Disclaimer: If I owned YGO, then what am I doing here?
Chapter 4: Dreams And A Graveyard
Yugi opened his eyes.
He was sitting on a cloud, the sun streaming rays of light down his back. He sighed, content with the world around him. Just beside him, several blue cranes flew to the east, all traveling in a V-formation. Yugi looked at the sight with wonder.
Suddenly he heard a commotion down in the world below him. The boy looked down, to see that he was above Egypt and its vast Nile River. In the river he saw a boat sailing, with six men working hard on its deck. Yugi, wanting to see more closely, flew down to the ground, drifting on the breeze. As his feet lightly tapped on the boat deck, he ran over toward the side where the men huddled at. Yugi stood by a man with long brown hair, which was tied in a ponytail, his bangs covering his eyes. Quickly he yelled something to a tall muscular man, and the man jumped into the water. The interesting thing was that Yugi couldn't hear anything that they said, as if it was one of those movies with movement but no sound.
When Yugi finally looked down, he saw a girl floating in the water, and that the man who dove in was already pulling her up onto the boat. As he tried to look closer, the whole world suddenly turned dark, and for once, he could hear the sound of coughing. He was left alone in the dark, until Yugi saw a light not too far away from him. He ran over to the light, and as he reached it, he gasped at what he saw.
Yami was on the ground, his blank eyes staring at him. Yugi turned to see a strange form in the darkness, its colorless eyes filled with uttermost sadness. In its hands were the shattered pieces of the Millennium Orb, a few scattered about the floor. Yugi turned back to see that a misty substance was slowly coming out of Yami and into the strange form, its eyes growing with pain. When Yugi tried to reach Yami, he suddenly disappeared, as Yugi stared at the empty space with horror. Turning around, he saw that the form took in Yami also. Yugi stared at the form with glistening, angry eyes.
"Give him back!!" he screamed, running toward the form. Suddenly another dark form appeared, and in its hands was the Millennium Puzzle. Yugi gasped. "No!! That's mine, you freak! Give it to me!!"
The other form dropped the Millennium Puzzle, shattering into pieces. Yugi screamed as he wavered into the darkness.
Yugi sat up in his bed with sweat beading down his throat, his breathing short and hard.
This was the fifth time he dreamed the nightmare, as Yugi shook his head and quickly looked to his nightstand, to see the Millennium Puzzle safe. He threw his bed sheets off and ran over to his desk, opening the top right drawer. A velvet drawstring bag was atop of a few books, and Yugi grabbed the bag and spilled its contents on his table. There, scattered on the table, were the gold pieces of the Millennium Orb (destroyed a year ago from his own hand to protect it from anyone using it), safe and sound. Yugi sighed heavily, and collapsed to the chair behind him.
Should he tell Yami about the dream? 'Nah,' Yugi thought, 'He'd over react on it, but this isn't the first time this happened.' He remembered his dream about Yami's past memory a year ago. 'At least at that time I knew what it was about. This is more complicated. I don't understand; will something happen at the tournament in Egypt?' Now he was even more afraid to go, as he stared at the calendar pinned on the wall.
July 11. The tournament would be on July 13, two more days. For a moment, Yugi forgot the dream and remembered what happened days before.
::Flashback, six days before::
"Are you sure you don't want to go with us, Grandpa?" Yugi asked, eating chips with Joey, Tea, Tristan and Ryou. He shook his head in disgust.
"Thank you for the offer Yugi, but I'd rather not. I'm not really in the mood to face Egypt's scorching sun, noisy atmosphere, and its oh-so greedy merchants, err, no matter how interesting the history is. Besides, I think you'll have more fun with your friends," Solomon said, smiling.
"Hee hee, that's right, 'cause me and Yug' will be the reason why they're going anyway." Joey said with a laugh. Tea rolled her eyes, as Ryou smirked a little. Solomon shook his head and left the room.
"All right, all right, we get it. Congrats on getting an invitation to the tournament." Tea said sarcastically, waving an imaginary flag.
"Obviously Mr. Enari invited me to the tournament for my mad skills in Duel Monsters. I'm quite popular now in the Dueling World, if I do say so myself." Joey gloated, waving the invitation in the air with one hand and pounding his chest with another.
"Obviously Mr. Enari must have been drunk when he wrote your invitation," Tristan said with grin. Joey glared at him, as he continued, "Just kidding, man. You deserve the invite."
"Yeah, after your great performance in Battle City, not counting the little duel with Kaiba, who wouldn't want you in your tournament?" Ryou said, knowing better not to mention Merik's name.
"Eh, Kaiba is okay. . . I guess. Man, we haven't been in a tournament in like a year. It's boring when you don't get to duel and fight, ya know?" Joey exclaimed, hands behind his head. Yugi nodded in response.
"So okay, we're all going to the tournament, right? Is your sister coming?" Tea asked hopefully, not wanting to be the only girl there.
"Sorry Tea, but she can't. Serenity and my mom are going on a vacation to the Bahamas. How about Duke, Yug'? Can he come?" Joey asked.
Yugi shook his head. "He sent me an email saying that he wouldn't make it, but that he wishes both of us good luck."
"So that's it," said Ryou, "It's just going to be us."
"Just like at Duelist Kingdom," Tristan stated, smiling.
"Yeah," Yugi said.
"And I can't wait!!" Joey yelled in triumph, crushing the can he was holding and spilling the liquid onto the floor.
::End Of Flashback::
That was when Yugi realized that today was the day they agreed to visit Aura's grave. Yugi's face darkened, wondering why only he was still haunted by the previous year's memories.
'Everyone else gotten over it,' Yugi thought, as he put out a set of clothes to wear, 'Why can't I?'
After a few minutes he was done dressing, and looking at the time, saw that it was 11:23 am, about 30 minutes more to go meet the gang in the graveyard. Dressed in his usual attire, only without the jacket, he placed the Millennium Puzzle around his neck, gathered the pieces of the Orb and dropped them in the drawstring bag. Carefully he put the bag in his drawer. Grabbing a muffin in the kitchen, he headed out for the graveyard.
Yugi was walking down the street, discarding the unfinished muffin in a trash can. Cars passed by him, as he walked amongst the crowd of people. He looked at his surroundings carefully. Turning this way and that, he tried to look for a landmark of some kind. Sighing, he looked down on his watch, to see that he had eight more minutes left.
Buying a bouquet of flowers from a nearby stand, Yugi subconsciously chose a direction, thinking about his dream.
'Well, one thing's for sure; I have to keep an eye out for anything suspicious at Egypt. That dream was a warning, and I better take it. But why is this happening? I can understand about the last part, but not the first. Why in the world did the dream include that boat?' Yugi sighed. 'I'll find that out later, but to other matters. . . Yami hasn't been out of his soul room in awhile. I wonder what's going on.' But before he could think any further on the subject, he approached the gate to the graveyard. Looking at his watch, it said 12:00 pm, just in time.
Now the graveyard is a rather lavish one, with its surrounding nature, beautiful landscape, and of course, many of the small but large hills of graves on the hillside. But something about the about it made Yugi on alert. Opening the gate, Yugi walked toward the path, his bouquet dropping a few petals. He glanced at passing tombstones, all the same, yet different, each with its own small symbol. But as he turned the corner, he saw something that made him run faster.
Police cars were all surrounding a particular grave. As Yugi ran faster, he saw that Joey, Tea, Ryou and Tristan were there, gaping at the thing in front of them.
When he finally ran up to them, he asked through heaving breaths, "Wha-What happened?" They didn't answer, and as Yugi slowly turned his head, he gasped at what he saw.
The grave was completely dug, and in place of the hill was a huge hole. To the side was the coffin, now just a pile of wood. Yugi didn't understand; whose grave did it belong to? But there was no need for a reply, for scattered on the ground were 14 crushed white roses, shriveled and dried. Slowly realizing, Yugi looked at the tombstone to see the name.
Aura Riordan.
Yugi dropped the bouquet, eyes wide with horror. His friends continued to stare, Tea clutching her rose tightly.
"Who done this?!" A man roared behind them. Yugi turned, to see that the man had grey hair and a beard, his brown eyes bright and powerful. No sooner did he think this that Yugi realized who he was. It was Mr. Shields, Aura's father and only living family member. Yugi and his friends walked towards him as the police man stared in fear.
"I-I don't know sir. I'm sorry what happened to your daughter's grave, but our men are trying their hardest--" he stuttered, wringing his hands.
"You're not trying hard enough!! Look what happened to her GRAVE!! How is she supposed to rest in peace if her resting place was DISTURBED?! Do you know what my company and I can do to you? DO YOU?!" threatened Mr. Shields, "Now find the person RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS!!" The police officer nodded quickly and ran off.
"Mr. Shields, what happened here?" Tristan asked, as they stood by him.
"Who are you? Oh, you were Aura's friends, weren't you? You went to her funeral," Mr. Shields said sadly, which made Yugi wonder why Aura thought so badly of him, "Did you come to pay your respects? As was I, until I saw this. . . The damn grave keeper didn't even notice, until I came and called the police. Who would have wanted to do this to my daughter? I swear, I will find the person responsible and tear him limb from limb for what he did. . . Best you leave now children."
"But wait! We want to help!" Tea said, still holding her rose. Mr. Shields raised his eyebrows at the thought of it.
"Yeah! We might have an idea about who did it!" Joey exclaimed.
"We can help you, sir," Ryou said, as the man shook his head.
"Unacceptable. This is my problem, not yours. You should go back to your studies," Mr. Shields answered.
"But she was our friend, therefore our problem--" Yugi protested.
"—Which I will solve. Farewell, thank you for actually coming for her; she never really had a lot of friends." Mr. Shields then walked away, leaving the group of teenagers.
Yugi's friends didn't say anything, not noticing Yugi bending down to pick something up. In his hand was a handkerchief, and on one corner of it was a small insignia, somewhat familiar to him.
Yugi stared at the dug up grave, clutching the handkerchief tightly.
To Be Continued. . .
I've seen the future of YGO. . . and it is cool. What sucks is that I know what's gonna happen at the end. A warning to you all, don't EVER try and see what's gonna happen next; it shall tempt thy head to see more of YGO to come. And to think I won't see YGO for weeks. . . How sad. Tell me what happens! By the way, dream is important, remember it! Oh, and to Eboo Eboo, I'll think about that romance idea. KanikaMeskhenet, thanks for your comment about my fanart!