Disclaimer: shame on you, go read chapter one! (hee hee)
Author Note: Oh great, you are thinking, more notes! But honestly, they are important. Two things: one, there is a flashback in this chapter. I hope you know that it is in italics and happened in the past. You are smart people, I am sure. And two: I do say some things that came out of an "Egypt book" but I am sure if you look it up on the net, you would find I am a bit off in my info. It's a fanFICTION so I know that everything I say in here isn't always correct! I had to fudge a bit. Ok, thanks to all 12 reviews so far, keep it up. Enjoy.
Yugi couldn't believe it. The album was gone! The boy franticly opened the other drawers in his desk, but they all were exactly as always, filled with papers and nothing more. He turned rapidly, and began to tear apart the bed sheets, hoping against all hope that he had left the small black book there.
"No," he muttered, his eyes searching, "No, no, no! I put it back, I know I did, I put it back in the drawer!" Yugi looked under and behind the desk. "It was right here!"
After half an hour of thankless searching, he sat down heavily on his bed, and put his aching head in his hands. The young hikari forced himself to calm down; he was being stupid, acting like this. He needed to think for a moment. There was no way that Yami could have moved it, he would need my body for that. And grandpa would never touch my things if they were in my room. Yugi banged the palm of his hand on his forehead, his large eyes screwed shut in thought. Then who? Who would take a photo album that no one knew about except for Yami and…
The boy sat bolt upright, and muttered softly in realization, "Anzu."
XXXX
A frantic pounding on the door roused the teen girl from her half-sleep. She rose from the couch and pressed pause on the movie, walking briskly to answer the door. Her brown hair was slightly tousled and her eyes were half-lidded and sleepy. "Yeah?" she lightly demanded of the person in her walkway.
She felt her heart race for a moment. The pharaoh had come to visit again! But as she looked, she realized it was in fact a distressed looking Yugi, his wide amethyst eyes pleading with her. Anzu hid her disappointment. "Oh, hello Yugi. What are you doing here?"
The young boy simply blurted it out. "Anzu, did you give the pharaoh a book of photos?"
His tone was desperate, and he looked so insignificant, wrapped in the darkness of the night. "Please, I have to know."
XXXX
"I was…wondering something, Anzu. Wondering if you could do something for me." The pharaoh sounded worried, as he sat awkwardly on Anzu's avocado green couch. "But, I don't want Yugi to find out." Was that a blush she saw creep up his cheeks?
"Um," she mumbled, twisting her hands. She was still confused about the relationship between Yugi and the pharaoh. They shared a body, but they were two different souls, and very different people. "How can you keep anything from Yugi when you and him share a…" she looked anywhere but at the tall boy in front of her. She had to squeak the last word. "Body?"
The pharaoh blinked, and looked preoccupied. "It is difficult. But, I found a way to do it. I feel dishonest, but I needed to talk to you alone." He left it at that, but she could tell there was so much more.
Anzu gently pressed him for answers. If she went too far, she would hit his brick wall, and he would go silent. She wanted him to talk to her, to see her as a friend. "You are still, that is to say, Yugi is still in…there?" she gestured vaguely to have something for her hands to do.
"Yes, he is still my partner." The pharaoh said it a bit forcefully, and then let his rigid shoulders relax. "I found that when he sleeps, I can switch with him. Right now he is sleeping in his soul room in the puzzle, unaware of any of this. No different than in true sleep."
No wonder he is edgy, Anzu thought, if he is worried that Yugi could wake up at anysecond and find out! "I really don't know about this," she hedged, "it doesn't feel right. Maybe you should come back later when Yugi is with you."
"I would not have done this if it wasn't absolutely necessary, Anzu. I would never hurt Yugi just so I could go for an idle walk in the night air! This…this is something that I already regret. Please don't make it a waste of my time as well." His deep voice pierced her.
Finally, his gaze caught and held hers, and all her girlish thoughts of romance were forgotten. He held so much emotion in his eyes! Anzu thought it was perhaps because he had forgotten to hide his feelings; being in the puzzle for so long. None the less, his expression troubled her.
"You know that I do not belong here. I am living, if you can call it that, on borrowed time. One day I will have to return to the realm of the spirits and leave this all behind. I fear that I will be called there before I get my memories back." Suddenly, he reached out and grabbed her arm, his grip tight. Instead of the normal thrill she felt at his touch, she felt only dread.
"When Ra calls me back, I fear I will lose everything all over again; all my present memories of Yugi, Jounouchi, Honda, Kaiba, and you. I will loose all of you who I treasure. I don't want that." Anzu wondered where he acquired such a great sadness that weighed him down. "I can't talk to Yugi about this…so I was hoping you could help. Is there any way I can have something to keep my present memories safe in?"
She was puzzled. Something to keep his memories in? Then, in a moment of unusual clarity, she understood. Anzu had read up on Egypt, in the hopes that it would help her get close to the spirit of the puzzle, and in doing so, had stumbled upon a certain passage about burials. The book said that in ancient Egypt, the people were buried with their most treasured possessions, so that in the afterlife, their souls would remember. If those objects were stolen or lost, then the soul was doomed to wander endlessly, trapped somewhere in limbo, unsure of where he or she belonged.
"I don't really know anything…"she began, but his grip on her arm increased, and she moved to stand up, breaking his spell. "Hold on." Anzu rushed to her room, and pulled out a pink flowered bin. Near the top was a small black photo album. Satisfied with her choice, she found a small post-it note and scribbled a few words onto it. Making sure to tuck the note where he would find it later, she picked up the black album and came back to the living room.
She licked her lips, and held it out to him. He looked at the book, then at her, his slanted crimson eyes puzzled and wary. "What is it?" he asked, but already, his dark hand had moved towards it. He took it from her and she smiled in delight. He struggled to read the unfamiliar text on the front. Though he could speak fluently, any script that was not the ancient hieroglyphs confused him.
"It's a photo album. You put pictures of your friends in there, so you can look at them later on, when they are gone. Open it; it has pictures of all of us, like you wanted." She smiled at his apprehension as he cracked open the cover. It quickly turned to awe mixed with fear.
Yami looked at her, the book held loosely on his lap. "You have…captured the souls of Jounouchi and Honda on this card. Why would you do that, Anzu? What shadow magic is this?"
She waved her hands in defense. She hid a smile at the look on the unshakable pharaoh's face. "No, it's not their souls! It's just a picture I took with my camera. Pictures are just copies, or like…" she hummed as she thought of a good ancient resemblance. "Paintings! Pictures are like modern paintings. It's just an image of Jou and Honda."
In wonder, the spirit trailed his long fingers over the plastic film-covered image. "A painting," he murmured to himself, reaching to flip over the page. He smiled a rare smile as he saw the next photo in the book, a candid one of his partner and Jou playing a heated game of duel monsters. The pharaoh looked up into Anzu's eyes. "I could never take such a thing from you. It is yours to cherish, not to give away."
Anzu smiled and brushed a strand of her auburn hair from her eyes. "I want to give it to you. It's something you can have, even when—" her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat to cover it, "even when you have to go. Take it, it's yours." Pharaoh, she thought, looking at his bent head, I would give anything to see you smile again.
Flipping the pages one by one, he stopped suddenly, and looked stricken. His hand wavered above one of the pictures, and he touched it with a trembling finger. "Anzu," he said hoarsely, "Can this…camera that makes the paintings, can it make one of the spirits?"
Puzzled, she craned to see over his shoulder. "Did you ask if a camera can take a picture of a spirit?" it was just a normal picture of Yugi, smiling and blushing. Anzu remembered taking it about a year ago. "No, that is jut Yugi." She looked at his pale face, and wondered what the pharaoh saw. "Are you alright?"
He traced an outline over the picture, his eyes never leaving it or his partner's face. "You see nothing else here but Yugi? Nothing else?" he sounded tense, unsure of something.
The teen girl looked again. "No, it's just Yugi. I remember taking it, it was a shot of just him by himself; the one next to it is the one of all of us."
The pharaoh flipped through the rest of the pictures one by one, his crimson eyes searching for something only he could see. Finally, he snapped the album shut and rose to his height swiftly but with grace. Yami smiled briefly at Anzu, who was sitting on the couch, still confused.
"Thank you so much for this, Anzu, it is very important to me." He waved a hand over the shoulder as he moved silently to the door, and then paused, his voice sounding forced and strained. "Please don't tell Yugi that we met tonight, or about the album." With a click, the door shut behind him, and he was gone, leaving Anzu to wonder what it is that he had seen in Yugi's face.
XXXX
Oh and one last thing, if you please. No Anzu/Tea bashing or what not. She is just a character, if you hate her, fine. But if you review, don't just tell me she sucks and take her out of my story, she is already there. Other than that, review please! (oh, and HondaTristan...sorry for any confusion)
