Chapter Eleven: Consume All My Darkness
Malik knew perfectly well that the only reason he was alive was because of Bakura.
Malik Ishtar had been born into a lowly family. He grew up knowing that his lot in life was to be a peasant farmer, or to be sold into slavery. There weren't a lot of options for commoners.
He met Prince Akil when they were six. The prince was in Amarna, Malik's hometown, looking to make mischief. Instead, he found Malik.
The penalty for stealing was beheading, and the shopkeeper was only too glad to carry out the punishment - until the white-haired prince stepped in front of the accused blond.
"I don't like that," the prince said softly. "I don't like that you would kill a kid."
"I'll kill you, too," the shopkeeper snarled. Malik cringed, expecting blood to flow.
"Can't kill a god," the prince murmured. "And I am, you know. A god. I might be pharaoh someday."
The shopkeeper didn't believe him, and the two boys ran away, escaping into the crowd. They finally collapsed in an alley, laughing.
"You aren't really a god, of course," Malik said finally.
"Oh, I am," the boy assured him. "My name is Akil. My father is the pharaoh. Have you ever killed anyone?"
"Of course not!"
"My father says that the peasants are vicious murderers, only kept in check by our divine will. You don't look like a killer to me, though."
Such a strange friendship. Malik left his family in Amarna - his parents, his sister - and went back with Akil to the palace, further north. He was to become a priest, and train there, but the young prince convinced him to join in on all the fun of stealing.
Malik Ishtar stood on the banks of the Nile, and remembered a six-year-old prince who would save the life of a commoner because it was wrong to kill a child.
But Akil - no, it was Bakura now, wasn't it - had changed. Who knew if he would still save Malik's life?
Strike first, before he strikes you...
"I'm sorry," Malik whispered, to the desert, the river, the world in general. "I'm so sorry, 'Kura."
Perhaps he should have taken that warning - that he was already sorry for something he hadn't yet done.
Malik stared at the sky, still dark this early in the morning. If he couldn't believe in Bakura, then what /could/ he believe in?
Search me, try me, consume all my darkness
Yami, Yugi, and Ryou left the room of a random priest with wide eyes and the priest's final admonition for the pharaoh to go see a healer, since his memory was defective.
"We have to find them," Yugi said finally. "Before anyone else does. What did he say - they're in the cellar somewhere?"
Ryou blinked. "That's where the rebels are, isn't it?"
"Great," Yami muttered. "Just great. At least I need not worry about making the damn things, right?"
Kaiba and Mokuba emerged from the shadows. The former was as unreadable as ever; the latter looked tired and afraid.
"You do realize what comes next?" Kaiba drawled.
"No," Yami said cautiously.
"Remember the stone tablet Isis showed us? Those events haven't occurred yet."
It took a moment for this to sink in. Then Yami said numbly, "I have to duel you."
"Yes."
"Soon."
"Almost immediately, I think."
There was another moment of silence, broken by Ryou's coughing. Everyone else glanced over at him. He tried to smile, and failed.
"Well," Yami said finally. "Let's duel, then."
"The Millennium items," Yugi started.
"You and Ryou can go and find them, all right? We have to find a stonemason to witness the duel, so it can be immortalized." Yami sighed. "This whole time-travel business is more trouble than it's worth."
Yugi dragged Ryou off, while the other three headed for the throne room.
"You know, I've never dueled like this before," Kaiba said eventually. "Without cards, or dice, or something like that."
"Me neither. Not that I can remember, anyway."
"So we're both evenly inexperienced?"
"Yes."
Kaiba smiled thinly. "You won't be King of Games after this duel, Pharaoh, I guarantee it."
When Mai left him, Joey staggered in a daze back into the palace. He had no idea where he was going or what he was going to do when he got there, but it no longer mattered. He just needed to be moving.
So much was happening that was /wrong/. Just being here, in ancient Egypt, was /wrong/. Joey wanted to be home, in Domino City, with Tea and Tristan.
There had to be a way to get back. There just /had/ to be.
He continued walking, aimless, lost. Home. He had to concentrate on getting home. Nothing else mattered - not Mai, not anything. Not until they were home and safe.
"Joey!"
The blond stopped, feeling completely disconnected from his body. "Yeah?" he said distantly.
Mokuba ran up beside him, panting. "My brother and Yami Yugi are going to duel! Come on, let's go watch!"
"Where is this duel?" Joey asked. It felt as if everything was being filtered down to him from somewhere far above. Like he was drowning, being buried alive.
"I think in the catacombs. Seto said to meet them there." Joey wasn't looking at Mokuba, but he could hear the frown in the boy's voice. "Are you all right, Joey?"
"Yeah, sure." Joey shook his head, trying to clear his mind. Not working. What was wrong with him? "Let's go, then."
"The entrance is this way, come on..."
Joey stumbled after Mokuba, unwelcome inside his own mind.
And we'll say we didn't know, we didn't even try
One minute there was road beneath us, the next just sky
Though Bakura didn't know it at the time, he was suffering in the same way as Joey. He could hear Mai's ramblings as they trekked back to the palace, and at the same time he couldn't hear her, and had no idea what she kept going on about.
He wasn't used to being alone in his head - there had always been Ryou there, before. Even here in Egypt, that sense that informed him of his hikari's feelings, thoughts, and whereabouts was always present.
Now he was definitely alone.
He heard only the roaring of a waterfall in his head. He halted, hands halfway raised to cover his ears. A waterfall? No, surely not. No waterfalls in Egypt...
He listened.
Mai paused and shot him a worried look. "Bakura? Are you - "
"Oh, gods," he gasped, and started to run.
She followed. "Bakura, I don't understand - "
"They're coming. The Shadow Monsters - they're almost here. We have to stop them from doing it!"
"Stop /who/ from doing /what/?"
"Whoever's doing whatever it is they're doing!"
Yami took his place on one side of the arena, feeling distinctly nervous. He'd never had any real doubts about the game before. This was...it was different.
A tiny and silent crowd had followed them into the catacombs. There were a few priests, a handmaiden, a servant, and a man who claimed to be a stonemason. Yami had managed to quiz one of the priests on the way down here. There were no stone tablets yet - that came after this duel, he supposed. Right now, it would just be power, just be holograms.
The magic itself wasn't hard. It mainly involved commanding the monsters to do what he wished. That was simple.
What was more difficult was that suddenly, he couldn't remember what Isis had told him. He couldn't remember if he was going to win or not. He had a vague idea that this was extremely dangerous.
And even though he and Kaiba were sort of friends, it almost appeared as though the CEO was regressing. The malicious smirk on his face was entirely too familiar.
"Ready?" Kaiba asked.
Yami nodded. "Let's duel!"
Shizu's cloak swirled around her as she stalked off. As much fun as this whole thing with the guard was, she had better things to do.
The time, it appeared, was right.
She passed many rebels in the halls, and to each whispered the code word, which was simply, "Now."
The word spread. Now. Now. Now!
It came to Malik, who took up his sword rather reluctantly.
It came to the chamber where the duel raged, where the handmaiden Khepri slipped away, ears ringing with the battle.
It came even to Bakura, whose mind was reeling and who barely heard the informant. Mai watched him, fear in her violet eyes, and then turned to look suspiciously at the man who hurried away.
Now!
The guards and the priests were completely unprepared for the uprising. It would have gone very badly for Joey and Mokuba if they hadn't been far from the heart of the rebellion.
I heard you sing a rebel song
Sung it loud and all alone
We can't afford the things you say
We can't afford the warranty
"I think," Mokuba announced, "that we are lost."
Joey's mind was clearer now. "No kidding." He glanced around. Nothing but corridors stretching in all directions. "Catacombs. Huh. What a stupid idea."
Mokuba trailed a hand along the wall until they came to the next corner. "Now what? Left or right?"
"Um...left."
Mokuba, who was a clever little kid and knew Joey Wheeler very well, turned right. Joey didn't seem to notice. This had nothing to do with his intelligence and everything to do with the fact that his ears suddenly weren't working.
They had been passing rooms all along, usually tombs for minor nobles. Joey stopped in front of one, stared at it thoughtfully, and entered.
Mokuba, who hadn't noticed Joey's disappearance, soon found himself alone, and still lost.
Yugi and Ryou had decided to go after the Millennium Ring, which could then point them to the other Items. Ryou could feel the Ring's presence in his head - whenever he could concentrate on anything, anyway. He had a headache which seemed to be growing exponentially.
At least, he assumed that exponentially was the proper adverb. He hadn't been paying much attention in math class recently.
To Ryou's surprise, the Ring wasn't in the catacombs. In fact, they finally found it hidden under the floor in Yami's bedroom.
"I guess the ancient Egyptians considered that to be a terribly original hiding place," he muttered. There was already a chain attached to the Ring; Ryou slipped it over his head. Everything was as it should be.
Except for Sathaugula, which was starting to burn his skin.
Yugi stared at the Ring. "Are you sure it's a good idea to be wearing that thing?"
"Of course. Why wouldn't it be?"
"Well, the whole...demon watch thing. You know."
"I can't see why that would hurt anything. Let's go find the rest of the Items. Maybe we're getting closer to being home."
Being home. That was a good idea. At home, they might be able to get this stupid watch off. That seemed to be the only cure for Ryou's illness.
He felt fine. It was thus a complete mystery to him why, after only two steps, he fainted.
I'm not as clever as I thought I was
I'm not the boy I used to be because
You showed me something different
You showed me something pure
Mokuba had the torch. Joey realized that after he'd already shut the door behind him.
It was okay, though. He didn't need to see anything in order to find the Scale. It was in his head, now, burning bright gold, and he didn't even crash into the table it was resting on.
He picked the Scale up. It was unwieldy and heavy, but for some reason, it called to him.
Joey had never had a Millennium Item of his own before, not really. Yugi had given him the Puzzle once, but that had been temporary, and Joey hadn't /used/ it.
He knew, somehow, that he was going to use the Scales.
He just didn't know how yet.
The door creaked open. Light flooded in. "Joey?"
"I'm here," Joey said, distantly. His mind definitely wasn't connected to his body anymore.
If he'd been able to think, he might have thought that that was extremely weird.
Kaiba would have lost if the duel hadn't gone so horribly wrong.
The monsters weren't real. They couldn't be real. But when Yami's Dark Magician attacked him, Kaiba had fallen to his knees. He imagined that being electrocuted was something like that. And when Kaiba's Blue Eyes breathed its pale fire on the pharaoh, his screams were far too excessive.
It wasn't real. It /couldn't/ be real.
After the spectators and Kaiba had all been drenched by a tidal wave summoned by one of Yami's magic "cards" (they weren't playing with cards, so even in his mind Kaiba had to use quotation marks), both players decided to quit before either of them was seriously hurt.
For the benefit of the stonemason, they shouted at each other for awhile.
Kaiba had forgotten just how satisfying insulting the pharaoh could be.
Yami declared, again for the benefit of those watching, that the monsters were dangerously close to breaking into the real world, and that he would be sealing them up in stone tablets to keep their powers away. Kaiba made a show of fuming.
This whole reliving-history thing was way more trouble than it was worth.
The two met up again in the throne room when everything else was over with. There was a suspicious lack of guards or handmaidens or, indeed, anyone at all.
Yami sighed and flopped into his throne. "That's done, then. I'll seal them up tomorrow, you and your priests let them out tomorrow afternoon, we can have a huge fight, I'll do the thing with the Millennium Items, and we're all free to go home the night after that."
"Are you sure that sequence of events is right?"
"Broadly. It's the details I can't quite recall."
Kaiba sat down on the dais and rested his chin in his hands. "Do we know yet /how/ to get home?"
Yami shook his head ruefully. "No. But we'll figure it out. I'm more worried about what's going to happen to me, and Bakura, too."
Kaiba thought about that, and suddenly got it.
"If you're locked up in the Items, then how can you come back with us?"
"Exactly."
Kaiba didn't think much of Yugi's and Ryou's dependence on their yamis, but he wasn't sure he wanted to live in a world where the two hikaris were without their other halves.
"There could be a way around it..."
Yami laughed bitterly. "Right, like there was a way around the love spell?"
They didn't get a chance to talk more, because just then the world exploded. Figuratively, of course.
Yugi stumbled in through one door, gasping for breath. "It's Ryou!"
Mai and Bakura piled in through an archway. The latter's sword was out and dripping blood. "The rebellion," he cried. "Pharaoh, you've got to hide!"
Malik fell, literally, through a third door. He was weaponless, and clutched at a gaping wound in his side. "'Kura!"
By then, Kaiba and Yami were on their feet, unsure of where to turn first. Aside from Yugi's babbling about Ryou, Kaiba was the first to speak.
"And where, in all this chaos, is my brother?"
Without the voice of reason every faith is its own curse
Without freedom from the past things can only get worse.
A/N: First of all, I must say where the quotes are from.
"Search me, try me..." is, obviously, the source of the chapter title. It is a line from a Christian hymn.
"And we'll say..." is from the Ani DiFranco song "Falling is Like This."
"I heard you sing..." is from the Indigo Girls' "Become You."
"I'm not as clever..." is a stanza from the song "My Funny Friend and Me" from "The Emperor's New Groove." Which is one of the best animated movies ever, by the way.
"Without the voice of reason..." is by Sting, from "History Will Teach Us Nothing."
That done, ohmygodiamsosorry. This took forever and ever to write and I'm sorry, so sorry, please forgive me! And if I got the facts about the duel wrong, I'm sorry for that, too. I did the best I could with online episode guides and all, because I never actually saw the episode. Anyway, it was dubbed. Never trust the American versions of anything Japanese, that's my policy. So, just in case, here's what the episode guide informed me: there were normal duels. The monsters wreaked havoc. Yami sealed them in the tablets. Kaiba and the other priests set them loose. Complete chaos. Hurrah. Sounds good to me.
Anyway, notes on the chapter: That was weird, yes. I do have a plan. Really. No, really. Prepare for lots and lots of angst and not too much romance.
Next Chapter: The Center Cannot Hold. The poem is "The Hollow Men" by T.S. Eliot. The Shadow Monsters break free to wreak havoc on Egypt. There are only eight to stand against the onslaught, and "certain factions" (Shizu and Malik) wish to destroy them. In other words, angst, blood, and sand.
Malik knew perfectly well that the only reason he was alive was because of Bakura.
Malik Ishtar had been born into a lowly family. He grew up knowing that his lot in life was to be a peasant farmer, or to be sold into slavery. There weren't a lot of options for commoners.
He met Prince Akil when they were six. The prince was in Amarna, Malik's hometown, looking to make mischief. Instead, he found Malik.
The penalty for stealing was beheading, and the shopkeeper was only too glad to carry out the punishment - until the white-haired prince stepped in front of the accused blond.
"I don't like that," the prince said softly. "I don't like that you would kill a kid."
"I'll kill you, too," the shopkeeper snarled. Malik cringed, expecting blood to flow.
"Can't kill a god," the prince murmured. "And I am, you know. A god. I might be pharaoh someday."
The shopkeeper didn't believe him, and the two boys ran away, escaping into the crowd. They finally collapsed in an alley, laughing.
"You aren't really a god, of course," Malik said finally.
"Oh, I am," the boy assured him. "My name is Akil. My father is the pharaoh. Have you ever killed anyone?"
"Of course not!"
"My father says that the peasants are vicious murderers, only kept in check by our divine will. You don't look like a killer to me, though."
Such a strange friendship. Malik left his family in Amarna - his parents, his sister - and went back with Akil to the palace, further north. He was to become a priest, and train there, but the young prince convinced him to join in on all the fun of stealing.
Malik Ishtar stood on the banks of the Nile, and remembered a six-year-old prince who would save the life of a commoner because it was wrong to kill a child.
But Akil - no, it was Bakura now, wasn't it - had changed. Who knew if he would still save Malik's life?
Strike first, before he strikes you...
"I'm sorry," Malik whispered, to the desert, the river, the world in general. "I'm so sorry, 'Kura."
Perhaps he should have taken that warning - that he was already sorry for something he hadn't yet done.
Malik stared at the sky, still dark this early in the morning. If he couldn't believe in Bakura, then what /could/ he believe in?
Search me, try me, consume all my darkness
Yami, Yugi, and Ryou left the room of a random priest with wide eyes and the priest's final admonition for the pharaoh to go see a healer, since his memory was defective.
"We have to find them," Yugi said finally. "Before anyone else does. What did he say - they're in the cellar somewhere?"
Ryou blinked. "That's where the rebels are, isn't it?"
"Great," Yami muttered. "Just great. At least I need not worry about making the damn things, right?"
Kaiba and Mokuba emerged from the shadows. The former was as unreadable as ever; the latter looked tired and afraid.
"You do realize what comes next?" Kaiba drawled.
"No," Yami said cautiously.
"Remember the stone tablet Isis showed us? Those events haven't occurred yet."
It took a moment for this to sink in. Then Yami said numbly, "I have to duel you."
"Yes."
"Soon."
"Almost immediately, I think."
There was another moment of silence, broken by Ryou's coughing. Everyone else glanced over at him. He tried to smile, and failed.
"Well," Yami said finally. "Let's duel, then."
"The Millennium items," Yugi started.
"You and Ryou can go and find them, all right? We have to find a stonemason to witness the duel, so it can be immortalized." Yami sighed. "This whole time-travel business is more trouble than it's worth."
Yugi dragged Ryou off, while the other three headed for the throne room.
"You know, I've never dueled like this before," Kaiba said eventually. "Without cards, or dice, or something like that."
"Me neither. Not that I can remember, anyway."
"So we're both evenly inexperienced?"
"Yes."
Kaiba smiled thinly. "You won't be King of Games after this duel, Pharaoh, I guarantee it."
When Mai left him, Joey staggered in a daze back into the palace. He had no idea where he was going or what he was going to do when he got there, but it no longer mattered. He just needed to be moving.
So much was happening that was /wrong/. Just being here, in ancient Egypt, was /wrong/. Joey wanted to be home, in Domino City, with Tea and Tristan.
There had to be a way to get back. There just /had/ to be.
He continued walking, aimless, lost. Home. He had to concentrate on getting home. Nothing else mattered - not Mai, not anything. Not until they were home and safe.
"Joey!"
The blond stopped, feeling completely disconnected from his body. "Yeah?" he said distantly.
Mokuba ran up beside him, panting. "My brother and Yami Yugi are going to duel! Come on, let's go watch!"
"Where is this duel?" Joey asked. It felt as if everything was being filtered down to him from somewhere far above. Like he was drowning, being buried alive.
"I think in the catacombs. Seto said to meet them there." Joey wasn't looking at Mokuba, but he could hear the frown in the boy's voice. "Are you all right, Joey?"
"Yeah, sure." Joey shook his head, trying to clear his mind. Not working. What was wrong with him? "Let's go, then."
"The entrance is this way, come on..."
Joey stumbled after Mokuba, unwelcome inside his own mind.
And we'll say we didn't know, we didn't even try
One minute there was road beneath us, the next just sky
Though Bakura didn't know it at the time, he was suffering in the same way as Joey. He could hear Mai's ramblings as they trekked back to the palace, and at the same time he couldn't hear her, and had no idea what she kept going on about.
He wasn't used to being alone in his head - there had always been Ryou there, before. Even here in Egypt, that sense that informed him of his hikari's feelings, thoughts, and whereabouts was always present.
Now he was definitely alone.
He heard only the roaring of a waterfall in his head. He halted, hands halfway raised to cover his ears. A waterfall? No, surely not. No waterfalls in Egypt...
He listened.
Mai paused and shot him a worried look. "Bakura? Are you - "
"Oh, gods," he gasped, and started to run.
She followed. "Bakura, I don't understand - "
"They're coming. The Shadow Monsters - they're almost here. We have to stop them from doing it!"
"Stop /who/ from doing /what/?"
"Whoever's doing whatever it is they're doing!"
Yami took his place on one side of the arena, feeling distinctly nervous. He'd never had any real doubts about the game before. This was...it was different.
A tiny and silent crowd had followed them into the catacombs. There were a few priests, a handmaiden, a servant, and a man who claimed to be a stonemason. Yami had managed to quiz one of the priests on the way down here. There were no stone tablets yet - that came after this duel, he supposed. Right now, it would just be power, just be holograms.
The magic itself wasn't hard. It mainly involved commanding the monsters to do what he wished. That was simple.
What was more difficult was that suddenly, he couldn't remember what Isis had told him. He couldn't remember if he was going to win or not. He had a vague idea that this was extremely dangerous.
And even though he and Kaiba were sort of friends, it almost appeared as though the CEO was regressing. The malicious smirk on his face was entirely too familiar.
"Ready?" Kaiba asked.
Yami nodded. "Let's duel!"
Shizu's cloak swirled around her as she stalked off. As much fun as this whole thing with the guard was, she had better things to do.
The time, it appeared, was right.
She passed many rebels in the halls, and to each whispered the code word, which was simply, "Now."
The word spread. Now. Now. Now!
It came to Malik, who took up his sword rather reluctantly.
It came to the chamber where the duel raged, where the handmaiden Khepri slipped away, ears ringing with the battle.
It came even to Bakura, whose mind was reeling and who barely heard the informant. Mai watched him, fear in her violet eyes, and then turned to look suspiciously at the man who hurried away.
Now!
The guards and the priests were completely unprepared for the uprising. It would have gone very badly for Joey and Mokuba if they hadn't been far from the heart of the rebellion.
I heard you sing a rebel song
Sung it loud and all alone
We can't afford the things you say
We can't afford the warranty
"I think," Mokuba announced, "that we are lost."
Joey's mind was clearer now. "No kidding." He glanced around. Nothing but corridors stretching in all directions. "Catacombs. Huh. What a stupid idea."
Mokuba trailed a hand along the wall until they came to the next corner. "Now what? Left or right?"
"Um...left."
Mokuba, who was a clever little kid and knew Joey Wheeler very well, turned right. Joey didn't seem to notice. This had nothing to do with his intelligence and everything to do with the fact that his ears suddenly weren't working.
They had been passing rooms all along, usually tombs for minor nobles. Joey stopped in front of one, stared at it thoughtfully, and entered.
Mokuba, who hadn't noticed Joey's disappearance, soon found himself alone, and still lost.
Yugi and Ryou had decided to go after the Millennium Ring, which could then point them to the other Items. Ryou could feel the Ring's presence in his head - whenever he could concentrate on anything, anyway. He had a headache which seemed to be growing exponentially.
At least, he assumed that exponentially was the proper adverb. He hadn't been paying much attention in math class recently.
To Ryou's surprise, the Ring wasn't in the catacombs. In fact, they finally found it hidden under the floor in Yami's bedroom.
"I guess the ancient Egyptians considered that to be a terribly original hiding place," he muttered. There was already a chain attached to the Ring; Ryou slipped it over his head. Everything was as it should be.
Except for Sathaugula, which was starting to burn his skin.
Yugi stared at the Ring. "Are you sure it's a good idea to be wearing that thing?"
"Of course. Why wouldn't it be?"
"Well, the whole...demon watch thing. You know."
"I can't see why that would hurt anything. Let's go find the rest of the Items. Maybe we're getting closer to being home."
Being home. That was a good idea. At home, they might be able to get this stupid watch off. That seemed to be the only cure for Ryou's illness.
He felt fine. It was thus a complete mystery to him why, after only two steps, he fainted.
I'm not as clever as I thought I was
I'm not the boy I used to be because
You showed me something different
You showed me something pure
Mokuba had the torch. Joey realized that after he'd already shut the door behind him.
It was okay, though. He didn't need to see anything in order to find the Scale. It was in his head, now, burning bright gold, and he didn't even crash into the table it was resting on.
He picked the Scale up. It was unwieldy and heavy, but for some reason, it called to him.
Joey had never had a Millennium Item of his own before, not really. Yugi had given him the Puzzle once, but that had been temporary, and Joey hadn't /used/ it.
He knew, somehow, that he was going to use the Scales.
He just didn't know how yet.
The door creaked open. Light flooded in. "Joey?"
"I'm here," Joey said, distantly. His mind definitely wasn't connected to his body anymore.
If he'd been able to think, he might have thought that that was extremely weird.
Kaiba would have lost if the duel hadn't gone so horribly wrong.
The monsters weren't real. They couldn't be real. But when Yami's Dark Magician attacked him, Kaiba had fallen to his knees. He imagined that being electrocuted was something like that. And when Kaiba's Blue Eyes breathed its pale fire on the pharaoh, his screams were far too excessive.
It wasn't real. It /couldn't/ be real.
After the spectators and Kaiba had all been drenched by a tidal wave summoned by one of Yami's magic "cards" (they weren't playing with cards, so even in his mind Kaiba had to use quotation marks), both players decided to quit before either of them was seriously hurt.
For the benefit of the stonemason, they shouted at each other for awhile.
Kaiba had forgotten just how satisfying insulting the pharaoh could be.
Yami declared, again for the benefit of those watching, that the monsters were dangerously close to breaking into the real world, and that he would be sealing them up in stone tablets to keep their powers away. Kaiba made a show of fuming.
This whole reliving-history thing was way more trouble than it was worth.
The two met up again in the throne room when everything else was over with. There was a suspicious lack of guards or handmaidens or, indeed, anyone at all.
Yami sighed and flopped into his throne. "That's done, then. I'll seal them up tomorrow, you and your priests let them out tomorrow afternoon, we can have a huge fight, I'll do the thing with the Millennium Items, and we're all free to go home the night after that."
"Are you sure that sequence of events is right?"
"Broadly. It's the details I can't quite recall."
Kaiba sat down on the dais and rested his chin in his hands. "Do we know yet /how/ to get home?"
Yami shook his head ruefully. "No. But we'll figure it out. I'm more worried about what's going to happen to me, and Bakura, too."
Kaiba thought about that, and suddenly got it.
"If you're locked up in the Items, then how can you come back with us?"
"Exactly."
Kaiba didn't think much of Yugi's and Ryou's dependence on their yamis, but he wasn't sure he wanted to live in a world where the two hikaris were without their other halves.
"There could be a way around it..."
Yami laughed bitterly. "Right, like there was a way around the love spell?"
They didn't get a chance to talk more, because just then the world exploded. Figuratively, of course.
Yugi stumbled in through one door, gasping for breath. "It's Ryou!"
Mai and Bakura piled in through an archway. The latter's sword was out and dripping blood. "The rebellion," he cried. "Pharaoh, you've got to hide!"
Malik fell, literally, through a third door. He was weaponless, and clutched at a gaping wound in his side. "'Kura!"
By then, Kaiba and Yami were on their feet, unsure of where to turn first. Aside from Yugi's babbling about Ryou, Kaiba was the first to speak.
"And where, in all this chaos, is my brother?"
Without the voice of reason every faith is its own curse
Without freedom from the past things can only get worse.
A/N: First of all, I must say where the quotes are from.
"Search me, try me..." is, obviously, the source of the chapter title. It is a line from a Christian hymn.
"And we'll say..." is from the Ani DiFranco song "Falling is Like This."
"I heard you sing..." is from the Indigo Girls' "Become You."
"I'm not as clever..." is a stanza from the song "My Funny Friend and Me" from "The Emperor's New Groove." Which is one of the best animated movies ever, by the way.
"Without the voice of reason..." is by Sting, from "History Will Teach Us Nothing."
That done, ohmygodiamsosorry. This took forever and ever to write and I'm sorry, so sorry, please forgive me! And if I got the facts about the duel wrong, I'm sorry for that, too. I did the best I could with online episode guides and all, because I never actually saw the episode. Anyway, it was dubbed. Never trust the American versions of anything Japanese, that's my policy. So, just in case, here's what the episode guide informed me: there were normal duels. The monsters wreaked havoc. Yami sealed them in the tablets. Kaiba and the other priests set them loose. Complete chaos. Hurrah. Sounds good to me.
Anyway, notes on the chapter: That was weird, yes. I do have a plan. Really. No, really. Prepare for lots and lots of angst and not too much romance.
Next Chapter: The Center Cannot Hold. The poem is "The Hollow Men" by T.S. Eliot. The Shadow Monsters break free to wreak havoc on Egypt. There are only eight to stand against the onslaught, and "certain factions" (Shizu and Malik) wish to destroy them. In other words, angst, blood, and sand.