughts and I batted away the mental image of peeling open Kaiba's black flight suit to reveal the alabaster skin beneath to the open air even as the scene desperately tried to settle at the forefront of my consciousness. It was questionably vivid and even more powerful than any similar impulse had ever been before simply because now it stood a chance of actually happening.
With a cautious swipe of my eyes I glanced over to him, wondering if he was paying any attention to us or still pursuing his Duel Disk. The later was the case, but that swiftly changed as his eyes narrowed at the display and with an irritated "Tch." he glanced upwards to lock eyes with me.
"He just played a card." Kaiba growled.
Curses. What had he in store for us next? What spell could he possibly conjure with Mahad's body so taxed?
My fingers flew across my Duel Disk to conjure up my own display as Andro Sphinx's next move was revealed.
"Dark Renewal." I noted aloud.
Pegasus's equivalent Duel Monsters card had imagined the casket as a western-styled coffin adorned with a vaguely Gothic crucifix the true spell conjured a vessel closer to a sarcophagus in appearance, though the golden detailing and magical star adorning the front remained much the same. It was a spell rarely used by Mahad, intended for rapid recovery not from physical wounds but from magical exhaustion. Its impracticality had led my Magician to regard it as something of a failure despite the length of time he had put into developing the technique, for once sealed within it the spellcaster was bound to the confines of the coffin for the length of their recuperation.
"It seemed Andro Sphinx is trying to reinvigorate Mahad's body before striking out at us again. We can use this to our advantage." I noted with the beginnings of a smirk. "While Dark Renewal is in effect Andro Sphinx will be trapped inside the coffin." I closed down the Duel Disk display and flipped over the implication in my mind as if it were a card. "That means he'll have chosen somewhere dark and disused to hide it; somewhere that it will not be found by priests or servants."
Shimon scratched his chin thoughtfully as though considering it a riddle. "There are several cellars that don't see much use in the kitchens, the old temple catacombs, empty servant quarters, perhaps even an especially shady stable stall." He mused.
All of them were good suggestions, and perfect places to hide the magical sarcophagus.
"Arrange for those places to be searched. Have the guards turn over every dark and quiet place in the palace." I stepped down from my throne, crossing towards a brazier held ensconced to the throne room wall. "Kaiba and I shall begin with the catacom-" I reached upwards to pry the torch free from its holding but the lingering cold in my fingers stopped them closing as quickly as I bid them and the torch fell from my grip to scatter hot coals over the floor. A flash of red hot pain smarted my forearm.
"Argh!"
"My Pharaoh!" Shimon exclaimed, running stiffly toward me as I held my arm with my other hand and checked the damage. Kaiba's boots charged nosily across the floor to my side and in my peripheral vision I saw his long legs lash at the spilled coals to stamp them out as Shimon inspected my burn. It was bright red but small and had been quick, the shock of it prompting my reaction more than the pain itself and leaving my arm with the residual tremble of adrenaline.
"It's not too bad." Shimon concluded as he turned my limb this way and that. "A little ointment will do it a world of good."
I nodded, one eye closed against the raw stinging sensation as Kaiba fished his assault on the coals and took a quick look at it from over Shimon's shoulder. He scowled as I caught him checking up on me and rebelliously crossed his arms, which only amused me despite the situation. It distracted me as Shimon's much warmer hands clasped my own, inspecting them for a moment before look back up into my face.
"Pharaoh." Priest Shimon began sternly. It was the sort of tone I'd heard him take when he was about to give my Father unyielding and sagely council that he didn't wish to hear. "You would be better served by following the advice you gave Isis." I couldn't escape his deep gaze as he held my eyes with it and for the first time I saw an echo, of not Shimon, or Solomon Muto, but Yugi, who resembled his Grandfather so much. Those gentle purple eyes filled with concern dried up any rebuttal I had before there was time to think of one. "I will have the guards search the catacombs and everywhere else of merit." He insisted, "You must recover your own strength."
Perhaps he was right.
Even if I ignored my own limits, I still had to consider that no matter how hard I pushed myself Kaiba would follow suit, if only to prove he could. Running us both into the ground was a distinct possibility unless I tempered my instincts.
Shimon didn't relent until I finally blinked, agreeing to him and Yugi's eyes with a soft "Aha", as though I could have ever defied them.
His eyes twinkled as he smiled at me and fondly patted me twice on the hand. "Very good." With that all in place Shimon bowed to me. "Then excuse me, I shall get underway." He ambled out of the throne room with purpose and I sighed at the knowledge that I had just been bested by a master.
"That's it? You're just gonna do what he says?" Kaiba quipped in my priest's absence.
My simple reply of "Yes, I am." made Kaiba grunt in protest, but otherwise he didn't press the issue.
Few in the palace were as long-lived or as astute as Shimon. The priest was experienced in the handling of Pharaohs and shrewdly managed to often find a way to bring them around to his manner of thinking, no matter how long the endeavor took. On this occasion it was more prudent to simply agree to his terms and trust the palace guard would be up to the task of finding Andro Sphinx's casket.
"Beyond lending four more eyes to the hunt there's little difference that we can make." The reasoning was sound and practical. I suspected that Kaiba agreed though his pride would forbid him from admitting it as all he offered in reply was a huff and a sardonic remark.
"Guess there's gonna be an intermission before round two."
"It seems so." I reluctantly confirmed.
Kaiba was a warrior through and through, ever eager for battle. It surprised me therefore when on this occasion he merely hitched his shoulders in a nonchalant shrug. If even Kaiba wasn't champing at the bit for his next duel then that seemed to infer that Shimon's suggestion was indeed the correct course of action, for both of us.
"How long will Dark Renewal last for?" He took hold of my arm and turned it around to get a good look at my burn as he asked his question. The pain was easy to bare by now, until something possessed him to prod the inflamed area with his thumb and I snatched it out of his hand.
I rubbed at the sore spot and sheltered it away from his bodily incursion as I answered him. "Given the state of Mahad's body, a day. Perhaps two."
"Hnh." Kaiba's eyes flicked around the throne room for a moment, trailing up the columns and obelisks to the ceiling above. "He was an idiot to bring us back here. Our side has all the advantages."
At a first glance he was correct, but I believed there was more at work here than just what we'd seen.
"Tell me," I turned to Kaiba and he to me at the serious tone of my voice. "Have you noticed a white bird following us?"
Kaiba's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Why?" He demanded, side-stepping the question. "And if you tell me it's a sign from one of your gods I'm gonna mock you."
I glared mildly at him for his that disrespectful deadpan taunt and received only a smirk in response. Finally he gave in under my glower and rolled his eyes before answering my question with his typical surliness.
"Yes, I've seen a white bird."
"Then it's as I suspected." I drew my conclusion, feeling the pieces of it snap into place in my mind with victorious satisfaction. Magical Pigeon had been the face down card on Anubis's side of the field. It'd been there since the duel's start and likely he'd been using the form to follow us ever since. "We're here, because Andro Sphinx wants us to be here." Kaiba's eyes cut to mine, awaiting an explanation. "He's been watching us, leading us, never once striking a decisive blow against us, despite appearances to the contrary." I elaborated.
"Tch. That sounds needlessly dramatic." Kaiba grunted, "Why bother?"
"The most terrible part of necromancy and the reason it was outlawed, is that once called back from the dead the servant is powerless to defy the will of the sorcerer who raised them." I recalled for him, trying to give explain the context for my theory for someone who was not familiar with the magics of this land. "If this person is one such unwilling soul he would be unable to outright defy Anubis's wishes -"
"-So he's trying to circumvent them instead." Kaiba interrupted simply. I nodded. Kaiba was neither trained in or receptive to magic but for someone so obstinately anchored in the modern world he seemed to grasp the concepts of my time with remarkable ease.
"Exactly."
"And you think he's gonna do that by what – trapping himself in here?" There was a scowl on Kaiba's face but it hid contemplation instead of reflecting genuine anger. "I don't follow the logic."
"Nor do I." I admitted. "But I trust he will reappear and make his intentions known soon." Blinking slowly I turned away from him and back toward the exit Priest Shimon had departed from. "Until then we'll conserve our energy."
Kaiba shifted at my side, looking just as out of place in my palace now as he'd done when first storming into this chamber demanding a duel. It seemed as if so much had happened since then, in such a short amount of time. He looked simultaneously the same and incredibly different to me. His sleek hands were no longer only tools for commanding cards, but now also treasured objects that could be gently clasped and held and although his expression was as stoic as ever there was a veiled undercurrent of emotion I could almost sense churning beneath the surface.
"What now?"
His question made me pause in my contemplation of him.
The look he gave me was expectant, as though he thought I was now responsible for occupying his time somehow. All methods of doing so that came to mind weren't currently appropriate. We lapsed into silence as what remained of the throne room guards stared out impassively. I would have liked to have kissed him, to taste the connection between us again and re-strengthen it but while we had an audience – even an impartial one – that wasn't to be. Fortunately I could imagine an way to do so in a more private setting that would attract significantly less attention.
I stepped closer to Kaiba's body, near enough to slide my arm down the length of his longer one until our hands met and our fingers now instinctively meshed together. Practice was making perfect in this. I then pulled on him, taking a step backwards to lead him out of the throne room.
"Come with me."
Now that there was nothing more to be done my earlier fantasy held new merit.