A/N: Thanks for the reviews, guys! Even though there haven't been many, and that'd usually get me discouraged by now, I get that this is a new fandom. And hey! This is a story I am growing to love. Time for Watari to meet his partner and vice-versa. (cackles)

And big thanks to my good buddy PK13, who FINALLY went and bought the rest of the YnM manga she was missing up to volume 7 so I could read it. (love) Now get the last four volumes. :P

DISCLAIMER: …Do I look like Yoko Matsushita or Kazuki Takahashi to you? Hmm? Well? No? Then I don't own Yami no Matsuei or Yu-Gi-Oh!. Stop. Rubbing. It. In. My. Face.

"'You who took your own lives… deal with death to atone for your death.' A never-ending maze... that is our prison." – Izumi Lio, Full Moon o Sagashite, Volume II. (Arina Tanemura).

Life After Death
Chapter Three: The 'Odd Couple'
-bohr-d

"Well, come on Kyouji! What are you waiting for?" Tsuzuki asked as the two stopped in front of the laboratory doors, Seto refusing to budge one inch more, despite the violet-eyed man's pushing.

Seto refrained from rolling his eyes and pointed to the large, highlighter yellow sign posted on the door in front of them.

'WARNING: Experiment in process. Do not enter.' It read.

Tsuzuki shrugged, "Watari always has that sign up… and I bet he's not working on anything hazardous at the moment any—"

Both brunets turned towards the door suddenly as a muffled yell of "Oh, damn it!" was heard. Tsuzuki shoved Seto down on the ground before diving as well just seconds before a good size explosion occurred. The windows of the lab shook violently before shattering, glass spilling over the two shinigamis' backs. Smoke began pouring out into the hallway, and through the ringing in his ears, Seto could distantly hear a smoke alarm going off.

"What the hell was that?" barked Seto, getting up and glaring daggers at Tsuzuki, probably because the man had just shoved him disgracefully onto the ground.

The man in question ignored Seto for the moment, getting up swiftly and brushing off the glass before barging into the lab. "Watari! Watari, are you okay?"

Frowning, Seto got up as well and followed Tsuzuki. The smoke was still somewhat thick in the room, and the blue-eyed teen could just make out Tsuzuki's form bending over someone else in a corner of the laboratory. Seto walked over to them.

'I knew that sign was up for good reason.' he thought, looking down at the two on the floor, 'So this is my new partner…'

"Hey Watari, you all right? That was some explosion." Tsuzuki said, shaking his friend's soot covered shoulder.

Watari looked up at Tsuzuki, still somewhat dazed, "…Tsuzuki? What? Oh, right… explosion…" the blonde looked around the room, "…Everything's blurry. Where are my glasses? Oh, I hope they didn't get destroyed!"

"Here."

Golden-brown eyes peered up curiously at the slightly blurry figure in front of him, holding out what seemed to be a pair of glasses. Watari smiled, "Erm… thank you!"

"No problem." Seto replied, shrugging, "But I'd think you'd like to know that your lab table is on fire."

Now that got the scientist's attention pretty darn fast. Watari practically flew into motion, jumping up and grabbing a fire extinguisher from the wall and quickly smothering the flames threatening to engulf his table, notes, and computer. Once the danger was over, the blonde moaned pitifully as he held up a pile of scorched and ruined papers.

"My notes… now I'll have to start all over again!"

Tsuzuki clapped his hand on Watari's shoulder, "It's okay… at least your lab's still in err… mostly one piece!"

Seto, off to the side, snorted at Tsuzuki's rather pathetic attempt at consolation, "Shouldn't the emergency sprinklers have gone off?"

"They're malfunctioning. Result of his last mishap." Tsuzuki supplied, turning to look at Seto, before his gaze flickered to the doorway and violet eyes widened considerably. "Umm… Watari. Watari!" he squeaked nervously, pulling on the blonde's formerly white lab-coat.

"What is it, Tsuzuki…"

A certain Secretary was standing in the doorway, a livid look upon his face.

"Oh no… Tatsumi, I can explain!"

Seto smirked in slight amusement as Tatsumi's steely blue glare was fixed upon the nervous, soot-covered, disheveled scientist and Watari flinched slightly at the intensity of it. "You had better explain it, Watari-san. This is the third time this month you've had a major explosion, and you've went and destroyed the windows again! I've just about had it with you, I swear I don't know why I continue to give you funding…"

Watari sighed, "Well, for once I was actually working on something Bon wanted me to work on… I stepped away for one moment, and the next thing I know, my potion was overflowing and it err… exploded?"

"No, really. Kind of hard not to notice that." Seto quipped sarcastically from his corner of the room.

The other three shinigami turned to face him, seeming to have forgotten that their new recruit was in the lab with them. Watari looked slightly confused, "Umm… I don't believe we've met. Who are you?"

Seto went to reply, but an overly exuberant Tsuzuki answered for him, making the blue-eyed teen frown. "Oh! Watari, this is Kyouji, your new partner! I was showing him around before you went and blew up your lab again…"

"So you're my new partner," Watari said, looking Seto up and down before smiling at him, "Welcome to Meifu! I'm Watari Yutaka, resident scientist and medic."

Seto just knew somehow, deep down, that this man in front of him would be cause of many a migraine. But he bowed slightly to the man in front of him, "Kyouji Seto. I look forward to working with you."

That was a month ago. And even though Seto had only been working with the scientist for that short of a time, he had already wondered a few dozen times what exactly he had inhaled when he had said he would be looking forward to working with Watari. The genki blonde had already tested his patience to the limits with the frequent spiking of his drinks when Seto refused to be a lab rat for various potions, constant explosions of the lab, and his habit of always, always being able to get on Seto's nerves without seeming to even try.

Therefore, when the Meifu's library was reopened (1), the brunet took to spending a great deal of time in there as opposed to staying in the laboratory that he and Watari shared. The Kinki area was rather quiet, after all, and without paperwork, missions, or –in Watari's case- experiments to work on, what else was there to do but read?

"Kyouji? Could you give us a hand over here?"

Seto looked up from a book on demonology and nodded at the younger of the Gushoshin twins. "What do you need my help with?" he asked as the bird-god let him over to the computers where he and his elder twin were working.

"It's been lagging like you wouldn't believe, and it keeps kicking me off of the server every ten minutes or so. I don't know what's with it, it's practically brand new." Younger Gushoshin told Seto, who sat down at the computer and began to mess with various programs and applications.

While Watari was the undisputed mechanical and research genius of the Shokan Division, Seto had quickly earned a reputation of being a quick and capable computer whiz. After all, technology had become quite advanced since the 1970s, when Watari had died. And although the blonde was a quick study and was adept at repairing the Shokan Division's computers when they had their malfunctions, Seto, who had lived almost his whole life surrounded by technology, was more familiar with the machines.

Seto was also good at intimidation, and when it failed him (as it had a tendency to do around Watari and Tatsumi…), manipulation was another talent of his. Employing both these tactics had earned Seto a nice, brand new laptop from the Gushoshins' library.

"There. Finished." Seto said a few minutes later, shutting down his work before rebooting the machine, "It should be fine now. You had your server on a timer without knowing it."

The god nodded, taking his seat back at the computer desk, "Arigatou, Kyouji. How's your laptop working for you, by the way?"

Seto shrugged, "I haven't really had much to use it for other than organizing Watari-san's mess of a filing system. It's just pathetic."

As if conversing about the man was a sort of summons, Watari walked through the doors at that moment, soot-covered, frazzled-looking, and altogether seeming as if he wanted to be anywhere else at that moment.

"Watari-san?" Older Gushoshin greeted, puzzled at the man's appearance and the fact he seemed to be clutching something bulky and somewhat… melted… to his chest.

Seto raised an eyebrow as his partner approached him. Watari bowed low and held out the charred, slightly melted object to Seto, saying, "I'm sorry, Kid. It was an accident, I swear!" before hightailing it out of the library as fast as he could.

Blinking confusedly, the three occupants of the room looked down at the object sitting in Seto's hands. The brunet frowned, turning it over in his hands, wondering what exactly it was that the blonde had given him. Only when he saw the unscathed disk drive on the side of the hunk of metal did he realize what exactly Watari had destroyed.

"Watari-san…" Seto growled, eye almost twitching as he handed his now useless laptop over to one of the Gushoshin before taking a deep breath and quickly following after his partner.

The Shrine of the Next World, Egypt, Chijou (2).

The Ceremonial Duel had been completed.

And Atemu, the Nameless Pharaoh, the King of Games, had lost.

Yuugi watched with tears in his eyes as his other half approached the Door to the Next World. Standing in front of the door, the spirit raised his head and shouted at the top of his lungs, "Atemu!"

The Eye of Horus on the wall began to glow, and slowly the Door opened, bright, white light pouring into the dark stone shrine. Atemu stepped forward, it was his time to go.

Time to leave behind his friends, his rivals, and his enemies in this world that he was not meant to stay in.

Yuugi had won, after all… and it showed that the two were ready to part.

'Yuugi… I will miss you most of all…' Atemu thought morosely as he took another step closer to the light and what lay beyond it, 'Farewell, aibou.'

"Pharaoh! Wait! Please!"

The crimson-eyed spirit was suddenly rushed from behind. Arms locked around his waist as a sobbing Yuugi cried into his back. "Yuugi…" Atemu said, turning around and detaching himself gently from the teen.

"Just because I won… just because… it shows we're ready to…" Yuugi hiccuped as he looked up at his darker half, "to separate, doesn't… it doesn't mean that I want us to! I know I'm being selfish, but I want you to stay."

Atemu frowned, "But, my destiny is—"

Suddenly, the spirit had a brief memory of something a good rival, and almost friend had once preached time and again.

"Chosen by fate? Get real!"

"When are you people going to figure out that I focus on the future?"

"Thanks for the lecture, but I make my own destiny… and I do what I want to do!"

Atemu smiled down at his hikari and rested a hand on his shoulder. "My destiny is what I make of it… fate brought us together in the first place, Yuugi. It was because of fate that we have been through so much. So... I suppose that she could wait a little while longer before I return to where I am supposed to be."

Yuugi wanted him here. They all did. And Atemu, as much as he longed to return to his own era, had found something precious and worth staying for in this time. Something he didn't want to leave behind.

Friendship. An odd family consisting of Yuugi, Sugoroku, and the recently adopted Kaiba Mokuba.

Amethyst eyes looked up in shock, "But… you're… you're really going to stay?"

A small smirk graced the once-Pharaoh's face as he walked over to the Sennen Stone, taking out the Puzzle and handing it to Yuugi, "Yes. I am."

Atemu gave a searching look towards Isis, who bit her lip and sighed, "It seems I cannot override your decision. Unfortunately, this is the only chance you will get, my Pharaoh. If you have any desire whatsoever to return to the World of Memory, you must do so now, before the doors close and it is too late. You cannot change the course of destiny. As much as we will miss you, all of us…" here Isis composed her quickly saddening face into one of strength and almost apathy. Her voice had done the same. "You must go."

The doors indeed were already starting to close and the light beginning to dim. Hesitating for a moment, Atemu gazed longingly at them before turning his back completely to them and walking down the stone steps until he was level with the rest of the group. "No offense meant, Isis, but your version of destiny has been proven wrong before. It can be altered. My place is here, with my friends."

The doors shut all the way, never to open again. As they sealed closed, a loud rumbling began to shake the Shrine.

"It's gonna collapse!" Otogi yelled, "We need to get out of here!"

Malik nodded, "This way!"

As the group ran out of the Shrine, no one saw the Sennen Stone break into pieces, falling into the dark abyss below it. The Items fell as well; shining beacons of gold as the glow of the torches hit them for the final time before they descended into the darkness.

There were only five.

(1)- Yami no Matsuei manga spoiler: Tsuzuki has a tendency to cause a lot of chaos. As a result of such, he's destroyed the Meifu's Library twice. Once, in the Devil's Trill arc, and another in a short piece where Terazuma and he get into another one of their fights… resulting in shikigami getting sent out… and the brand-new library getting blown to bits. Bad Tsuzuki.

(2A)- For those of you a bit confused, the Shrine of the Next World is where the Ceremonial Duel takes place after the Memory Arc. It's also where the Sennen Stone that houses all the Items is held.

(2B)- Chijou is the human world. Just like Meifu is another word for purgatory.

Those who live in darkness wander aimlessly… until they buy a flashlight. :P