Author's note: Hi guys! Here's a surprise update! I update as often as I can, but usually I only manage to do it about once a month. This week I've had some of those days where I just needed to write, so you get chapter 20 early! We're at 20 chapters and over 90,000 words, which means that this is my longest story (word wise) ever! I feel like I've reached some sort of milestone with this one!

Thanks to my reviewers for the past few chapters-I realized that I accidentally forgot to recognize you all in my previous chapters. You guys mean a lot to me. I write for my own enjoyment, but I appreciate your feedback and your encouragement! So thanks to lalalei, Yami Mayonaka, and angiembabe for your reviews of the past few chapters, and thanks to everyone else for giving Higher Stakes a chance despite the month long gaps in updates..

-TheEagerScribbler

Chapter 20: Swallowed by the sands of time

"Man. I hate research. It's so boring," Tristan whined."I've been through seventeen pages of results and not one of them has what we need!"

Joey rolled his eyes."What were you expect'in Tristan? You didn't think that they'd have a whole section just for the millenniums items did ya? That'd make things too easy."

Yugi had briefly entertained the notion of going into Egyptology and had learned how to read hieroglyphics, and now he finally had practical use for that knowledge. He briefly went through countless documents and transcripts, but so far he had only found the most vague allusions to them. He should have known that he would need that knowledge one day. What was it that the Pharaoh had once told him? Fate makes no mistakes.

He saw one that was translated as "[something illegible]...and the man trembled in terror, for the gods granted the priests power through shadows." Even when they were mentioned by name the items were known by other names. The millennium rod was at times referred to as the 'The possessor of wills" and the millennium eye was referred to as the 'the god's eye'. He should have known that no one but the holders themselves would have knowledge about their workings, and even they seemed intent on hiding what they could do. It seemed as though they would have to a lot of digging to figure out anything important.

Marik waved over his sister. "I think I've found something sister. It's not much, but I think we have a lead!"

He handed her his phone, and she scrolled down the screen to examine the text. "Whosoever holds the power of the Pharaoh holds the sevenfold power. We [Priests] were given the task of keeping it in our safekeeping in order to protect our people. I have been entrusted with the care of one sacred object..." It then went on to talk about other duties.

"I believe you're right brother."

Mai's eyes narrowed as though she were straining to find evidence where that was none. "Well that doesn't seem very helpful. He seemed to be dancing around the subject. I have a feeling that we are not going to hear a lot from him."

"If he wrote one of these reports there must be others. By the way, do you know which priest wrote it?" Maybe there was a bright side to having an ancient spirit haunt Kaiba. How could they have overlooked the fact that they have Priest Seto right there in front of them?

"Someone named Shimon. I'm afraid I don't know who that is…" Ishizu trailed as she wracked her brain for any possible information on this person. She then fingered the gleaming necklace around her neck. "I wonder…" Suddenly her eyes became unfocused as presumably tried to reach into the past using the item. Her eyes became focused again but her face held a hint of disappointment. "I'm afraid that I was unable to find anything. It feels as though something is clouding my visions."

Yugi had an idea, and he knew that Seto wouldn't like it. "Don't even think about it," he snapped.

"But Seto…"

"We can't trust him," Seto snapped. "You don't have to spent extended blocks of time with him." What exactly had he said to Seto that worried him so much. The man was nothing if not shrewd. Maybe he should take Seto's word.

So...not a word from you either, huh? Yugi thought, eyes directed towards the heavens. I wonder if he's not allowed...

The most frustrating part was that Yugi felt like they should know. It was there under their noses but they couldn't quite grasp it, and knowing that bothered him. "Shimon…"he muttered under his breath. "Are you sure that it was priest?" Yugi wondered.

"No one but a priest would have been allowed to wield such power lest they decide to use it against the Pharaoh," Ishizu explained. That made sense, but for some reason their interpretation felt wrong.

"Hey guys!" Mokuba exclaimed, looking up from his laptop at last. "What about this one? I can't say much about how well it's translated, but I think I've found something." The whole gang crowded around his mac laptop to see the document for themselves.

"Today a man was caught attempting to break into the temple. He was brought before the priests in order for his heart to be weighed, and just as we thought his soul had become infected with evil. In order to keep the infestation at bay the sacred items sealed it away using a tablet, and in the process a great beast was banished from his body. Using the god's eye to see, the ankh to enter into heart, the instrument of ma'at, and the commander of shadows, it was sealed away. The implications of the success of our experiment could lead to the total elimination of evil from Kemet."

What did all of this mean? He knew that they could be used as a conduit for shadow magic and that a person's ka could be brought to the surface using the items, but did those mean that tablets that duel monsters were based on held the souls of real people? Or were they trapped in the shadow realm? The thought made him sick to his stomach. He hoped that was not the case. Yugi had never been comfortable with the ancient concept of justice. To him it was mind boggling that a man who stole bread to survive could be sentenced to death along with a man who had committed murder.

"Uh guys? Anyone got a translation for that?" Tristan scratched his chin.

Kaiba smirked somewhat halfheartedly. The Priest must have been bothering him again."What? Still can't read above a first grade reading level Taylor?"

"Bite me Kaiba," he snapped back."

"Isn't that Wheeler's job?"

As usual Joey let Seto bait him. This time however remark lacked some of the usual ferocity. He must have been worried. Sometimes your rivals are as important as your friends to your identity, and Joey had actually grown to enjoy their verbal sparring. For Kaiba to be off his game was highly unusual. "You really wanna try me now of all times?"

Kaiba snorted. "You wouldn't win even if I was blindfolded."

" don't really have time for this mess'in around!"

Ishizu cleared her throat to get their attention. "Well said Mr. Wheeler. To answer Mr. Taylor's question, this report says that the the millennium eye, millennium key, the millennial scales, and the millennium rod were used to seal monsters born from people's souls inside of tablets."

For the first time since they had begun their research Aiko voiced a question of her own. "What does that mean Miss Ishtar? Did they literally seal souls inside of a tablet or is it some sort of metaphor for the shadow realm?"

It was almost maddening for Yugi that he probably knew the answer but had forgotten it in the twenty years since it became irrelevant to him. If he had seen something like that without a layer a glass it must have been in the Pharaoh's soul room. He hardly remembered it anymore because those memories were all very surreal-really it was more like he viewing the memory of a memory- but he could recall snatches. He recalled that it had been a maze full of stairs leading to nowhere and traps waiting to grab unsuspecting trespassers. And stone along the walls of the labyrinth. That was it! Somewhere deep within the room were stone tablets. One of which was the Dark Magician. Now that it was all coming back he could distinctly recall that the tablet radiated with power and for the first time he felt as though the Dark Magician was real and standing in the room with. If it had literally been sealed inside of a tablet then the Dark Magician would have been unable to help him. After all, the Dark Magician was a manifestation of the soul of Mahad, who had saved him more times than he cared to admit.

"Maybe it serves as a bridge to the world where duel monsters reside," Yugi said.

Akari nearly fell off the sofa's arm that she had been perched on as she tried to take another peek at the screen, which she must have had trouble seeing thanks to the height which she had (regrettably) inherited from him. "I'm just going to skip the part where I ask you if it's really true and go straight to asking what good would it do?"

Despite everything that had happened she was still so innocent. He almost didn't want to tell her, but he couldn't make a habit of lying to her. "These people were criminals, so this was a part of their punishment."

Her eyes widened in horror. "You mean death sentences? Are you telling me that your friend sentenced people to death?"

"I don't know much about his reign, but I would assume that he and his father did what they had to do," he said carefully. "If you still want to talk we can do this later. Right now we're getting off task."

"The real question is how will knowing all this benefit us? Are you going to try to seal Bakura's soul in a tablet?" That actually wasn't such a bad idea, but he had a feeling that there was nothing on earth that could contain Bakura's soul for long. He remembered the last time. The air was thick with shadow magic and Zorc towered over them in his terrible fury as Bakura picked off their allies one by one until it was just the Pharaoh standing tall against unimaginable odds. He had learned not to underestimate Bakura, and if his recent experience had taught him anything was that the Spirit of the ring was as strong as ever, on this time he'd had years to reevaluate his failed plans and the darkness had only grown.

"There has to be some way to contain him." Mokuba said.

Joey shook his head. "Where, the shadow realm? Fat lot 'o good that'd do us. At this point he is the shadows, aint he?"

"He did it once," Yugi said quietly. They all knew who he was, and in the now dead silence of the room he could feel their horror.

Tea grabbed onto his arm so hard he could feel the circulation leaving the limb."Don't say things like that Yugi! There has to be some other way!"

Yugi bowed his head in remorse. He hadn't meant to disturb anyone with his suggestion. "Sorry Tea."

"I don't understand. Exactly how did they defeat him last time?"

The room was silent for a moment when Ishizu finally answered Aiko's question. She and Marik were the only ones who were able to answer that sort of question fairly clinically-while it was true that the whole situation was very personal to them, they had grown up hearing stories and had made a career out of telling the stories of those days long passed. "With the help of the three Egyptian god cards he defended Egypt, and then he sacrificed his life, wiped his own memory, and sealed his soul inside of the millennium puzzle, which he had ordered his servants to break into pieces until the time was right for the shadow games to return.

"Oh," she squeaked. "So we need another way."

"Perhaps we can find another way to seal his soul. There's a book that might be worth looking into…" Ishizu drifted off, now lost in her thoughts.

"Maybe we should take a break before I break every damn computer in this house. If read anymore I think my eyes are gonna bleed!" Joey exclaimed.

"I didn't know that you had recently come into some money Wheeler. This laptop is a top of the line gaming laptop."

"Oh can it Kaiba! I'm not in the mood, and you can't possibly either considering, you know, your royal headache." Joey snapped.

"Yeah man, just lay off will you? We've all had a rough evening and I say that we sit back and relax for a little while so that we don't all have nightmares about you-know-who."

"Hate to break to you Uncle Tristan, but Voldemort isn't real," Akari teased

"Next thing I know you'll be telling me that Santa Claus isn't real either!"

"Well…" she trailed off.

He chuckled at her good natured teasing and ruffled her spiky hair. She tried to put it back into place but it didn't want to cooperate.

"Hey!" she squealed. "That was just uncalled for. Do you realize how hard I have to work to get it to behave?"


Seto and Mokuba left the second the discussion was over because of a call about a work emergency. The others were chatting about nothing particular, with the exception of Tea. She dragged Yugi out of the room as soon as she could in order to demand an explanation for his odd behavior. "What was that?"

"I don't know what you're talking about. You'll have to be a bit more specific than that."

"Yugi, now's really not the time to mess around with stuff like this. What was going on with you. For a split second you looked like you a seen a ghost, and then afterwards you looked like you were trying too hard to concentrate. Face it Yugi, you can't lie to me about this kind of stuff-I'm really worried about you!" She scolded.

Originally he had considered not telling her because for all he knew it was nothing and he just needed more sleep, but he had realized what a bad idea it was already."I just didn't want to say anything to the others in case I was wrong-there's no use in them being paranoid too," he explained.

Tea's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "What do you mean?"

It took him a moment to figure out how to phrase it. There weren't really words for what he saw because that would man that he understood what it was. "Did you sense anything odd tonight? Something...sinister, I mean." What Yugi felt was more instinctual than anything else, so explaining it was difficult.

Tea thought carefully. "No...I don't think I did, but maybe I missed something. You should ask someone with an item. Maybe it makes you more sensitive to that kind of stuff. Do you think if was Bakura?"

"Maybe. Maybe I just need to sleep. Especially since…" suddenly he remembered that he was supposed to discuss something with her. I had almost forgotten to tell you-I was waiting until we had some time alone. There was this kid…" He explained the whole sad situation and she immediately resolved to reach into the duel funds. She simply said, "We have to help him," as though it was obvious that anybody would do the same thing. They had plenty of money for plane tickets, so they weren't especially worried about money. A portion of it had gone into Akari's college fund, but he thought that there should be enough to help.

The phone rang right on cue. A woman hesitantly asked, "Um...Hello? Is this Turtle Game shop? I'd like to speak to Mr. Muto if he's available?"

"That would be me."

"My name is Risa Fisher, and I have you on speaker so that my husband John can hear too. Our son told us about what happened today and we wanted to apologize. There was no excuse for that behavior." Had he told them about Bakura?

"Thank you, but we're not angry. Did your son relay my message?" Yugi asked.

"Really, we don't have too-that's far too much to expect from family, much less a stranger-"

"Nonsense," Yugi cut him off. "My wife and I would like to help. Even if we help we won't be hurting for money-I've saved up 20 years worth of tournament winnings and haven't done anything with it. We have a daughter, and I can't begin to imagine what we would do if we were in your shoes. So why don't you stop by and accept the check?"

"No, please don't. We could never repay you."

Yugi stopped her before she could say anything else. "I don't expect you to. There are some things that a parent should never have to go through, so please, take the money. The only repayment that I ask for is that you treasure your time with your son." After many sleepless nights of worrying about Akari while he was kidnapped he understood the horror of the prospect of losing your child. Just thinking about it made him feel sick to his stomach.

"Please, there has to be something!"

He heard a knock on the door and was glad to have an excuse to end the conversation without insulting the woman- "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid that we're going to have to go. Have a good evening."

"Thanks, you too."

No one was there. "Hmm, must have just been some kids down the street…" He muttered to himself.

Tea walked up to him and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. "You really should to to sleep. Seeings things isn't good. Maybe the Pharaoh can help."

Yugi nodded. "You're right."

"I'll go tell everyone that you're everyone that you're going to bed."

_ "You made a wish Yugi Mutou. One. Small. Wish." the voice whispered into the darkness. "You made a wish one day when you were still a child. Tell me Yugi Mutou, Did it come true?"

Yugi woke up with a start and found himself in his soul room for the first time in years. He had so many questions, but the only that he dared voice was, "Who are you?".

The voice was silent again for a brief moment, and then it spoke. "It is not I who matters now, child. Tell me Yugi Mutou, did your wish come true?"

Without a moment's hesitation he said, "Yes," with true conviction. "I wished for friends, and shortly after I met Joey, Tristan, Tea, the Pharaoh and the others." When he pushed the last piece of the puzzle into it's rightful place he had remembered his grandfather's stories. The one who was worthy of possessing the Millennium puzzle would have one wish granted. At that point in his life he was alone. His small size, wild hair, and lack of athletic prowess made him the target for bullies and ensured that he was excluded from the other kid's games-sometimes Tea would play with him, but she still spent most of her time at school with other girls, leaving him to his own devices. For the most part he had convinced himself that he was content with the way things were, but sometimes he'd find himself lying awake in the dead of night overwhelmed by his own dread and loneliness. So when he was given the opportunity to make a wish he wished for neither money nor fame, he wished for something that he considered far more valuable-friends.

"Your wish was granted as payment for the trials that you would face ahead. Now that you have failed we hereby revoke your gift!"

Panic clawed at Yugi's stomach and throat. "No, please! I'll make everything right, please no!"

"Now now Yugi, it's not like you to throw a temper tantrum. It is time to see just how weak you are without your friends!" The voice slowly morphed into Bakura's and Yugi found himself pounding on the wall where the door to his soul room should have been.

"No!" Yugi woke with a start. He could feel his chest heaving as he sat up in bed and looked around, eyes searching for the source of the mysterious voice. It was dark so he couldn't see, but his hands frantically reached for his wife. He didn't want to wake her, but he needed to know that she was there. He could almost cry from relief when he felt her warm body slowly rising and falling underneath the quilt. "It was just a nightmare," he whispered. "That's all it was, a nightmare." Gently, so as not to disturb his wife, he climbed out of bed and headed downstairs for some tea. There was no way that he could possibly sleep after that.

He sank into the couch with his cup of tea in hand and sighed in relief. Something about the steaming cup in his hands was comforting, which Yugi was immensely grateful for. It was his first nightmare in years. He supposed that his nightmares were a normal reaction to what had just happened, but still. He heart began to pound as he thought about what he had seen. That dream seemed so real, and then there was Bakura. If the Pharaoh could manipulate dreams, why not Bakura? Could he gain that ability through his ability to manipulate the shadows? He had just touched the cup to his lips when he saw another streak of black blur past him. He nearly dropped the cup. After a calming breath he raised the cup to his lips with shaking hands. It's not real, he reminded himself yet again.

He is weak after your latest conflict. Rest with ease. The Pharaoh whispered to Yugi. Closing his eyes, he took a sip and tried to relax, pleasantly surprised that it did not take nearly as much effort as he thought after the first sip. As he began to relax he could feel his eyelids slowly trying to close, so he put the cup aside and closed his eyes with the hope of pleasant dreams to erase the memory of the nightmare that had woken him that night.


Meanwhile...

That night Bakura found himself furiously scratching on paper in another motel at 4 am. He didn't know how to write in his previous life, but he had since learned and he marveled at how useful it was for planning.

So it seemed that Yugi had yet again managed to secure divine intervention. He cursed the man under his breath. He had proven to more of a thorn in his side than he had originally thought. With that damned pharaoh out of the way Yugi should have been the easiest to get out of the way. But somehow he not only had the most incredible luck that Bakura had ever seen, the man had also developed a spine. Summoning the Servants of a god? Daring to make his ka manifest? Daring to stand against him even after his friends had fallen. A smirk found its way onto his face without even realizing it. Yugi was so much more interesting now. Lately he had discovered that he rather enjoyed playing with his food before he ate it. While their most recent clash had been annoying it was hardly a setback. Yes it was true that he needed rest for now, but he would not need to be out of the game for long. As it was he already had one plan in motion.

He was no fool-somehow the power of the items would need to be united to defeat him, so he had to act swiftly. He already had some rather interesting plans for his dear old friends. All he needed was to take away one link to break the chain. They were already missing one item thanks to Bakura's quick thinking, so if he took another item they would be that much weaker.

The new girl seemed like the easiest prey. She was obviously still wet behind the ears because she was the slowest and clumsiest to act. This time he smiled his first genuine smile in weeks. Fresh blood was already such a treat.

Author's Note:

The past few chapters have been a little slow, but I promise that it will pick up in the next chapter. I have a feeling that the next few will probably be a little bit longer than this one (which is about 10 pages). I feel bad for poor Yugi, don't you? He just can't seem to catch a break.

-TheEagerScribbler