Yu-Gi-Oh: A Past and Future Pharaoh
Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
Beta By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
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He really didn't like hospitals. From his mother and sisters' deaths, his childhood friends falling into comas that lasted ages, all the way to the surgery that Honda had gone through. While Bakura himself didn't have 'bad' experiences in hospitals, save the occasional waking up in one. He just felt reluctant to be in one. His health had been fine enough that a small clinic was all he ever really needed.
Jounouchi was hiding behind his deck, going over cards needlessly so he didn't have to look around. All three showing various behaviors that allowed Bakura to focus on them rather than the expansive parking outside the emergency room. Jounouchi having been visiting hospitals for his sister and then Honda would obviously have no desire to be in a hospital. Where as Malik only experienced it most recently, again because of Honda.
Mahaado, on the other hand, having long since been dead expressed no interest in his surroundings. Appearing instead to be quietly meditating off to the side sitting on a bench, odd though for one who had been sleeping for ages to seek a state of quiet thoughts. Guarding tombs when he wasn't guarding the Pharaoh. One would think he would show more interest in the modern houses of healing, given they weren't temples to Sekhmet. Yet there he was, quietly meditating or at least giving that impression. But what did Bakura really know? Maybe Mahaado was just putting himself into a type of 'sleep mode' since there was nothing going on. Or internally going over his own spell list so he could decide on the ones he would use on Bakura if given half the chance.
Blue Eyes might have been a mighty dragon, but she wasn't being kept on call 24/7.
"You guys made it!" George called out as he stuck his head out of the hospital and waved to the group. Earning Bakura's most profound WTF expression he could muster. George was dressed in his Magician's best, black pants, white top with black coat and red cummerbund. All he needed was a top hat and it was possible that there 'was' one.
Was... was he and by proxy his brother 'performing' this whole time in the hospital?!
"You know..." Jounouchi began quietly, his tone as flabbergasted as Bakura felt and that was to say nothing of Malik.
George looked positively sheepish as he began to quickly walk towards them, "so we got here early and well... We've kinda been doing an impromptu show in the hospital's children ward ever since. Sorry. I mean we figured you'd come in and ask, but it started getting late and I thought maybe you might not have sooo.."
"Are we leaving now?" Mahaado discreetly asked Malik, deciding that the expressions on Jounouchi and Bakura's faces justified not asking them.
"I suppose," Malik answered as George's gaze landed on them then fixated on Mahaado with a quizzical look.
"Ahh yes, that's Mahaado, the Priest we spoke to you about," Bakura explained as the moved to join up with George. Then turning to said priest, Bakura gave the introductions, noting George's slight albeit justified curiosity. But if he had questions he kept them to himself allowing the stage magician to meet a true magician for the first time in his life.
"Well come this way, I'll take you up so we can collect Fred. Again I apologize, father and uncle made it a bit of a tradition. Of visiting the hospital and putting on a show during holidays for the people who couldn't leave. We kinda adopted it before everything went down and because we were going to be here. I mean, how do you turn down small children?" George continued, while his brain tried to process this 'priest'. 'Certainly not what I expected, I kind of thought he would be in some type of ceremonial garb or something. Like Catholic priests do, but he looks no different than anyone else, I mean he looks as young as these guys, so how is he a priest?'
"You need not apologize, it would be better that you're time was spent uplifting children than just sitting around," Bakura agreed. "More over we have learned a few things that... well its better that you have that done so we won't be interrupted."
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The room was a plain, soft cream color with hard white boarders, tired tiled floor and thick, reinforced windows. Plain and uninteresting in all manners when the patient was first admitted. But her family kept the small spaces they could painted in the bright colors of flowers. A book was resting on a nearby table that was read to her daily. A sign that she was still very much loved and cared for. Clothes from home were resting on the side, and all of this was positioned around her. Surrounding her in things she would remember from home.
It was in this room that the group found Fred. Dressed as his brother he stood by their mothers' bedside, holding her hand and rubbing it. Trying to keep the warmth in it beyond the 'oh hey still got a pulse' tepid level. He looked up to see the group step inside, taking note of the one stranger among them. 'Is that the guy they were talking about?' Fred wondered as he saw the stranger looking at him, noting how young the stranger looked. Though his eyes seemed older than his peers.
'Wait... he 'is' looking at me, right?' Fred wondered...
"I'm afraid the rooms in the ward don't have doors due to the nature of its patients," George explained apologetically as they stepped inside. Moving to join his brother so that their mother was between them.
"Uh well, no door huh?" Jounouchi repeated easily enough before turning to look at the door frame. Perplexed on how to keep staff from hearing what was bound to be an 'interesting' story for them.
"We need more privacy?" Mahaado asked simply, casually turning to look at the door as well as though it was of no consequence. Once Bakura and Jounouchi wordlessly affirmed his question, he reached up and covered his lips with his fingers before reaching out to the door.
For the others they merely saw what appeared as though he touched his lips then reached out and made a circle as though locking a door. Followed by a casual, "there, no sound shall leave this room for others to hear. Those that walk by will merely see illusions of us talking as well, as I do not doubt I will be performing spells that will be visible."
Mahaado turned to look at the group with the expected confusion on the faces of the twins, their mother on the other hand...
"That's it? It can't be that simple..." Fred walked straight to the door, his eyes shrewdly studying the door frame.
Mahaado merely stepped to the side, allowing the man to walk by. With a placid expression on his face, the type that knew that his spells would be tested.
"What does the room look like?" George asked, not sure if he should follow his brother.
"Hey, so George wants to know what did you do to the room," Jounouchi translated for Bakura. Pleased that it was at least 'one' thing he could translate for the white haired member of their group.
"The same as it does now, with all of us standing in here. Since right now nothing we're doing would raise alarm. However; for some spells I would obviously be making things visible for your eyes to see and that 'would' garner alarm. Sound has been blocked as well, so there might be people stepping in if they pay enough attention to the sudden lack of noise in here. I would do something about it, but again I don't understand this lands' language to even make a garbled rendition."
"Best way to explain is to imagine that he's recorded what we're doing now, and kind of playing it over the door for others to see." Bakura began watching as Fred kept stepping in and out with an ever increasingly confused expression. "I guess I should explain that Mahaado isn't just a priest, he's the personal bodyguard to a Pharaoh. So he's not one to be careless."
"Outside, I hear nothing, stick my head in the room and I hear you guys talking..." Fred confessed in mounting surprise.
"We'll, I wish that was the biggest shock that I had to report," Bakura confessed as he braced himself. "We managed to speak, thanks to Mahaado, to your Uncle.. His soul 'is' in the graveyard... and he was able to tell us where Travis is." Bakura watched as the twins immediately zeroed in on him and he sighed inwardly. "You need to sit down, what I have to tell you... is not going to be easy."
Malik didn't understand what they were saying save the names being used. But he could tell that Bakura was striving to be as gentle as he could regarding the graveyard. Jounouchi, respecting the gravity of the situation, moved the large plush chairs about for the twins. Leaving Malik reclining against the wall observing the hospital room. The twins were quiet and apprehensive from the moment Bakura began talking. Jounouchi was trying to avoid facing the pair by fussing over the chairs in the room. While Mahaado was... clearly looking at something in the room, his gaze seemingly following it.
"Mahaado, you see something..." Malik wagered as Mahaado's focus snapped over to him in answer.
"Their mother 'is' here as I suspected, but I'll wait until they're done talking before I pursue it further." Mahaado replied quietly as he joined Malik next to the wall, the deep gray metal... stainless steel Seto called it, sink resting between them. "But she's surprised to be noticed, she began floating about the room to see if I 'was' following her or not."
"How does she look? I mean... its been ten years for her to be trapped like this..." Malik asked with honest curiosity coloring his voice.
"Truth? She started out looking as though she was underwater, she doesn't really control her form all that much, save to keep her dress down. But the longer I've looked at her the more she's allowed the living world to influence her appearance. Hair once more down about her, feet on the ground, very normal." Mahaado reported, indeed the lady was fleshing herself out more and more, if she knew it or not. With a gown, dress, resting over the back of a chair the pattern of gown she now wore so she seemed to have learned enough to change her own attire.
"This is going to be hard," Malik admitted quietly with a sigh, "the telling the twins their friend is dead and buried in their uncles' grave is uh..."
"I am a bit more concerned about Pandora, he believes his brother alive, but in danger of dying. What will happen to him when he finds out his brother has been dead for years?"
Malik winced at that, guilt rising up his chest. 'I forced the man to near kill himself, and thought nothing about his situation. I was such a selfish bastard a year ago and if not for these little reminders... have I really changed all that much? I mean I came here in part to escape the duties of the tribe by helping Bakura. But damn, I had no idea this was going to start, I was torturing a man who was already the victim of a demon's manipulation.'
"Mahaado?" Malik finally asked, perhaps if anyone, a priest might be able to help the question. Once he caught Mahaado's eye again he swallowed and asked, "what do you do about guilt?"
He saw the curious expression on Mahaado's face, one born of a man who didn't fully grasp the question. Elaborating he added, "I toyed with the lives of people in their darkest moments to meet my goals. I know I've destroyed lives. So what do I do? I feel terrible about this, but I can't bring Travis back, and I can't fix what I pushed Pandora into doing... So what do I do?"
"Look at Set. He's been trying to make amends to the Pharaoh for three thousand years and even now he can not bring himself before our Lord." Mahaado answered simply, turning his gaze outward towards where George dropped his head into his hands weeping openly while Fred looked outright ready to punch something. Their mother also wept, standing between her sons but crying for the man that she also knew. "Overtly Set's determination to win the Pharaoh's forgiveness is due to his pride. Covertly, his determination is because he is not just trying to earn the forgiveness of our Lord. But also of our homeland. So many died because of the actions of his father and himself, and he keeps trying to make things right... And ever fails."
Malik blinked in surprise, unprepared for such a harsh assessment. Amazed even to hear Mahaado say that Kaiba, any aspect of Kaiba, could 'fail'. He watched as this 17 year old looking teenager observed the room then looked back at him.
"Set's problem is, as ever was, he fixates. His goal is to gain forgiveness from our Pharaoh. Believing that if he does so, he will be also forgiven by our long dead people. But because he is ever a perfectionist he must perform the task of redemption flawlessly, and that's the problem. Because he ignores all around him and blindly causes pain to them. Thus when moments arrive that show that he has harmed others further into his guilt and shame does he fall. If you wish to 'make amends', you must be ever thoughtful and aware of those around you. So that you don't inflict pain upon them in your rush for redemption or forgiveness, less you harm them unnecessarily."
"Even if I want to crawl under a rock and die?" Malik asked, a slight bit of sarcasm to soothe the near abrasive response out of Mahaado.
Causing the mage to slowly turn his head to gaze at Malik from the corner of his eyes. "Your brother and sister are friends of mine. If you wish to cause them grief as Seto has caused grief, I'm going to have to stop you."
"Gee, thanks for the reassurance..." Malik muttered feeling about half his height.
"If you wish to be coddled as a babe, might I suggest you bring these questions to your sister or brother." Mahaado suggested briskly, 'like father like son, and if you both expect me to prune this wild hedge of pride. You owe me.' The magician thought aiming his thoughts towards Isis and Rashid, as Bakura turned to look up at him.
A glance that was intended to convey that Mahaado needed to approach, 'do they make band aids for wounded pride?' Bakura thought tucking his bunny ears down as the magician approached. 'Oh don't be a prude. Liquor. When you need to dull the pain there's always liquor... though do I want to deal with a drunk Malik? Maybe I should just give him tea.'
"I want to be sick," George told Fred, his face was pale with only a hint of color to suggest that he 'was' going to be sick. "Uncle is ok, but Travis is in his grave? I can't even think this through."
"I want proof! We lost a decade of our lives? You expect us to believe anything you've said?" Fred shot back in anger, standing up and stalking over to Bakura. Roughly grabbing at the lapels of Bakura's shirt and yanking the guy forward. Jounouchi rushed in to wedge himself between the pair, with Bakura doing nothing to defend himself. But calm enough to assure the teen that if Fred 'did' try something, Bakura would have a ready response.
Mahaado politely stayed quiet, shifting his gaze from one to the other of this little scene. Regretting that he couldn't speak their language so he didn't know what would help settle the room down. Aggressive posturing, angry voices, if not for the seals he put on the room, the magician was certain someone would have come barging in soon. Worst yet was relying on the Thief to translate for, 'Never thought I would see the day where I would contemplate creating a translation spell. Perhaps things would move faster if I tried to make one now...'
George stared uselessly ahead, his stage costume, with its shimmering black coat made his already pale face even whiter. "Uncle John is alive, we've been tricked into thinking he's dead but he's not. Only its 'Travis' who's dead and he's been put in uncle's grave.. God, Fred I'm ecstatic to know mom and Uncle are ok. We just have to wait and we'll get them back, but Travis... left to die in uncles' coffin? I don't want to even..."
Ten years.
Josie said that they had been magically trapped in a spell for ten years whenever they talked on the matter. And now these strangers from another land was confirming that? How? She had no reason to mention it right? How could the twins not realize that time was progressing in such an out of sync manner? People grew up, grew old and died, and yet their memories, were being tricked so completely? If their own memories couldn't be trusted, who or what could be?
"On one hand, our uncle is alive and one day when his body comes back mom will wake up. Or at least that's what you say. But I don't remember any demons! I can't..."
"Accept that there is more to the world than what you can place your hand on and name. I do understand. In all honesty I had hoped for things to simple, that your uncle was there and that was all. Travis was an unexpected and tragic addition to our travels today," Bakura sympathized.