Tea continued on the road for a long time, and eventually the road started leading into civilization. Buildings started cropping up and Tea found herself in a city, but where that city was was still up in the air. With Noah changing the land every five seconds Tea wondered if she'd even get into the city before Noah sent her back to the rocky shores of the ocean to start all over again. Noah was either being patronizing or just mysterious but Tea got into the city without being sent back to the beginning.
Tea almost forgot she was in a virtual world.
Noah had virtualized every aspect of Domino City, from the shops to the stores to the people walking by her. People were laughing and talking and no one seemed to be getting angry at or about anything. Kinda shocked, Tea started walking forward. She was in the upper end of town, and staying on the side walk Tea passed the rich snobby girl who she attended school with and tried not to gape as she said hello to her. There was no trash floating on the almost non existent breeze, and the road was completely clean of trash. Nobody was dropping wrappers, and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves and not seeming to realize something had to be amiss. Continuing on Tea passed school, waving to teachers she hadn't seen since before the Taken started. Pressing forward, Tea stopped at a coffee shop and was pleasantly surprised when the owner stopped her to give her a free chocolate beverage.
"On the house Miss, would you like to come inside to drink it?" She was asked sociably. Smiling and nodding her thanks, Tea stepped inside the warm little shop. She almost dropped her mug when she saw a stone warrior conversing heatedly with a junior at Domino's other high school. How could a stone warrior be in here? She wondered taking a seat. Sipping her drink delicately Tea started thinking which of her friends Noah had rhymed terribly about. It wasn't Joey, he didn't have 'Humblance abides'. It could be Tristan, but Tea didn't think this would be his dream world. That left Yugi, and a half dozen other people Tea considered friends. There was Mai and Duke, Rebecca, Ishizu and Tea guessed she had an uneasy alliance with Marik, Kaiba on a good day, especially Mokuba, and that wasn't even counting everyone! How many did she have to save anyway? And where would they be? Tea was afraid she'd been set up on an impossible task. The heart of the cards better work with me here. Tea thought darkly. A third of those Taken were duel monsters, and if all the monsters weren't in the deck, did that automatically shoot even having hope in the heart of the cards? Tea sipped another sip from her cup, and let her hands collect the warmth her drink was radiating.
"Hello Tea!" A bright voice said and Tea's eyes snapped up to find Mokuba sitting across from her.
"Oh hey, Mokuba. What are you doing here?" Tea asked surprised.
"What am I doing here? Don't you mean what are you doing here? You're supposed to be having a date with Seto!" Mokuba told her with a parental reprove in his voice.
"I have a what?" She sputtered, spitting out the beverage in her mouth.
"What do you mean, 'What?', you have a date! You need to get going! You're supposed to meet Seto at the park, get going! Now!" Mokuba urged, and pulled her out of her seat and dragged her out the door. "You don't know what a world of good you're doing for Seto, he called me 'Mokie' yesterday! He hasn't called me that in a long time, and I just can't thank you enough!"
"Yes but-"
"And you don't know what kind of impact your having over at the company. Seto's lightening up a little bit and the workers decided to stop their strike! And Kiaba Corp isn't going bankrupt anymore, and it's all because you you! Once you gave Seto a reason to live again everything got better, you don't know how this is working out in Yugi's favor. The two aren't friends yet, but they're getting there and it's all thanks to you and I just can't tell you how much I appreciate it!"
"That's nice but-"
"Hurry up! The park's around the corner, I'll see you at home tonight!" Mokuba called, and ran off leaving me with no other options but to head toward the impending date with Seto Kaiba. I walked into the green grassy field that was the park and found Seto setting up a picnic a ways back on one of the nature trails.
"Beautiful, how are you?" He asked with a smile, something that Tea was shocked from. Seto Kaiba actually smiled. Okay, this was the weirdest world yet, and she'd only been to three! He stood up and walked over to her, and taking her face gently in his hands he kissed her, and Tea tried not to pull back in shock. Still smiling, Kaiba broke the kiss and taking her hand gently lead her to the picnic he'd prepared. "So how are you, my dearest? Do you like the picnic?"
"It's so...thoughtful. Today's been kind of weird, actually. I was supposed to be finding someone who had 'humblance abides' but I found you instead." Tea said distractedly.
"So sorry dearest, let me make it better." He smiled and gave her a long kiss before breaking it to open the basket filled with food. Tea was trying not to panic. She was on a date with Seto Kaiba, and she had been kissed twice by Seto Kaiba, she was really not trying to freak out. Kaiba delicately fed her a strawberry, and she had to return the favor. Trying to find an excuse to get away from all this weirdness, Tea told Kaiba that she had a dance rehearsal she had to get to. "Since when did you take dance?" He asked confused, and Tea's mind reeled in shock. A world where she didn't dance? That was the worse kind of torment possible.
"I started last week, Kaiba, remember I was telling you about it?" Tea prompted gently.
"No, I don't." He replied, suspicion forming in his eyes.
"Oh well, it must have slipped your mind. I need to go though, see you later?" She lied standing up.
"All right." Kaiba replied, and pecking him quickly on the cheek she started running toward the entrance of the park and straight on through. She didn't know where she was running, but eventually she found herself in front of the game shop and burst in.
"Ah Tea, how good to see you!" Mr. Muto's warm voice called and Tea found the older man cleaning one of the glass cases.
"Hey Mr. Muto, how are you?" She smiled heading toward him.
"In bright spirits and you young lady?" The older Muto grinned and Tea felt all her worries ebb away.
"Recovering from a date with Seto Kaiba." She shuddered and watched Mr. Muto frown
"I thought you two were getting along these days." He asked, pausing mid stroke on the glass.
"Not everything's etched in stone thankfully." Tea sighed.
"Isn't it?" Mr. Muto's almost inaudible reply said.
"Is Yugi around?" Tea asked, looking toward the stairs.
"Yes, go right on up. He's finishing his homework."
"Thanks Mr. Muto!" She smiled and headed on upstairs. "Yugi?" Tea called as she entered.
"Here!" Her friend's reply came out, and Tea found the dueling champ lost behind a pile of books. "Hey, Tea, how's it going?" He asked looking up at her.
"Fine, and yourself?" She asked, thinking something was a little out of the ordinary.
"All's well, I finished the book I was writing, Dueling for Dummies, and I sent it out to a publisher this morning." The blond smiled.
"I didn't know you were writing a book!" Tea smiled.
"Yes you did, you helped me with it last week." Yugi said confused.
"Yeah, of course. The Pharaoh been helping you too?"
"Who?" And that was why the world was off here. Tea realized the missing piece, Yugi had no gold pyramid around his neck, nothing related to Ancient Egypt on him what so ever. The missing piece of the puzzle, was the puzzle.
"Yugi, where is the millennium item?" Tea asked slowly.
"What are you talking about?"
"Oh no." She sighed. This was bad, really really bad. Yugi didn't have the puzzle, which meant when Noah had said he'd split them up he had actually split them up. Not only was she going to have to convince Yugi he was living in a virtual world, she was going to have to convince the pharaoh in Ancient Egypt of that too. And if a king's been locked inside a puzzle for a few thousand years, then an ideal world was going to be one where you're ruling and have your own body back.
Just great.
That meant guards, a prison sentence if she couldn't convince the Pharaoh, and in all cases of Kings and Pharaohs, she would be dealing with an arrogant jerk. This just couldn't get better. And then Tea had to wonder, whose ideal world was she in? And why was it ideal?
"This is Yugi's personal place." Noah's voice whispered, and Tea whipped around to find him. He wasn't there, it was just his voice, and Yugi was looking at her like she was crazy. He can't hear Noah. Tea realized with a groan. "Correct Tea. This is Yugi's personal realm, care to figure out why?" Noah's voice chuckled, and Tea started wondering how a world without the Pharaoh was ideal for Yugi. Things had gotten better for him after the Pharaoh appeared, so why was not having him a good thing? She was drawing a blank.
"So, do you want to study? I have to prepare for a trig test tomorrow." Yugi asked, snapping Tea out of her thoughts. She had to figure out why this was an ideal world, most importantly why Yugi's perfect world involved her dating Seto Kiaba,and she had to crush it to smithereens.
"Sure." She replied warily, and sat across from Yugi. He handed her one of his books and Tea started quizzing him. He was actually really smart at this stuff, smarter than Tea had ever realized. That was probably because when she thought of Yugi, she thought of him dueling with The Pharaoh. Technically, her first thoughts were The Pharaoh dueling, since he was the one who fought all the battles really. Her first thoughts about Yugi weren't even about him! She hadn't even known Yugi was this smart, she always thought about him as the King of Dueling. Asking another trig question, Tea wondered if that was part of his perfect world, and then things started clicking.
A world where he was accepted for who he really was, not just the King of Games because the truth was it was The Pharaoh who really was the King of Games, not him. A place where no one thought of him and The Pharaoh as the same person, where he was as individual as everyone else, with his own body and his own soul.
"You are your own person." Tea suddenly said, snapping Yugi out a mini study.
"Excuse me?"
"You are your own person Yugi, and having The Pharaoh didn't change that. Sure you had to share a body, but you had a best friend through that. The Pharaoh didn't make you less individual, he added a unique perspective to your way of life."
"What are you talking about?" Yugi asked, his face contorted in confusion. "Are you all right? Do you need some water?" He asked, feeling her forehead in concern.
"I'm fine, it's you who isn't!" Tea snapped, pushing his hand away and standing up to pace. "How can you not remember The Pharaoh? Do you still remember Duelist Kingdom? Or the Battle City?"
"Um, I think Mr. Pegasus won the Duelist Kingdom tournament and this guy Marik won Battle City, the world almost ended until his sister had to banish him to the shadow realm." Yugi thought aloud.
"WHAT?" Tea shouted. "You won Duelist Kingdom Yugi! And Battle City! You were trying to rescue your grandpa's soul from Pegasus, don't you remember?"
"Grandpa's soul? What are you talking about?" He asked confused. "Tea, it's obvious you hit your head, you need to sit down." Yugi prompted, leading Tea toward a sofa.
"No! You don't get it! This is all fake! Don't you remember Noah?" Tea wanted to cry. He wasn't going to remember, ever. Sniffling, Tea thought how she might be able to break through. Memories were the only way in this virtual realm, Tea thought darkly. That's how she'd broken free, that's how she'd gotten through to MG, and that's how she'd break through to Yugi. But what would be the one memory that could crack Yugi wide open and he'd remember? He couldn't remember The Pharaoh, so anything related to him or dueling was out of the question. Tea was pretty sure Yugi in his perfect world didn't even duel. She had to find a memory, just one memory that could save him. "Hey, have you heard from Tristan or Joey? They weren't in school yesterday." Tea began conversationally.
"Who? Oh you mean those two bullies." Yugi replied instead. "I'm glad they weren't in school, they always try to hit me for no good reason." Tea wanted to gasp. In this world, Yugi didn't even know Tristan or Joey. What was left? His Grandpa, and her.
"Hey, do you remember when your Grandpa showed you that Blues Eyes White Dragon of his?" Tea tried again.
"Sorta, why?" He asked, looking at her curiously.
"Tell me the story, from the beginning to end." Tea demanded, and sat still to listen. Yugi started from the beginning, Grandpa had just shown him the card, and Yugi went on to remember slowly how Kiaba had come trying to buy the card off Mr. Muto.
"When he refused, Kiaba challenged Grandpa to a duel." He remembered, and his brow became furrowed as he tried to remember the ensuing duel. Of course this was going to be the hard part, Tea thought slightly afraid, this was where The Pharaoh came in. "Grandpa was thrown from the dueling platform, and I-I-I did something." He concentrated, trying to remember. Tea wanted to tell him, he had told her so many times, but if Yugi was going to break free of Noah's mind control then it had to be on his own. "I-I think I dueled." He whispered wonderingly, and then frowned. "No, not me, someone who looked like me, but it was me at the same time."
"Yes?" Tea prompted hopefully.
"Kiaba ripped up Grandpa's Blue Eyes!" Yugi remembered shocked, and with wide eyes he gasped, and he stood up looked down at Tea with a gaping mouth and huge wide eyes. "That other someone was me! Well, not me, me but it was me! It was- it was-" He stood stock still as he tried to remember, and Tea knew something was breaking through.
"Who won Duelist's Kingdom?" She whispered. Yugi's brow furrowed in confusion, and something clicked. He struggled with the truth for a moment, and his mind tried to fight to find the real truth.
"I-I did." He whispered. "No, someone was with me though."
"Who?" Tea whispered encouragingly.
"I-I don't remember." He sighed.
"Oh, you do. You just don't want to remember." Tea taunted, hoping making him mad would work like it did with MG.
"Of course I do!" Yugi snapped, jumping to pace the room. "There's this whole other part of my mind I didn't even know about! Memories that shouldn't be real."
"But it is." Tea said quietly. "This world is a fake, nothing from here is real. If you really want to remember who you duel as, then I guess you should start thinking." Tea said sarcastically.
"I am thinking Tea!" Yugi shouted. "I can't remember!"
"Can't or won't?" Tea demanded. Yugi struggled with himself, and Tea knew she had to up it. "I thought a s much, you're just a weak, pathetic excuse for a Muto, Yugi. See ya, hope you rememba." Tea scoffed, and stood up.
"Why are you doing this?" Yugi demanded, getting furious.
"Who's body did you share?" Tea demanded, wheeling to face him. His face blanked, and Tea knew he wasn't going to remember. "Why can't you remember the truth? That was what you fought for, the side of good, to help people. You aren't helping anyone here, Yugi, this place isn't real, none of it is. Everything you do here has no real effect. No one will care about that book of yours, no one will care about you. People don't trust a leader who doesn't even know the truth, I can't believe you Yugi. Don't you remember 'The Heart of the Card'?" She quoted.
"Grandpa's saying." Yugi whispered.
"Don't you remember the symbol I drew on all of our hands at Duelist Kingdom? Can't you remember Tristan or Joey? Can't you remember?" She cried. Yugi looked at her as war raged behind his eyes. Things were clicking, and then not, and everything Tea was saying made some bit of sense, but then Yugi was thinking of having her committed. "I don't know why I remembered when you can't. You always saved the day, I don't know how I'm going to without your help. I'm just the cheerleader after all, you were always the hero. I-I don't know what I'm going to do, but I am going to save these people." Steeling her resolve and blowing air out with a farewell nod Tea headed for the door to the stairway. At the stairs she turned back to look once more in the Muto house. "Bye, Yugi, I really hope you remember someday." She whispered, and slowly slipped down the stairs.