A Past and Future Pharaoh

Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix

Original Beta: White Swan

Current Beta: Me.

A/N: Omg finally finished the the two part ending to this arc that was a complete 100% overhaul from the original. I hope this is better for you guys, I'm so ashamed of the original version, and if you read the original and came here for the lulz and are now confused by the change. Thank you so SO much for sticking with me until I got my head on straight!

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Yugi found himself in a world of darkness that lacked any of the feeling of threat he had been experiencing. Instead it was peaceful and he could hear the far distant whirl of the desert winds and flicker of flames from the torches. It was pleasant enough, felt safe enough, that he started to slip into an actual nap. One he needed given how confused his body was regarding the time of day, or night, and the physical condition he was in.

There was a sound of a faint distant hiss, and icy cold hands that ran up his body as the scents of the desert faded back. A jumble of voices erupted out of the darkness, calling his name and he found himself forced to open his eyes. For which he was rewarded by his Kuriboh staring at him almost nose to nose in closeness, if Kuriboh had a nose. Instinct made Yugi reach for the Spirit and when one arm protested he dropped that hand and used the other.

Kuriboh served as a good block of the light from the room, the florescent light would have been painful if he just opened his eyes to it directly. So Yugi managed to push himself into a sitting position and look about with Kuriboh hovering down about chest level so he could see the room. Which revealed to him the whole gang that had arrived. Mahaado was by his side, though the top of the pod kept Yugi from seeing Mahaado's face, the robes were certainly a reminder. From there it was Anzu then Bakura, Malik, Isis and with Jounouchi standing opposite of Mahaado around the pod.

Given they were there, Yugi figured it was safe to assume that Mokuba was with Kaiba. Which would be great because he needed visual confirmation that the kid was safe. "Welcome back Yugi, you had all of us deeply worried," Isis greeted with a slight smile curling her lips as she made eye contact with Yugi.

"Yeah, let me out of this pod," Yugi answered, releasing his Kuriboh so he could grab an available arm. Jounouchi grabbed the extended appendage and helped him climb out and his body was not happy with him in the sudden shift of movement. Yet it wasn't from laying back in a chair for multiple hours as he might have expected. Rather it was the stiff pained movements of someone who had repeatedly been struck or thrown around.

Always impressive to think that Kaiba could inflict that type of damage that lasted. But he was out of the pod, standing in the 'real' world, surrounded by his friends and not a room littered with the corpses of friends. Though there was this nagging question in the back of his mind, 'was' this the real world? Or was he just in another simulation that took into account the events happening outside the pods and in the real world?

"Is Kaiba alright?" Yugi asked trying to look about the pods to see if Kaiba was up and about yet.

"Why shouldn't I be?" Kaiba demanded from the other side of the pods, not allowing others to answer for himself.

"I'm glad!" Yugi answered as his hand ghosted up to his injured shoulder and gave it a good rub while flexing his fingers. "I think I need to learn some form of self defense, given that experience."

"Pharaoh would have been trained in such before," Mahaado pointed out.

"He's not a Pharaoh, you one track minded magician," Kaiba snapped in irritation as he came into view.

"Kaiba!" Anzu automatically retorted, it wasn't even in a true disciplined tone, rather an instinctual reminder for Kaiba to 'try' and be nice to people. But at the same time her visual study of Yugi's condition only made her shake her head. "Yugi, I'm just glad you don't have all the bruises you should have given what Kaiba did."

"Yeah, I was getting read outs on your health points and when Yugi just started dropping rapidly," Mokuba added as he finally became visible to Yugi.

So now the whole group was cloistered around a single Pod and Yugi was able to see each person and make sure they were ok. Even if he wasn't positive that he was properly awake.

"Now that you're out, care to explain what was going on?" Malik demanded, his arms crossed and giving Kaiba this expectant look.

"Yeah, cuz there are things you need to know bout whats' in this building," Jounouchi added with this slouching posture as he leaned against the tower the pods were connected to.

"And why should I?" Kaiba retorted on instinct, ever displeased at anyone beneath him demanding information out of him off the cuff.

"Because there's a dead body in the building," Jounouchi snarked right back, causing Yugi to turn and even Anzu and Bakura reacted in surprise.

"Wait what?" Anzu asked with Bakura's gaze going about the room and centering where no one was standing, as though he was taking being told something.

"Yeah, so you first Kaiba, we need to see where what you went through connects with what happened before," Malik answered while his sister had shifted into a quiet prayer for the dead body.

Kaiba's response to the mention of a dead body was to freeze momentarily in surprise, before the corners of his mouth slipped down into their usual displeased expression. "I want to see the body."

Jounouchi was a bit surprised at how Kaiba just readily accepted that there was a corpse in the building with them. Mokuba had been outraged at the suggestion earlier, insisting that such a thing was impossible. Yet Kaiba held this stoic expression of someone who believed them out of hand, no reaction or protest just acceptance. He didn't even have a facial expression to express an emotion beyond the expectation that they would just take him there.

"If that's what it will take Seto," Isis answered for everyone and turned her steps to the door leading them out of the room. She had already been brought to the body, when Mokuba had protested at the idea that such a thing could exist. And finding it had been true she had offered prayers then as well, but that the soul was trapped in a machine? Some might think her foolish for her willingness to believe a soul could exist inside a computer. But she had proof that a soul could be trapped inside a Sennen Puzzle and Ring for three thousand years.

She wasn't putting anything past what a computer could do, who was to say that a soul was unable to be trapped inside a computer? Behind her she heard the others fall into step, with Anzu explaining that no one talked about what they experienced because they unitedly believed it was best to wait for Yugi and Kaiba to wake up. For all the information that they had to share, going over it twice seemed unpleasant. Perhaps better to say it once and be done with it.

The room that Jounouchi and Malik found was left mostly undisturbed, so much so that Mokuba had originally wanted them to find some flashlights. But Mahaado had pointed out he had a light spell that could be used, despite his title as the 'Dark' Magician. So soon the group found themselves squeezing into a room lit by Mahaado's spells and forced to stomach what they just heard.

In the faint light before, the reality had been subdued, somehow just not seeing enough of the body had been a comfort. Only now in the brilliant white light that Mahaado created, hovering above his extended hand they saw a gruesome truth.

"Noa!" Anzu whimpered before she turned away from the pod and tucked her face against Yugi's chest. At some point he got his coat back on, and with Kuriboh hovering near him, Yugi was free to use his good arm to hold Anzu.

And while he was able to stand there and 'look' there was a quiet, pained sympathy that existed on his face. Showing that they knew who this body was, or at least who they expected it belong to, and unknowingly were right about.

"He wanted to take over Kaiba's body," Bakura finally explained, his eyes a dull type of acceptance, as though what he saw was something he was used to. Or just jaded beyond all remorse at this point.

"And here's the proof as to why," Anzu voiced though she hadn't turned around from Yugi's chest. "The cover is broken, someone shot him? Why? That body is a 'child'! Who... it would be like shooting 'Mokuba'!"

Mokuba clung to his brother, though Isis had checked the room, Mokuba had stayed behind in the pod room. Just as much to hide from a terrible sight as to continue monitoring his brother and the others' condition. Now?

"There are files, recording how Kaiba, Noa was in an accident, that the pod you see was meant to preserve his mind. His body was ruined, they did what they could to try to sustain his body and let the computer maintain his mind." Isis began to diplomatically prepare the group for the next part of the files.

"And later he adopted us so he could use me as a host body," Kaiba followed it up with a cold voice. Only to add with a vicious self directed sneer, "and here I thought I was being clever, but the most I could do was get Mokuba out of the orphanage."

Jounouchi choked at what he just heard, he didn't need a degree in computers or medicine to understand what 'host body' meant. Just watch enough movies and the obviousness was right there for anyone. "Yeah, and the thing was that someone that he pissed off went and snuck in, so the kids' been dead..."

"And truly all we faced in the computer was a Ghost in the machine, the systems would have alerted his mind that his body was fully dead. Which would explain his desperation to take over Kaiba's body. He had nothing left, his body is too rotted..." Bakura vocalized, "And thus explaining his vanity and his ability to dismiss the rights of the living."

"This is so sad... I know what he was trying to do was terrible, but he was a kid. I thought he picked that form more to play on our sympathy. I didn't realize he was a kid trapped in the computer all this time," Anzu expressed as she shivered. Her comforting thoughts that he was as old as Kaiba and possibly died in the past two or three years...

"Realistically that wouldn't have been possible, or you would have known about him given the prominence that the Kaiba name has in the city." Kaiba rationalized for her his eyes taking in the decomposed body. The chill of the rooms to maintain the computer tech allowed his body to retain some of its flesh, it hadn't rotted away into a skeleton or poisoned the air with the decay. "But he didn't understand, my system wasn't the same as this."

"How is it different?" Malik asked as he shivered from the chill in the room and the corpse resting so close to them in that pod.

Kaiba extended one hand from his crossed armed posture to point to the head of Noa's corpse. "Those cords? They're connecting to the brain directly, he's pretty much hardwired into the computer so its an extension of himself. My program was just a hologram system, he couldn't possess people the way he was expecting when he first began. Hence why he started trying to come up hypnosis back up plan. Downside is that there 'is' no way to do what he's looking to have done on a moral standpoint."

"What about coma patients? I don't get most of what's going on but if he needs a host..." Jounouchi asked quizzically.

"Because people still have their souls and identities, just because they can't respond to the world around them doesn't mean they're not alive." Yugi explained as he looked down at the top of Anzu's head. "Noa should have been allowed to pass on in peace, and instead he was dragged through a computer. Given a false hope filled promise of a new life and the limitlessness of the computer systematically dismantled his humanity."

"So what do we do now?" Mokuba asked as Kuriboh floated over and gave him a snuggle to comfort him by.

"How do we even approach the fact that there was a dead body in here? Doesn't this warrant some type of police investigation?" Bakura asked, because of course the reincarnated Thief would think of the police.

"Wouldn't it be for the best to lay him with his father?" Mahaado finally spoke up after quietly observing everyone else's conversation.

"Well, yes in the end that's where he should go," Yugi confessed turning to look at Mahaado, before looking back at the body. "But what of the guy who killed him? And how do we even put him there?"

"That's not our concern, what affected Gozoboro and Noa has long since lapsed by any law. And only causes more complications in our lives, teach your magician the burial rites of Japan and let him lay Noa to rest at Gozoboro's grave." Kaiba answered pragmatic and whatever empathy he may have had seemingly to dwindle rapidly away.

The room suddenly exploded at the sudden 'go ahead and make Mahaado fix everything' indifference of Kaiba's 'suggestion'. Calling him out for the insensitivity of the subject to making Mahaado some glorified Deus Ex Machina that Kaiba gave no attention to.

"Its fine really," Mahaado began when he realized no one was really listening to him. His eyes closed in this familiar style like when Mana was opting not to pay attention. His resignation to his fate was as endearing as Isis gave a slight amused smile.

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Somehow they survived the night, able to get things sorted out and returned to their own homes and beds. And Yugi found it in those dreams of Ancient Egypt that reaffirmed his place in the real world and freed from the game that he had entered before. But he also now sported the bruises that reminded him of what he had been doing the day before, and what he had subjected himself to as well. Though if riding a motorcycle in the real world was like it was in the game, at least he learned a new skill in the trade off.

"Yugi you look like hell," Mokuba greeted Yugi for breakfast with such an uplifting statement.

"I bathed, I'm not naked, what more do you want from me?" Yugi countered before dropping into his seat and promptly wincing at the pain. "Also your brother doesn't know how to subdue anyone does he? Just take downs and bone breaking force that one."

"The holograms didn't bother with submission moves, it was be fatal or continue being bothered," Kaiba pointed out without looking up from his newspaper. "Just tell people you and Anzu like it rough."

Yugi began waving his hands as though to say 'there is a CHILD in the room' while Mokuba started giggling. Seriously what was Kaiba 'teaching' his little brother? Was there no basement floor on the levels of what children could be taught with the guy?

"Also I will be leaving soon to Colorado so I can have some time to work on the KaibaCorp Grand Prix in peace." Kaiba announced to the table in general, as he folded up his news paper and took stock of the pair with him. Yugi looked indifferent and Mokuba a little anxious, but it made sense given that Yugi would automatically assume that Mokuba was coming with Kaiba. "By myself, I'm entrusting my little brother to the protection of yourself and that magician of yours."

Yugi looked floored and then began looking between the two just to make sure that he was hearing things right. "Wait, you're actually going to entrust Mokuba to us? There's a catch right? Setting up cameras all over the house? Or guns?" Yugi asked as the enormity of the weight of responsibility Kaiba was entrusting him with settled in his head. "You're not going to hover over us are you? Like call every hour wanting a status report or something?" Yugi added.

"Fine, I'm entrusting him to Mahaado, and you can do whatever so long as you keep your Mage out so he can do the job." Kaiba retorted as the maids began to carry in breakfast on silver trays.

"Always wondered what this place would look like under a black light," Yugi returned but shrugged all the same before looking at Mokuba. "Don't worry, you'll come out of this ok. Maha and I won't let anyone hurt you."

"Maybe the servants will teach you drinking games," Mokuba suggested as one of the maids began putting food on his plate, her cheeks a light blush. "They won't teach me."

"Drinking games.. Yugi. Learning. Drinking. 'Games'." Kaiba had to stop and enunciate that for his younger brother slowly... Just to remind the kid that Yugi was the stylized 'King of Games', it wouldn't go well if anyone taught him 'those'. "In fact, thank you for telling me that, so I have one more instruction for the servants."

"Awwwww..." That was Mokuba and Yugi.