Chapter 9: More Freaking Clues

We continued the quest.

I was still yawning, but I forced my brain to function. Silence followed dutifully behind me. I wondered what else she might be capable of. Found it strange that I could not get the sight of the dragon out of my mind. And the gold object and eye had me reeling. I had seen that before. Before, on the pyramid thing around Yugi's neck. It had my mind running in circles. The only thing I could think of doing was to go back to the beginning.

Pharaoh had something to do with the tablet I saw earlier. I knew that. It was Egyptian, and one of the first things I saw before Stranger showed up and the rest of this unraveled. Both eyes, on both pieces of jewelry seemed Egyptian to me as well. There was still the question of who Stranger actually was. Perhaps there was something to be said of him too.

I held the door open for Silence and immediately remembered the feel of the glass. Remembered the hypnotizing way it had held me. Cool smooth fog. Like creeping cobwebs of winter's chill. I gritted my teeth for those few seconds before letting my hand slide off the pane and hurry away from it.

There were more people about now. Not quite a ghost town any longer. They looked into the glass cases, some with boredom, and others with fascination. I waltzed by, casually with hands in pockets. I found the barred off door. Wasn't surprised when no one was around to tell us to halt. That's how it was with some games. I was down the stairs in a few seconds, and streamed into the room because if I knew I stopped I'd wouldn't be able to move again.

I walked up to the case, the room hauntingly familiar in shadow, towards the gleaming bright lighted glass. I could see my reflection, stormy and angry, fiery glaring eyes. I adjust them, see past the glass.

Two men, pictures of monsters around them.

More pictures but in words.

Hieroglyphs.

Egyptian.

No, there was something I was missing here. Looked harder. I leaned in closer, then realized they seemed very familiar. I looked up and saw one monster was a man in a funny hat and the other…

Dragon.

I furrowed my eyebrows. Looked under the dragon, saw a man with strange ancient clothing, saw…

And took a very sharp step back.

Seto. That was Seto. Or an ancestor of Seto. I had been looking too much at the rock. I felt like an idiot for not seeing it earlier. There he was, in the funny formal looking clothes. I looked at the other and immediately saw Yugi. Or an ancestor of Yugi. The funny hat-ed monster I didn't recognize, but still. He was in ancient clothes too, also formal, but a different type. A triangle at the drawings chest jumped at me too. Triangle with an eye in it.

I looked between the two men thinking. Alright. Seto and Yugi's ancestors must have fought each other. The dragon had its mouth open and claws out, and the funny hat man had the wand pointed out towards it. Okay there was a fight. Who won? That went away quickly when I realized the dragon was on Silence's card. Okay, ancient monsters were on playing cards.

It's a dueling game. Monsters on playing cards. From ancient Egypt. Important formal dressed people that look a lot like a couple of kids today having a fight. If it was chipped into the tablet, that had to be important. Dragon one on a dueling card; that had to mean funny-hat would be there too, and that also meant the whole thing could happen again. I mean, Yugi had the artifact with him. He looked much like this man in the formal attire. I looked at the 'Seto' one, then back at 'Yugi'.

Pharaoh had something to do with this.

Has something to do with both boys?

Has something to do with the fight.

I was racking my brain has I paced in front of the thing. I wish I had paid more attention when they had taught me about ancient Egypt in school. I'd know what this meant. The object was there, but how did the other circle-thing fit? Why where old monsters on new cards? Was this a fight to see who would become Pharaoh? Did it happen like that?

Silence continued to write.

"I wish you would talk." I said bitterly. I bet she knew what was going on. Or at least about how the cards are here. Hackers were tight lipped. They had also made a big deal about Yugi. Was this the reason? Great-great-great, so on and so forth, Father got into a battle with Seto's ancestor?

I was shaking my head at the picture in front of me.

"Something here I'm not quite getting." I murmured. Then I said it again louder and more angrily. Repeated it to myself with seething words as I stared and stared. My legs started to hurt so I sat down and kept staring at it. Furious, but determined.

Hour later I was outside with a headache and growling about the whole thing to myself. I was frustrated. Silence was still going on and on in her notebook. My hands were jammed into my pockets and shaking a little. The street was busy as normal, and there was nothing new to take my mind of this dilemma.

I was considering seeing Mokuba again. He, at least, could tell me some of the family history. I didn't want to see Seto. It had been awkward when we departed. And every time I think back to the café and the whole dating comment I want to bash my head at least several thousand times into a wall just to put my embarrassment out. Surprising how idiotic you feel after thinking about it. A reason why you never look back into the past if you can help it.

The staff where still on the frits. I seldom checked any more. The static was normal when I pressed my ear. I wasn't sure if I wanted to talk to them anyway. Yugi kid had scared the shit out of me with the whole vision spying. Again, an awkward moment I really didn't want to go back to.

I was finding I didn't want to do a lot of things.

It was driving me crazy.

"Hey, what would you suggest?" I yelled over my shoulder, looking at Silence sideways. She didn't even look up from the lined paper. Didn't even flinch. I rolled my eyes, annoyed, and gritted my teeth.

I invaded an arcade for the next three hours. It was strange, playing a videogame inside a video game. Would you call that a mini game? It felt more like I was home. The plastic gun felt lighter, but right in my hands. Shooter games always were the best ones to blow off steam.

I blasted away humanoid pixels while keeping an eye on Silence, sitting on a near by bench still writing. I wondered how her hand didn't cramp. Most of the time I was lost in the mini game. It felt somehow good to blast someone to tiny little pieces and know it wasn't real. Didn't feel real. I was tapping the top of the pistol to reload every few minutes. Not as realistic as the game I was in, but it was definitely quicker.

I lost sight of Silence as a crowd of people began to swarm me. Turns out I was getting close to the 'undefeatable' hi-score. People, real or not, make me uneasy. That's why I'm not usually a customer at arcades. People like to swarm, and I really hate mobs. I was getting my fix, so I ignored them instead of stopped playing.

The murmuring was annoying, but when the numbers blazed past the so called hi score I got a roar that nearly made me drop the game and run. I almost didn't snag a guy hiding in the corner and was nearly blasted to bits. I get trigger happy sometimes. The anger was coming out with my finger as I muttered swears.

The dark room went quiet enough for me to hear myself suddenly. My skin rippled at the feel of that silence, but my finger continued its squeezing duty. I was popping thugs left and right, eyes narrow, still muttering something like a filthy chant with curses.

He came in next to me and picked up the blue plastic gun out of the holster and put a coin in. I could tell from his hands who he was. I was rather interested at the hush of the crowd. Felt like laughing my ass off when we started on Co-op mission and he took the guys to the left.

"You know, I don't need help, right?" I said through the side of my mouth. He didn't laugh, but I could feel it vibrate at my side sort of. He was taking guys out left and right. The murmur was coming back slowly. My lips kept twitching. Must not smile. Glancing to my left, his blue eyes were glued to the screen. His hands were swift and fluent. It felt a little bit like a dance.

"You on break?" I asked, humor glittering in my voice.

"You could say that." Seto's voice was gruff. I figure he's like me in the mob department. I couldn't keep a sly smile off my face. I could hear murmurs behind me now, the name 'Kaiba' came up a few times. I was rather interested.

"You some kind of legend?" I asked softly. Nail the sucker on the left. Ping, out of sight. The blue gun in his hands froze. A guy nailed him and his side of the screen went flashing red. The volume went up at it. I twisted and started picking off some of the guys on his screen while keeping my own in check. Glancing at him, his eyes had gone rather funny. I narrowed my own with interest.

"If you don't shoot, you're going to get killed." I said. He came back with a start. I saw the gun jerk up in the corner of my eye and it was like a massacre. Ten guys seemed to fall down at once. He took out everyone on the entire screen. He was smashing down on that trigger. I was a little unnerved.

We got to level 215 before the game finally declared it was defeated; before dying into a completely blue screen and flash the hi scores in huge white letters. He beat me. I was impressed. It had been a long time since anyone beat me at a game. He put the gun down with a slamming click and flowed away from it. I followed in quick pursuit.

There was applause, but we both ignored it completely as we headed away from the mob. I could hear feet shuffling behind us. It was dead instantly when Seto turned around and gave them a look I didn't catch. Still, I could hear one pair of feet had prevailed. When we stopped and Seto turned to tell them off, I was happy to find it was just Silence.

"Oh, it's cool. She's with me." I said. He gave me a strange look with his blue eyes, glanced at Silence again, and said nothing about it.

"Good game." I said, "You always win?" His eyes narrowed at the question.

"All but a couple of times." He snarled after a pause. I didn't bring it up again. Instead, I moved to the problem that had been bugging me.

"Seto, can I ask something?" He looked at me with wary contemptuous eyes.

"What kind of question is it?" He asked with the same frayed-nerves voice.

"Family question." He looked at me like he was going to say no.

"It's important." My tone was stern. I hadn't been stern around him before. He looked at me with curious serious eyes of his own, calculated through the shift, glanced at Silence still writing expressionless, before coming back to me.

"What?" It irritated, but still not a no.

"Do you know if any of your family was from Egypt?" He gritted his teeth and almost glared at me. I wanted to take a step away from him, but controlled myself.

"No." He said in a small trailing hiss, "Why?" I shrugged my shoulders.

"Eh, no reason. Just something I saw."

"What was that?" His voice was strained. Hadn't expected that question. I figured he'd just drop it and move on to something else. I stared at him, not really knowing what to say. So I told the truth.

"I saw some guy that looked like you on a tablet in a museum earlier, with some other kid I know. I just thought it was interesting." The look he got was one I had never seen before, but it made a chill crawl down my spine.

There was fiery ice cold rage glittering like hard diamonds. Blue water, perhaps. Sea water. And in that vastness, simmering down below in darkness, there was fear. Frantic fear. Kind that consumes and kills; burns like acid. The wound that festers and spreads. The one that can not heal.

I was staring into the half cruel, half innocent eyes of a hurt child.

In me a wave rose.

"What happened?" The look goes in a flash, goes back plain without expression. He looks at me. Just stares for a minute. No answer. I'm twisted up now. Gone. Some sort of logic is gone. Never before have I seen a look like that. No one deserves to look like that. How strange for it to spring up at me, grasp me tightly, and twist me, like ringing out a wet towel.

"What happened?" I'm growling. I think maybe he thought I was growling at him. He doesn't answer, but his jaw tightens and an irritated look flashes in his eyes.

"What are you talking about?" He asks in a hiss. I'm about to scream at him, but a hand settles on my shoulder, makes me freeze. Twist, turn. Silence is starting at me with November cold eyes. Different cold though. It's like having cold water dumped on you. What ever fog was there lifts. I blink once, confused. Apathy flows back. Then I'm fine. A little shaken, but fine. Have to close my eyes.

"Never mind. You can tell me when you're ready." I say, light and casual. Can't look at him when we leave. He doesn't try to follow. Why should he? I've probably scared the hell out him. I'm smart enough to realize some masks must never be broken. Only the wearer should do that. Not Silence's, Not Seto's. Not mine.

Not even mine…