Yu-Gi-Oh: A Past and Future Pharaoh

Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix

Beta By: Lady Lunar Phoenix

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There hadn't been much left to talk about really, the trio had left the hospital with the twins then went their separate ways. Malik had insisted on knowing the situation over at the Kaiba mansion which Bakura obliged. Yet the spirits had nothing to report, it was peaceful with Kaiba even having been up for time doing paperwork. He had gone to sleep yes, but all in all everything was calm.

Which begged the question of Mahaado's behavior.

"If there's nothing to protect at the moment at the mansion, why was Mahaado so afraid? He must have seen something, but what?" Malik stewed before they teleported back to Bakura's apartment.

"Given what Money Bags knows, it had to be something he recognized, too. But the only thing they share is their job as Yugi's priests." Jounouchi admitted with a frown and furrowed brow. He leaned against the back of the seat in Bakura's living room with the others sitting around as well.

"And friendship, they were and would be friends now if not for Kaiba's place as Pharaoh," Bakura pointed out. "Given what you described, it sounds more like something unsettled Mahaado and Kaiba didn't pull Mahaado back to protect the mansion. Rather he pulled Mahaado back to protect Mahaado from whatever upset him."

"Meaning whatever it was, was personal between the two of them, and at least we can put 'that' to the side. For now at least," Malik finished with a sigh before crossing his arms and growing silent.

"So we gotta find Pandora..." Jounouchi filled the silence earning the pair's startled glances and shrugging in answer. "What? He's the only one who knows about the book, who gave it to him and while the book is guarded by the demon. He's not." As the surprised silence grew he started shaking his head in quiet disbelief. "Guys I know you don't want to think about it, cuz one of you did some pretty shitty things to him." Cue Malik's wince. "But its the only option we have left at this point. He's obviously not well true, but you know what? We owe it to him, he's just as much a victim of the demon as everyone else in that group. Fuck he thinks his brother is 'alive'."

"No we don't. We don't 'owe' anyone anything. We can stop right now, drop all of this and resume normal healthy lives. We can be like everyone else who are currently living their perfectly bland lives." Bakura corrected from behind his hand where he was resting his eyes. "But we're here because we 'choose' to be here. We choose to put ourselves through this misery and pain, there is absolutely nothing stopping any of us from letting Yugi handle everything. A nice bland life sounds positively thrilling to be honest. I wish I had such a life."

The pair looked at the thief before settling back to looking at the safe, non judging ground. They were both right after all, Pandora, or rather 'Monte' didn't deserve what had happened. Given what Josie had described whatever the demon did messed him up terribly. He had lost his girlfriend, his career, and now was afraid he was going to lose his brother. Not realizing the man was long dead.

How would they confront him? How 'could' they confront him? They needed the book, he was the only person they could think of to find that could help them. But his sanity was fragile...

"He had suicidal tendencies... I pushed them when he lost to Yugi, but someone stopped him. But if they stopped him again, or if he's been able to go through with it..." Malik commented, his voice as low as his mood at that point.

"I feel my age, all of it," Bakura grumbled before leaning back to see who was around in the spirit sense.

"You need rest my son, you're clearly tired despite having slept the night before..." His Ancient Egyptian Mothers' voice came off as soft, soothing. Despite her not being his mother in 'this' life time though, it was comforting enough to help him take the edge off his nerves if not the fatigue.

"I know, but until that book is gone there's no time for rest. Destroy the book before they learn how to summon the demon, and we'll be fine. If they figure it out, mass produce the Items, we'll be resting because we'll be dead." Bakura sighed before he pushed his fingers tiredly through his thick white hair. "Is there a chance you and the others can find Pandora if we describe him to you? Because we need him. He's our last link to the book, but he's not well mentally, he might have killed himself for all we know."

"So how would we do this? You don't know how to handle someone who's thinking of ending their life... I doubt I would be any good and 'Kura really doesn't need the added stress." Jounouchi asked while Bakura conferred with the, gulp, ghosts.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Malik snarked back for moment before sighing in regret. "But you're right, we're not talented in this sort of issue and have nothing we can offer. Be it protect Travis or getting Catherine back."

"But they can promise to make Monte into another me," Bakura rejoined the conversation with the same nearly lifeless voice. "Its too late to use Travis as part of a new set of Items true. But the demon can offer him the power that came with the Ring. After all Monte tried to get Catherine back by force using Mahaado to start with. They just need enough time to make a single set of the Items and he can be a 'real' magician. Something to keep in mind is that the Items give you what you want. Albeit titled towards the demon."

Another Spirit of the Ring.

Pandora's thing was escape artist and magician. The Ring never gave Bakura any greater magical abilities beyond finding things true. But Bakura was never a magician in any capacity to start with. So what would happen if the Ring was given to a stage magician?

Jounouchi dared to cast a glance towards Bakura. Between the guy's experience and knowledge and Yugi's strategic ability. There had to be 'something' the pair could come up with, so it was a harsh shock to see wet tracks running down Bakura's check. Or the confirming wet spot under the armrest of the couch Bakura was sitting on.

"We have nothing we can offer him." Bakura finally stated as he pulled his hand back and began wiping at the revealing tears. His voice growing hard as he spoke while his gaze traveled the room, if he was looking at Spirits or just taking in the sight there was no distinction. "I was never really balanced back then. Either think on the past and be filled with rage or so numb to the world that I was little more than an obedient dog in a human body."

Bakura studied the way the tears shimmered in the light on his hand before he clenched his hand shutting his eyes again. "But I'm free. That cursed demon is gone and I am 'free'; all I have left is my white hair and there's nothing really beyond that holding me back. I can go out and live my life, no more plots, theft, contact with the criminal underworld. I'm not blacking out and waking up hours later in different environments with no clue where I am. Or why my arm is bleeding and who gave me that scar..."

"But what does Pandora have once the demon is gone? He has his parents, his friends yes... but that didn't seem all that important when he went back after Catherine now did it? Would he trade them for getting Travis back? Or would he trade them for Catherine?"

"Kura... Ryou come back man, you need to pull back," Jounouchi began cutting off Bakura as his tone and expressed thoughts seemed to go darker. "I know that the demon's messed you up badly, we all do. But you can't just look at the worse case scenario every time!"

"I've spent three thousand years under the thumb of that demon, I know what he can do. How good at button pushing he is!" Bakura began as Jounouchi doggedly shook his head against it.

"But the bastard didn't win now did it? You're here, we're here, Yugi 'won'," Jounouchi cut Bakura off with a frustrated tone of voice.

"Yeah, he won... It only took three 'thousand' years, him being killed, his soul sealed into an Item with the demon. Losing his memories, all his priests dying save Mahaado who is now an eternal slave and Kaiba. It took whole tribes to move underground to hide the Items, death and suffering of innocent people. But yeah... yeah he won.. So lets ask him to do it all over again, on a grander scale than merely just Egypt. Let's make the world a dueling arena, lets put the costs of life from the thousands to millions." Malik elaborated with a sigh before he folded in as well resting his elbows on his knees as he hid his eyes.

"When the hell did you two become such defeatists? The items haven't been forged true, but that doesn't mean we need to sit here and look at the worst case situation!" Jounouchi argued, shifting his gaze between the two who hadn't looked up at him. "He doesn't have the book, and no one has tried to force Mahaado back. Or maybe they got one of the other Dark Magician into service some how. But this is no time to just give up!"

"No one is giving up, its not even the last thing I want to do," Bakura tiredly pointed out as he leaned back in his seat. He ran a careless hand over his eyes before focusing his gaze back on Jounouchi. "Just that its tiring, I'm just tired, and I'm pretty sure Yugi is too. We spent so long being victims of the circumstances we found ourselves in. So now that we have a group willing to force those events to happen again. Despite, apparently, having some context of what that entails."

"I guess that's what its like to be a parent for well adjusted folks. You make the mistakes and try to keep your kids from doing them. But they have to learn for themselves and they won't listen, only we're talking about magics and demons that could result in the destruction of the world," Malik noted as his fingers played with the fringes of his hair.

"Find the book, destroy it so that it can never be used again, and that means total destruction, it can't even be allowed to be recycled at some point." Bakura stated while his eyes roamed carelessly over the sigils on the walls of his apartment.

"And then you can sit on your... what do Brits do when they get old and retire? Besides sip tea all day and wear monocles..." Jounouchi asked.

Bakura shifted his gaze fully onto Jounouchi's dumb grinning face before sighing, "Dear Yugi, it is with a deep and heavy heart that I inform you we lost Jounouchi. He's dead now. I had to kill him for the greater good..."

"Yeah, yeah," Jounouchi hand waved it off as he leaned back in his chair. "So we burn the book to ash, but I actually have a question."

"Ash isn't good enough, you can recycle that. No, it has to be broken down into the smallest molecules that exist." Bakura countered firmly, as he stretched his legs out and started to finally unwind a bit.

"What's the question though?" Malik asked, 'since I suppose those two would know of more methods than I do about eradicating something from existence.'.

"Well, how much could that book have already taught this group? For example, since they seem to know something about human sacrifices, what else do they know? What if they just keep trying to kill people and trying new spells until it sticks?"

"Well, first of all, I think the governments of the world would step in at that point when all the prisons empty out." Malik pointed out with a shrug, "Sure governments love power and I can easily see them also want a set of Sennen Items for themselves. So it wouldn't be hard to believe that this group could talk one of them into letting them continue... But if the other governments turn that option down, or say all the governments go that level of mad. I don't see the civilians standing by for it."

"Salem Witch Trials, Spanish Inquisitions... Malik I think you need some updated information about world history," Bakura politely corrected. As the Egyptian blond proceeded to give him a look he decided on the short version. "Salem Witch trials alone was an off shoot of a series of trials in Europe but they're more the popular version. Short version is that a group of girls started accusing people of being witches and those people being murdered."

As Maliks' eyebrows went up he continued, almost nonchalantly, "basically, while we might be willing to assume that the civilians would resist being mass slaughtered for the use in summoning a world spanning demon. There's absolutely no reason for them not to out others to spare themselves. For example claiming someone else is the required 'evil' so that they can live. Which leaves a 'wide' swath of the population per country up for slaughter."

Malik paled under his dark skin as his eyes got wide, and turned his gaze from Bakura over to Jounouchi. Despite the fact that Jounouchi was already getting ribbed for being the lesser educated person in their little group. But Jounouchi was wincing and nodding along as though this was perfectly normal.

"I guess you stuck with Ancient Egyptian faiths, ha well," Jounouchi began before shrugging at the futility of explaining it.

"Religious wars are the best wars, you claim the other side as being amoral heathens and its off to the races to expunge them from the world. Its why China and North Korea don't really like religion since it incites some pretty fanatical obsessive behavior. On the other side, the demon can easily grant a person what can be considered 'holy' abilities. If all it takes for something to be 'holy' is that it defies anything the casual person can do, the demon can certainly cover it." Bakura explained before giving a slight shrug.

"So getting the book is the most important thing, so long as they don't get a single set of the Items they can't pull off anything. Well... to a degree, I mean..." Malik frowned as he rested his head against his fist, a frown crossing his face. "Actually, what would stop people from confusing divine powers from the ability to summon Ka? Mahaado could pull off similar spells after all."

"Probably because to the living, the Ka beasts are nothing more than part of a children's game. The masses would easily scoff if someone attempted to pass themselves as a divine being while using the imagery based on said game." The Village elder pointed out calmly, she drifted across the floor, her fingers playing with the braid her hair had been woven into. "Say the Pharaoh wished to pronounce himself a God to the masses, they would see him purely by his mortal title. The living is far more willing to label anyone with talent as a 'god' and no one would deify him. The Generals' own business produces such wonders that anyone could mistake for just this modern 'tech' stuff."

"True," Bakura admitted turning to look at her. "Anything he could do on a mortal level can be attributed to KaibaCorp's holographic abilities, wires or whatever. Were he put to seriously 'push' the envelope though, go further into his more divine abilities..." Bakura grew silent as Jounouchi began to uncomfortably shift in his seat. Color draining from Bakura's face as the ramifications of such an act and the now very real possibility settling in. 'If he limits himself to the manifestation of Ka beasts, he's got three with the Ancient Egyptian Gods. But the Battle City fiasco put it out there that those three 'exist' so again he would just be written off. A god of wars? A god of games? How exactly would that manifest in the world to make it clear what he is? People would just see a Japanese kid claiming divinity and... ugh...' Bakura closed his eyes and covered his face again as the thoughts started piling on.

"Even the mention..." Bakura shivered and hunkered down into his clothes. "Let everyone think its just a game, let everyone think that this is some type of production or advertisement. Because the moment they get the idea that what Yugi and us can do? The chaos will be unimaginable."

"Now you know why things like that were kept only with the priesthoods at the time," Malik pointed out with a shrug. "If its as bad as you're making it sound, if we've all got the right of it, Yugi 'would' have to shed being mortal for the sake of putting a permanent end to this mess. Which only would... no lets just figure out where Pandora is, get the book, and pray that we can do something for the guy at least."

"They brought the new baby home! Come down here and look!" Bakura heard his past life mother suddenly announce from behind him. Her voice low enough to the floor to tell him she stuck her head up from the ground.

"Ack... oh ok," the Village elder half heartedly answered before sinking to the ground giving while Jounouchi finally relaxed in his own seat. While Bakura realized that by sinking down like that, the thief was left without a spirit to ask about finding Pandora.

"Well the ladies have gone to see a new born... I guess we can take this as a moment to discuss ways that we can help them on their search. Since out of all of us, you have a passing awareness of Pandora beyond what we have seen in retrospect so far," Bakura offered with a sigh. 'Great, crying baby and now sleep will be an issue...'