He lost his breath. In all the memories he had partaken of the Pharaoh,
there was one notorious creature missing. There was one Monster card, or
Ka, that he had never seen. He had uncovered the tragic origins of the
Blue Eyes White Dragon and Dark Magician, but somehow this wise figure
depicted against a hexagram had evaded the story. But there he was, a
stone jewel embedded in the design of where his forehead was carved into
the many story high tablet. This stone jewel was of particular interest to
Yugi because of its massive iridescent presence. It called out silently.
Yugi began to hear the song again uttered from Atem's tired soul, and rather than focus on his other half, he turned to the door and shielded his eyes in preparation. After a few moments, the door did in fact collapse under the weight of that which pushed behind it. The light didn't seem as bright this time, or maybe it was because Yugi knew it was coming. He tried his best to focus on what was happening, but instead of having his gaze flooded by a tempest of luminous light there was a cloud of feathers that came from the entrance. The presence of them smothered everything out, and he swiped at the air trying to push the massive feathers out of his view.
The dust settled, and he finally saw the two of them locked in battle. They must have been the size of the mecha he'd seen in his grandfather's game store, only without the minimal scaling. A leather bound, azure- skinned magician with long flowing ebony hair with his jeweled staff locked against the sword of a great faceless warrior with angel wings. Yugi stared into the helmet of the great warrior yet saw nothing.
The shock of the images finally left him, and he covered his ears trying to drown out the horrid screeching of the two metal instruments against each other. He could hear another noise, but it shocked him. Their lips moved, but he couldn't hear any discernable words. It wasn't like when Malik spoke the Egyptian hieratic that took a while to click in his mind as something Atem knew; no, it was completely different.
When the lips of the familiar Magician Of Black Chaos spoke, it sounded like a very masculine opera choir, thousands of voices singing at once. When the angelic warrior spoke, the dark mass under his helmet began to glow in morris code. Yugi still couldn't make out a face, but the sound was enough to drive him made. It was so indescribable, but mostly similar to the sound of water falling into a metal funnel. That horrible hollow sound repeating itself over and over in some kind of language.
The opera grew more violent, and the hollowed sound more deepthroated. The two great titans pushed back from each other using the force of their weapons against one another. They grimaced at each other with a long pause, but the sorceror waited no longer as he charged the angelic soldier who came from beyond the temple to do harm to the Pharaoh.
Yugi was reminded to turn to Atem. Arms crossed, the Egyptian king stood shaking his head in solemn judgement making it seem as if something very wrong had happened even in the sorceror from the stone coming to his aide. He wasn't relieved that he had been spared, and the tears continued to pour from his eyes. Through the battle, Atem quietly walked as if it weren't there. He had narrowly missed being flattened, cremated, and decapitated, as he strolled with his head hung low in doubt.
Atem looked to the sky outside, and Yugi ran to follow his oblivious counterpart. He turned to the sky too but shielded his eyes from the pain. It was too much, too much; he cried out in horror similar to Pegasus, but he did not have the same inspiration. The sky was completely clouded except for one part where it opened up. Golden gates had been flung open, and a staircase of ivory led from the heavens down to the earth.
It was war.
---
"Yugi!"
He frantically tossed around until he was upright, snapping his eyes open once so. He was out of that nightmare, awakened by the sound of a familiar voice. It wasn't calling out his name, but he still had to answer to it by obligation. They could tell now, however, so he curled up resting his chin on his knees so that Anzu could see him in the moonlight.
She was the only other person in the room, he noticed the door was cracked. He must have caused quite a ruckus for her to have woken. Or perhaps, maybe she couldn't sleep either from the aftershock of the series of events that had taken place as of late. There was a chair near the bed, so Anzu pulled it over and made herself comfortable. She was still in her clothes from the night before, but the nouveau riche time piece mounted on the wall showed it was close to dawn.
"What did you dream about this time?" She was forward, but with reason. This was the second time she had caught him in a horrible fit while his eyes were closed. Could he tell her of the memories he was experiencing? He tried to put words to what he had seen, but his breath was short and he only now realized he was panting when he tried to choke out an explanation.
"A battle. . . A great. . . war. . . with. . . the heavens." Anzu looked shocked at his words, her faith showing. The thought of a war with the Christian god must have seemed much more intimidating to someone who thought his power almighty and absolute. But Atem hadn't witnessed any godly presence, just a war against a race of faceless men from the sky. Maybe he had phrased things wrong in her presence.
"Not the heavens. . . The sky." He tried to compensate for what he had said in her presence, trying not to worry or offend her in the same blow. He positioned himself to sit up properly on the edge of the bed facing her, and did his best to smile. He had to ease her troubles, she was always very concerned with him. But in truth, if anything happened to her or any of the friends he had met from being the boy known as Yugi Motou in his double life, he would be devastated. They knew that, Yugi knew that, Atem knew that, and Anzu did so as well. He knew this, as he took her hand and looked into her eyes.
"Please, don't worry about this. It's my responsibility, and we've gotten through everything thus far." He didn't know how much consolation the words he offered gave, but she did seem to nod to him and smile at his attempt. She nodded to something she must have been thinking, and stood up pulling free from his grasp.
"I'm going to sleep, and you try to catch up on your sleep, too. We're going down to Chinatown tomorrow in the city by the famous Hollywood Walk of fame, so get ready for some walking, alright?" Atem flinched at the words "Chinatown". Every city he had ever been to had a district known as Chinatown, and it was usually littered with scam artists and even fake Duel Monster cards. He hoped that an upscale city like Los Angeles would provide a better taste of four thousand years of Chinese heritage.
---
The outting wasn't terrible. Pegasus had sent them on their own that day in company of a limousine, but they left it in preference of walking and seeing the sights first hand. There was certainly something for everyone. Anzu and Jounouchi both ogled the footprints of famous American film stars, and Honda did his best to flirt with American women in his limited English.
The accent was so thick that he was blatantly obvious, Yugi had to keep himself from laughing at Honda and give away the scheme. Usually Yugi played the kid-brother who was looking for the various shop and Honda would strike up a conversation with the beautiful woman who would lead them there. He was a little embarrassed that one of his abilities that he added to the group was his lack of height, but he didn't mind because of how humorous it was to see Honda stutter on his L's and V's.
There came a point where there was enough time to see one film at the famous Chinatown theatre of the city, and Anzu was going to be left alone in her rogue choice to see a story of star-crossed lovers opposite Jounouchi's choice of the violent tale of a valiant soldier in combat in some war long past. Yugi made the choice to go see the film with Anzu so she wouldn't be left alone, but he felt slightly uncomfortable. He caught her staring several times, and he was unsure why. The film in itself wasn't too interesting for him. Something subtitled in English and spoken in French, too languages he knew very little about. He faded off in his boredom, reluctant and unhappy about letting Anzu down as company.
---
"You obstruct justice. We will kill you, and then we will kill him. If you leave our sight, then you shall be spared but other than that, your actions will be beyond the grace of God."
Yugi was in utter shock as he lurched around from the sight of the gates in the sky opened to turn aroun and clearly understand the hollow voice of the faceless soldier. From the looks of him compared to others, he seemed to be their highest decorated lord. The azure-skinned Sorceror curled his lips into a smile, and began a monologue as he swung his staff at the faceless angel time after time.
"God? I want nothing to do with it. You are a supersticious race who hide in the sky because you think you are superior. If you didn't want this to happen you should have come off your high horse! You oversaw everything, yet did nothing. We sealed away Zork because he was a threat to mankind, and I've grown affectionate to them. What do you plan do you plan to do about it honestly? You can't do anything."
Their weapons parted, and the angel took it the time to slap away the sorceror and point at where Atem and Yugi had been. Yugi noticed he was not the target of the great lord, and turned over in horrible shock. Atem had unsheathed the blade of the Millenium Rod and was using it to defend himself from the staff of a very feminine looking angel. Her outline seemed simple and beautiful, but with silver hair pouring in clumps into her eyes, Yugi couldn't get a good look at it. She pushed down on her staff, seeming not at all clumsy in the flowing robes she wore.
Behind him, Yugi felt the force of a great gust of wind, and he was knocked clear over into the sands. But from here he could get a better look at the angelic assailants face. Atem had jumped to the ground for cover, but the angel was swooped up in the grasp of the larger lord who seemed to dominate them all. In his human-looking grasp, in the clutches of a very adequate hand, it cried out.
"You have disturbed the balance by sealing away Zork. You risk the decimation of all of this worlds beings by plunging us into an era of Chaos. There are things that exist that you could not even comprehend in this universe. We offer one of our most diligent acolytes in the service of Darkness to ressurrect the balance of all things. We hope that you will not disturb this ever again beyond your given jurisdiction."
From these words, all of the angels that flew down from the sky in order to enact their revenge of some sort travelled back towards their origin at the golden gates. Yugi was astounded to see the soldiers of the war very similar to his collection of Duel Monster cards, but it would make sense that the Pharaoh would awaken all of the Ka spirits in order to fight this war. The Dark Magician, stumbled towards them reaching out, but fell into the sand nearby. He was alive, as far as Yugi could tell, so the boy directed his attention back to the great lord of the sky.
The faceless archlord had let go of the holy assailant of the Pharaoh. Atem at the time of this memory probably didn't recognize the being, but Yugi did. Yugi stared in shock watching half of the skin of the angel grow dark and lifeless. One of the wings even became that of traditional demonry. He recognized the destiny that was being portrayed here even if no one else would understand. This was another memory of the Pharaoh, and it all made sense now.
An angel, cast down from heaven and dedicated strictly to the darkness, down from the sky fell the first avatar of Ryou Bakura.
---
"I know it was sad, Yugi, but you don't have to cry."
Atem awoke with tears in his eyes, understanding now what had gone on in that time of long ago. It was his fault, he had saw fit to defend the peoples of the cradle of civilization by doing away with what sought to destroy them. It was he who had defeated that evil in time. It was he who had not heeded the words of the faceless men from the sky. It was all his fault.
It isn't your fault, Atem. You didn't remember. I didn't know either.
He wiped the tears from his eyes and did his best to improvise a boyish smile much like Yugi. Still, from the aged look on his face, Anzu could tell it was Atem as she began to address him as such.
"I didn't know the Pharaoh had a heart, too. You speak French too?" She poked him in the side as if it were something endearing to see the Pharaoh cry at the end of a simple tragic love story. Everyone was standing or in the process of leaving, but the two stayed in their seats. The crowd moved beyond them and thinned, by and by. Atem searched his mind for something to say that would make sense.
"I. . . I don't, but you could feel the earnest feelings of the two even though everything that happened." He hoped that he had summed up the story well, thinking back to the times of scholars who wrote similar tales to pass the time and entertain the weary. Anzu recieved this answer well, and rose before him offering a hand to help him up from his weak condition. He questioned if she knew he'd had another dream.
When Jounouchi and Honda came into view cheering and excited about the various instances depicted in their film of choice, Anzu pulled free from the interlocking grip they had on one another. Atem looked up at her, but the face of understanding was replaced by a coy smile as she waved at the two mutual friends.
"Man, you should have come with us, pal. I guarantee what we saw was much more excited than what you ended up with." Honda teased, as he ruffled the spikey arrangement on Atem's head. Jounouchi was attempting to imitate a stunt but ended up slipping onto the marble floor of the theatre's lobby. Atem smiled, and in this relaxation he fell back into his deep sleep allowing Yugi to awaken and spend time with his friends.
Yugi began to hear the song again uttered from Atem's tired soul, and rather than focus on his other half, he turned to the door and shielded his eyes in preparation. After a few moments, the door did in fact collapse under the weight of that which pushed behind it. The light didn't seem as bright this time, or maybe it was because Yugi knew it was coming. He tried his best to focus on what was happening, but instead of having his gaze flooded by a tempest of luminous light there was a cloud of feathers that came from the entrance. The presence of them smothered everything out, and he swiped at the air trying to push the massive feathers out of his view.
The dust settled, and he finally saw the two of them locked in battle. They must have been the size of the mecha he'd seen in his grandfather's game store, only without the minimal scaling. A leather bound, azure- skinned magician with long flowing ebony hair with his jeweled staff locked against the sword of a great faceless warrior with angel wings. Yugi stared into the helmet of the great warrior yet saw nothing.
The shock of the images finally left him, and he covered his ears trying to drown out the horrid screeching of the two metal instruments against each other. He could hear another noise, but it shocked him. Their lips moved, but he couldn't hear any discernable words. It wasn't like when Malik spoke the Egyptian hieratic that took a while to click in his mind as something Atem knew; no, it was completely different.
When the lips of the familiar Magician Of Black Chaos spoke, it sounded like a very masculine opera choir, thousands of voices singing at once. When the angelic warrior spoke, the dark mass under his helmet began to glow in morris code. Yugi still couldn't make out a face, but the sound was enough to drive him made. It was so indescribable, but mostly similar to the sound of water falling into a metal funnel. That horrible hollow sound repeating itself over and over in some kind of language.
The opera grew more violent, and the hollowed sound more deepthroated. The two great titans pushed back from each other using the force of their weapons against one another. They grimaced at each other with a long pause, but the sorceror waited no longer as he charged the angelic soldier who came from beyond the temple to do harm to the Pharaoh.
Yugi was reminded to turn to Atem. Arms crossed, the Egyptian king stood shaking his head in solemn judgement making it seem as if something very wrong had happened even in the sorceror from the stone coming to his aide. He wasn't relieved that he had been spared, and the tears continued to pour from his eyes. Through the battle, Atem quietly walked as if it weren't there. He had narrowly missed being flattened, cremated, and decapitated, as he strolled with his head hung low in doubt.
Atem looked to the sky outside, and Yugi ran to follow his oblivious counterpart. He turned to the sky too but shielded his eyes from the pain. It was too much, too much; he cried out in horror similar to Pegasus, but he did not have the same inspiration. The sky was completely clouded except for one part where it opened up. Golden gates had been flung open, and a staircase of ivory led from the heavens down to the earth.
It was war.
---
"Yugi!"
He frantically tossed around until he was upright, snapping his eyes open once so. He was out of that nightmare, awakened by the sound of a familiar voice. It wasn't calling out his name, but he still had to answer to it by obligation. They could tell now, however, so he curled up resting his chin on his knees so that Anzu could see him in the moonlight.
She was the only other person in the room, he noticed the door was cracked. He must have caused quite a ruckus for her to have woken. Or perhaps, maybe she couldn't sleep either from the aftershock of the series of events that had taken place as of late. There was a chair near the bed, so Anzu pulled it over and made herself comfortable. She was still in her clothes from the night before, but the nouveau riche time piece mounted on the wall showed it was close to dawn.
"What did you dream about this time?" She was forward, but with reason. This was the second time she had caught him in a horrible fit while his eyes were closed. Could he tell her of the memories he was experiencing? He tried to put words to what he had seen, but his breath was short and he only now realized he was panting when he tried to choke out an explanation.
"A battle. . . A great. . . war. . . with. . . the heavens." Anzu looked shocked at his words, her faith showing. The thought of a war with the Christian god must have seemed much more intimidating to someone who thought his power almighty and absolute. But Atem hadn't witnessed any godly presence, just a war against a race of faceless men from the sky. Maybe he had phrased things wrong in her presence.
"Not the heavens. . . The sky." He tried to compensate for what he had said in her presence, trying not to worry or offend her in the same blow. He positioned himself to sit up properly on the edge of the bed facing her, and did his best to smile. He had to ease her troubles, she was always very concerned with him. But in truth, if anything happened to her or any of the friends he had met from being the boy known as Yugi Motou in his double life, he would be devastated. They knew that, Yugi knew that, Atem knew that, and Anzu did so as well. He knew this, as he took her hand and looked into her eyes.
"Please, don't worry about this. It's my responsibility, and we've gotten through everything thus far." He didn't know how much consolation the words he offered gave, but she did seem to nod to him and smile at his attempt. She nodded to something she must have been thinking, and stood up pulling free from his grasp.
"I'm going to sleep, and you try to catch up on your sleep, too. We're going down to Chinatown tomorrow in the city by the famous Hollywood Walk of fame, so get ready for some walking, alright?" Atem flinched at the words "Chinatown". Every city he had ever been to had a district known as Chinatown, and it was usually littered with scam artists and even fake Duel Monster cards. He hoped that an upscale city like Los Angeles would provide a better taste of four thousand years of Chinese heritage.
---
The outting wasn't terrible. Pegasus had sent them on their own that day in company of a limousine, but they left it in preference of walking and seeing the sights first hand. There was certainly something for everyone. Anzu and Jounouchi both ogled the footprints of famous American film stars, and Honda did his best to flirt with American women in his limited English.
The accent was so thick that he was blatantly obvious, Yugi had to keep himself from laughing at Honda and give away the scheme. Usually Yugi played the kid-brother who was looking for the various shop and Honda would strike up a conversation with the beautiful woman who would lead them there. He was a little embarrassed that one of his abilities that he added to the group was his lack of height, but he didn't mind because of how humorous it was to see Honda stutter on his L's and V's.
There came a point where there was enough time to see one film at the famous Chinatown theatre of the city, and Anzu was going to be left alone in her rogue choice to see a story of star-crossed lovers opposite Jounouchi's choice of the violent tale of a valiant soldier in combat in some war long past. Yugi made the choice to go see the film with Anzu so she wouldn't be left alone, but he felt slightly uncomfortable. He caught her staring several times, and he was unsure why. The film in itself wasn't too interesting for him. Something subtitled in English and spoken in French, too languages he knew very little about. He faded off in his boredom, reluctant and unhappy about letting Anzu down as company.
---
"You obstruct justice. We will kill you, and then we will kill him. If you leave our sight, then you shall be spared but other than that, your actions will be beyond the grace of God."
Yugi was in utter shock as he lurched around from the sight of the gates in the sky opened to turn aroun and clearly understand the hollow voice of the faceless soldier. From the looks of him compared to others, he seemed to be their highest decorated lord. The azure-skinned Sorceror curled his lips into a smile, and began a monologue as he swung his staff at the faceless angel time after time.
"God? I want nothing to do with it. You are a supersticious race who hide in the sky because you think you are superior. If you didn't want this to happen you should have come off your high horse! You oversaw everything, yet did nothing. We sealed away Zork because he was a threat to mankind, and I've grown affectionate to them. What do you plan do you plan to do about it honestly? You can't do anything."
Their weapons parted, and the angel took it the time to slap away the sorceror and point at where Atem and Yugi had been. Yugi noticed he was not the target of the great lord, and turned over in horrible shock. Atem had unsheathed the blade of the Millenium Rod and was using it to defend himself from the staff of a very feminine looking angel. Her outline seemed simple and beautiful, but with silver hair pouring in clumps into her eyes, Yugi couldn't get a good look at it. She pushed down on her staff, seeming not at all clumsy in the flowing robes she wore.
Behind him, Yugi felt the force of a great gust of wind, and he was knocked clear over into the sands. But from here he could get a better look at the angelic assailants face. Atem had jumped to the ground for cover, but the angel was swooped up in the grasp of the larger lord who seemed to dominate them all. In his human-looking grasp, in the clutches of a very adequate hand, it cried out.
"You have disturbed the balance by sealing away Zork. You risk the decimation of all of this worlds beings by plunging us into an era of Chaos. There are things that exist that you could not even comprehend in this universe. We offer one of our most diligent acolytes in the service of Darkness to ressurrect the balance of all things. We hope that you will not disturb this ever again beyond your given jurisdiction."
From these words, all of the angels that flew down from the sky in order to enact their revenge of some sort travelled back towards their origin at the golden gates. Yugi was astounded to see the soldiers of the war very similar to his collection of Duel Monster cards, but it would make sense that the Pharaoh would awaken all of the Ka spirits in order to fight this war. The Dark Magician, stumbled towards them reaching out, but fell into the sand nearby. He was alive, as far as Yugi could tell, so the boy directed his attention back to the great lord of the sky.
The faceless archlord had let go of the holy assailant of the Pharaoh. Atem at the time of this memory probably didn't recognize the being, but Yugi did. Yugi stared in shock watching half of the skin of the angel grow dark and lifeless. One of the wings even became that of traditional demonry. He recognized the destiny that was being portrayed here even if no one else would understand. This was another memory of the Pharaoh, and it all made sense now.
An angel, cast down from heaven and dedicated strictly to the darkness, down from the sky fell the first avatar of Ryou Bakura.
---
"I know it was sad, Yugi, but you don't have to cry."
Atem awoke with tears in his eyes, understanding now what had gone on in that time of long ago. It was his fault, he had saw fit to defend the peoples of the cradle of civilization by doing away with what sought to destroy them. It was he who had defeated that evil in time. It was he who had not heeded the words of the faceless men from the sky. It was all his fault.
It isn't your fault, Atem. You didn't remember. I didn't know either.
He wiped the tears from his eyes and did his best to improvise a boyish smile much like Yugi. Still, from the aged look on his face, Anzu could tell it was Atem as she began to address him as such.
"I didn't know the Pharaoh had a heart, too. You speak French too?" She poked him in the side as if it were something endearing to see the Pharaoh cry at the end of a simple tragic love story. Everyone was standing or in the process of leaving, but the two stayed in their seats. The crowd moved beyond them and thinned, by and by. Atem searched his mind for something to say that would make sense.
"I. . . I don't, but you could feel the earnest feelings of the two even though everything that happened." He hoped that he had summed up the story well, thinking back to the times of scholars who wrote similar tales to pass the time and entertain the weary. Anzu recieved this answer well, and rose before him offering a hand to help him up from his weak condition. He questioned if she knew he'd had another dream.
When Jounouchi and Honda came into view cheering and excited about the various instances depicted in their film of choice, Anzu pulled free from the interlocking grip they had on one another. Atem looked up at her, but the face of understanding was replaced by a coy smile as she waved at the two mutual friends.
"Man, you should have come with us, pal. I guarantee what we saw was much more excited than what you ended up with." Honda teased, as he ruffled the spikey arrangement on Atem's head. Jounouchi was attempting to imitate a stunt but ended up slipping onto the marble floor of the theatre's lobby. Atem smiled, and in this relaxation he fell back into his deep sleep allowing Yugi to awaken and spend time with his friends.