A Past and Future Pharaoh

Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix

Beta: originally by White Swan

A/N: OMG another chapter that sucked! I'm so touched that you guys could see the spirit of what I was trying to say and stuck through it until I got better! I hope this isn't as painful for anyone new who comes across this fic!

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No one came.

The only sound the air carried was the crackle of fire from the burning helicopter that eventually died out as all the burnable fuel was exhausted. The light of the sun replaced the light of the fire, and still Anzu didn't stir in his arms. But of course that was a fools hope, she was dead and there was nothing he could do. He wasn't an investigator, so he didn't know how the helicopter got taken down. It could have easily been from some kind of attack outside the copter as it was a planted bomb. After all the helicopter was parked with no outside damage that he could recall.

Perhaps it was on the other side of where he was sitting, but he didn't want to get up. Yugi wanted so badly to believe that if he just sat there time would freeze, and no one else would be proven dead. And he 'knew' there were corpses, the empty street was proof for him. Anzu came here with Mokuba and there was no one out here, even if they were inside the building they should have come out by now. Unless Mokuba was scared away and on the run, the very idea that he could 'not' hear an explosion seemed impossible.

So either Mokuba had been kidnapped, killed, or was on the run to avoid the first two options. After all the bomb went off 'after' the pair got out of the helicopter apparently. Well, there was one way to find out two possible scenarios outcomes, so he gently picked Anzu up into his stiff arms. Ignoring the protests from his already exhausted legs and his stiff from the cold arms.

But he wasn't going to leave her out here for the bugs and whatever else to find her. So he carried her with him to the doors and pulled them open awkwardly. But for all the struggle he refused to let her be banged against the door carelessly. Once he got her into the reception area he brought her to the couch and laid her out in as much of a comfortable position as he could.

He stood there looking down at her for a time, with thoughts that just drifted through his mind like clouds in the sky. Yugi couldn't grasp the thoughts, hold them, but they whispered that it was his fault. If he had stayed where he was, waited like a good boy, than when the pair arrived... When they arrived... Would the bomb still have gone off? Would he have died along side them, or would his presence alone been enough to save them?

Somehow he managed to tilted his body back enough that his foot shot out to keep him from falling over. It was the first motion to help him develop the momentum to walk away from Anzu and search for Mokuba.

"You're going to love this game Yugi! My Big Brother worked hard on the coding and it's very close to playing in another world!"

"Yeah Mokuba, it was a great game," Yugi spoke into the silence surrounding him, craving some form of living sound to fight the silence and the noise in his own head.

"Hey you're pretty good, we didn't think you would get that far so fast on your own."

"Not fast enough it seems." He recalled the conversation after he took the mandatory break. Since the system wasn't meant to run non stop, due to the complex nature of the game. The visual manipulation, the restricted sitting position, all of it was unhealthy if done for too long.

"You know Yugi, I'm glad you're living with us."

"Oh? Why was that?"

"Because now with you there the mansion isn't so lonely anymore when my Big Brother is out."

"I wonder if your brother will even want to see my face after this."

Yugi carried the dialogue alone as he walked down the hallway, while he returned to the lab where he had been for apparently 'days'. He could see the double doors in the distance and as tall as he was now? The doors were approaching him a lot faster than he would have appreciated. The doors were marked without words, as Kaiba expected his employees to know where they were going.

He reached the lab with the pods and upon pushing open the doors he could already tell one change. The scent of blood that drifted on the air like a dark cloud causing Yugi to release the door and let it swing back into place. Mokuba was a 'child'! Just the thought of pushing open the doors and seeing Mokuba dead was just so painful, as the feeling of uselessness and guilt began to build in him.

Yugi couldn't even tell how long he was standing there before he could even make the effort to go on. When he finally 'did' push the doors open, the gut punch wasn't lessened at all with knowing what was in the room. Even the idea that maybe it was someone 'other' than Mokuba seemed frivolous. It was this feeling in his gut that just told him that was how this was going to play out.

So seeing Mokuba lying at the controls with blood and a bullet hole in his back didn't surprise him at all. It just made the pain all the deeper as turned to the wall and his eyes caught sight of his coat. The coat he forgot in his hurry to catch his ride, and probably would need now. If for no other reason than to combat the chill that had settled in his core.

"Hey Mokuba, sorry that I wasn't here when you got back," Yugi spoke to the corpse in the center of the room. Yugi dropped down into a sitting position with his back against the wall next to his long leather coat. Before awkwardly pulling out Anzus' diary, flipping it back five days to see if that was where the madness began.

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Dear Diary,

Everything had been going so well yesterday. Jounouchi, Malik, Bakura and I went to the hospital as a show of support to Honda when he went in for his surgery. Everything was fine, the doctors told us that in a couple of days Honda should notice an improvement in the amount of sounds he could hear, and with that we left. But as we were leaving the hospital Mokuba called me on my Cell, he said something bad had happened to Yugi, that Yugi hadn't woken up after winning the game. He sent the limo and by the time we got there we found Kaiba was researching the coding. But Jounouchi, ever the impulsive one, figured we would get Yugi out faster if we got into the game itself. After all, we all had our decks, even my novice level deck; at least we thought we had our decks.

We shouldn't have listened to him.

Bakura insisted that he come along, despite not being a duelist his proficiency with Role Playing Games would help. I should have remembered that Bakura likes Role Playing Games and that Duel monsters weren't something 'he' had played before. I should have remembered that it was the other personality that had been playing through out the Battle City tournament. But my only thoughts had been about finding Yugi and Bakura paid the price for my carelessness.

He knew about the nature of a role-playing game, enough that he managed to guide us through all the pitfalls that we encountered, in exchange we fought all the battles for him. Though we didn't know that's what we were doing, we didn't realize he didn't have a deck at all, and this game expected you to at least have a starter deck. Jounouchi and I figured he was too scared to fight, so we fought for him, but we reached the Labyrinth and that's where we lost him.

We were running from a tank and turned a corner, Bakura was behind me; I know he was. Suddenly we heard a scream and when we looked back, Bakura was gone and Mokuba had us yanked out of the game. I came back to my senses and left the pod to find Kaiba and Malik working on Bakura, applying CPR on the teen while Mokuba talked rapidly into a radio.

We lost Bakura; the only thing that we could figure was that the shock from the VR death caused heart failure. I don't remember much after that, just, I guess I lost my head for a while, I took it out on Kaiba and said things that I didn't mean. Kaiba isn't anything like the person we first met over a year ago, despite how he acts, he 'has' changed. I tried to apologize for what I had said later on, but he wouldn't listen. Nor would he let us back into the game, deciding that Bakura's passing was one life too many for this, and no amount of arguing was going to sway the Ice Prince.

Sunday came around and we were lost in our own little worlds, Malik was silent over on his side, Jounouchi was wound up like a spring set to go off. I couldn't blame him either, since all this began Kaiba had worked on the computer trying to figure out what happened to Yugi. Though Jounouchi started off by yelling at Kaiba there really wasn't anything he could do. Going into the game gave us something to do, a place to focus our efforts in saving Yugi, but it cost us Bakura.

Jounouchi and I are not computer experts, there was nothing that either of us could do, but put our trust in Kaiba's hands. We were stuck sitting there listening to the incessant taping of fingers on keys, hoping for a miracle out of Kaiba. We hadn't left the building all night, when morning came the Ishtars came to collect Malik and eventually we left as well. Isis told us to have faith in Yugi, that he would be ok, but she tried to avoid looking at Bakura's body. We all did actually; because yeah, he wasn't in a morgue for a while, Kaiba didn't want this getting out at the time. I still don't want to think about Bakura being dead. I don't want to think that Yugi could end up dead like him. I wanted to think it was all a terrible nightmare and when I woke up this morning back there. I wanted to believe today was Saturday and we were going to see Honda off, but Bakura is still dead and Yugi still asleep. Please God, if this is a dream, let me wake up.

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"And you did Anzu, I'm sure you woke up in a wonderful place surrounded by those who love you," Yugi choked out before bursting into fresh tears. The book fell from numb fingers, as Yugi broke down at what he had read, not even bothering with the rest of the diary. Yugi knew the Labyrinth that Anzu had mentioned, there were tanks in there to force the player to go forward and find the exit. It was just a game! Kaiba didn't make the game to kill people, so how could Bakura possibly have died during it? Then again, what did Yugi know? There was no logical explanation for why Yugi had fallen asleep for almost a week in a pod. More then likely there was an explanation or the start of one in the later parts of the Diary, but Yugi couldn't find the strength to even lift up the book. He just sat there mourning Bakura's passing, even more so the mere fact that he was to blame for that passing.

Well there 'was' a possibility if he was going to go down the darkest of rabbit holes in terms of possibilities. If the group who bombed his home was good enough to hack into Kaibas' systems and take over. Then it made all sorts of of sense if that was the case. It was just a little gnat of a thought that buzzed about his grief, incessant, bothersome, and possible.

He lost track of time as he grieved, but deep down in the core of that grief a flame flickered into life. He promised Kaiba that he wouldn't back down from anyone who tried to hurt him anymore. That he would stand up for himself and fight back, so that his friends wouldn't get hurt. Whoever may not have been aiming at Yugi, but they had killed those close to him, and Yugi decided it was time to truly live up to his promise to Kaiba.

He had to find Kaiba; the last page stated that Kaiba had created the program, so he had to still be alive right? But even as the thought entered his mind another thought reared its ugly head into his mind. Kaiba wouldn't send his brother into a clearly dangerous situation on his own and the city had been abandoned for some reason. If the city was empty, there was no reason for the helicopter to be blown up or for Mokuba to have been shot unless there was still someone in the city. He had to get to Kaiba's mansion and if no one was still in the city there was no transit for him to take.

Yugi dragged himself to his feet and began what was going to be a 'very' long walk to Kaiba mansion when a thought occurred to him. Malik didn't take his motorcycle back to Egypt with him; if the tank was still full or even partially full he could use that to get back to Kaiba's mansion faster, or at least take off some of the distance he would have to walk. There was a payphone near the docks so he could call Kaiba from there as well!

With that in mind, he gathered up Mokuba and brought him to Anzu so the child wasn't by himself. Slipped on his coat and pulled out his hair so he could make the trek to the docks. All the while hoping that the bike was still there and that Malik hadn't taken it with him when he would have, ultimately, left the city. He pulled out the diary as a distraction from the painfully boring walk, deciding to update himself on recent events.

So by the time he reached the docks his knuckles were split and coated in dried blood from all the times he had slammed his fists into walls. Buildings that he passed became victims of his growing anger as he finished reading Anzu's Diary. It didn't matter if he took the bike, the Ishtars were all dead thanks to a bomb at the museum.

Now he had to find the rest of the gang, try to find out who had come back into the city so that they could leave with their lives. The fact that he had a plan of sorts didn't appease his growing anger at the situation he was in. The pain in his fingers as he opened his hand was ignored as another burden, ready to break locks if he had to in order to get to the bike. His mind replayed where Malik slipped the keys to the bike inside the warehouse before they left for Egypt a year ago.

A growing rage that was making it hard to see anything that wasn't in front of him as he counted down the warehouses on the dock. The whole city was unnaturally silent now that everyone had been evacuated after more bombs began going off in Domino. Leaving Yugi to wondering inwardly how long before anyone would come to investigate the situation. Anzu had pretty much been on radio silence since she came back into the city, and there was no telling what the government was going to do to rectify the situation.

He idly picked up a crowbar as he found the warehouse that Malik had used for his motorcycle. Yugi jammed the crowbar into the lock of the huge door and began jerking it back and forth with increasing force until blood began to trickle anew from his knuckles. Yet after a bit of work the lock finally gave up to him, giving him access to the warehouse once he got the large gate up.

The warehouse had the musty scent of unchanged air, nowhere near as bad as a tomb in Egypt, but still, Yugi backed up and waved a hand from the smell. The place was dusty, as was to be expected of a warehouse of this size. But there was the bike resting where Malik left it near the wall, with the key hanging on a nail inside a cabinet off to the side. He rolled the bike out into the daylight, steeling himself up for this ride. Motorcycles didn't come with instructions and Yugi had never thought about driving a motorcycle before, due to his, former, height. Now he could straddle a bike with ease, his hands reaching the bars without trouble, and he was supposed to drive from the coast to Kaiba's mansion on a bike. At least with a car he had something of an idea about how to drive it, but a motorcycle? He closed his eyes once with a brief pause for a prayer before he turned the key in the ignition.

Just realizing the gas was in the steering system and not the pedals was a surprise. Slowly he learned to apply gas and keep the bike steady as it carried him, rumbling rather beautifully under him. In fact, he felt that if he wasn't so angry or depressed he would have enjoyed riding a motorcycle. But it wasn't like cartoons; he didn't pick up the skill to drive the bike in a few moments. It was at least an hour before he could comfortably pick up enough speed to be considered 'driving'.

The wind ripped and pulled on his coat tails as he rode through on the bike aiming for Kaiba's mansion. He couldn't help but admire the power of riding on a motorcycle. Cars were like riding in a tank, he was protected on all sides by the walls of the car; a bike had no such thing, if he screwed up he was going to probably kill himself. At the very least leave him heavily injured or at worst possibly dead on a street in an abandoned city.

Which was why he didn't jump on it and assume that the way he saw it on TV was the correct way. He was lucky that he didn't have any bugs hit his body or his face as he rode along; he had gone a slow pace at first to get the feel of how to balance himself on the bike. And now he was driving above speed limits, ignoring traffic lights, slowing only to make turns out of Domino City and towards the mansion where Kaiba probably, hopefully, was.

Buildings gave way to trees; logical left and right turns became gentle curves and slopes until in the distance he could see Kaiba's mansion as a break among them. A part of Yugi feared the rapidly approaching moment, the moment he would have to tell Kaiba that his brother was dead, and that there was a murderer in Domino City. Yugi drove up to the mansion gates, punching in the pass code to open them, letting him in to the expansive grounds that showed slight signs of neglect.

More then likely Kaiba had allowed the servants to go when the evacuation began, yet why would he let Mokuba stay behind? Couldn't he entrust the child to the servants, or one of the gangs' family? Yugi rode the bike up to the front door and parked the bike as he worried over that very question. Yugi rushed to the door, grabbing the doorknob before falling on his face, the expectation that the door would serve as a brake fell frighteningly short. His grip on the knob wasn't hard enough, his hands to slick with sweat causing him to fall when the door swung eerily forward, and landing hard on his left side.

The door wasn't shut, or locked for that matter. That fact alone froze Yugi into lying on the ground and gazing at it for a moment as it idly swung forward from the wall in response to the force Yugi put into opening it. 'I was just going to open the door; I didn't even turn the knob! I was sure it was locked, and I'd have to knock or ring the bell!' Fear gripped Yugi's heart as he lay there; he pushed himself to his knees as he looked around the mansion.

"KAIBA!" he called out, his eyes scanning the ground and second floor from the front door, seeking a sign for the CEO. Zeroing in on the only place he could think Kaiba to be, his office. His heart was pounding in his chest, distracting his ears that strained for the sound of someone alive in the mansion. There was no butler, nor maids, Kaiba hadn't responded to his cry increasing Yugi's fear till all he saw was the door.

"Kaiba!" Yugi flung open the door and froze. The chair had been knocked to the side, the laptop shattered on the ground against a wall where it had been thrown, with papers resting cast about the floor. The desk was the only thing that didn't looked wrecked from the distance that Yugi stood, but it didn't matter. Kaiba was lying on the ground facing Yugi, his eyes open and vacant with clear bruises forming on his face. He was dressed the same all black attire from Battle City sans coat…Someone had been in the mansion and that someone had beaten and killed Kaiba. "How dare they…"

It may have had nothing to do with Yugi; it may have been about the people who had kidnapped the Kaibas earlier. But at that moment, the only thing that went through Yugi's mind was unbridled rage. First his grandpa and mother at the Game Shop, then Bakura, in the VR world, the Ishtar's in the museum, then Anzu with Mokuba at the tech labs, now Kaiba in his own home?

This was more then he could bear, the pain inside unfurled like a war banner, his anger a snake uncoiling and arousing after a long slumber in the presence of heat born of outrage. He wasn't a small child in size anymore, and he might have lacked the Sennen Puzzle or his Other Self. But he wasn't a weakling, and even if he had to do this alone, he was going to show them!

Stumbling over to Kaiba, Yugi gathered the dead CEO in his arms, tears flowing down his face before he let the rage and sorrow come out in a scream. Someone was paying for this…