Yu-Gi-Oh: A Past and Future Pharaoh

Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix

Beta By: Lady Lunar Phoenix

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"Yeah that doesn't fit. His hair, with hair gel, would go up like a flame, you'd have open sores and probably give up on hair ever coming back. But just the front of his actual face?" Jounouchi agreed trying to fathom this and failing ever so hard.

Malik put down his slice of pizza, lacking the confidence that he could hold all this beast with one hand. But he then gestured with his right hand the space between his nose up to his hair line, "all that got burned. I saw that and it looked like burn scars to me so I didn't go any further, only now..."

"He was in a state we couldn't reach really, angry at himself, the world. He wouldn't talk to us or even Cat, she stuck by his side, but we ended up leaving." George continued with regret in his voice, "we'd call to check in and Cat would give us a progress report. Until even she gave up on him and walked away from his mood."

"Did Monte ever have a book? A journal or sorts?" Bakura asked watching as the pair started and glanced at each other.

"He had a work book of sorts, when he got the tricks down he used it to help create new ideas. We went over it in fact, trying to see if there was any inherit flaws in any of his designs that he might have missed. But there was nothing, everything looked on the level..."

"All of you seemed to have scattered though, was he and Cat the only two who managed to hang around each other for a long period of time?" Bakura asked, a valid question in his mind at this point. It was insane how what they were pondering one night was turning out true, was there anything note worthy about why Pandora stayed in physical proximity to Cat? "I mean, you both are twins, your bond to each other should overpower whatever was between them."

The twins looked at each other before down at their food, there was a guilt and a shame in their shared expressions. Making Bakura shift his attention back to the other two and more important, to Malik. As a sad thought crossed his mind and he realized something, "was Monte mentally well? You said he was shy and an overachiever when pushed because of it. Fixating on Cat to become a stage magician can't be considered healthy... Or whatever happened to cause all of you to split up. Do you think he used how he compensated to overcome that desire and it did something worse to him?"

"Its what we tell ourselves," George admitted before taking a hard pull from his drink. "You have no idea how hard it is to be sitting next to each other right now. We shared a womb for nine months, we spent our lives hanging out with each other. The type of twins that enjoy each others' company and its like being torn apart. We want to hang out again, we want the gang back and the lives we had here."

"I'm refilling my drink, does anyone need theirs?" Fred asked, cutting off George's emotional response so the guy could pull it back together.

Malik was a little startled when Bakura translated the question, between himself and Jounouchi they both needed a refill. Bakura's bitter drink was doing just fine though so, Fred left the table taking the pair's drinks first once Bakura told him who got what.

"But something is stopping you that goes beyond just moving on with your lives," Bakura quietly nudged George with the sentence, to get the twin to resume.

"It sounds crazy, no one would believe us if we tried to talk about it..." It was almost cathartic to be able to talk to Ryou he found. As George had spoken it was never lost to him how the three of them reacted to this story. He expected at any more there would be an expression of amusement, that the trio was only listening to humor him and his brother.

Yet while Malik focused mostly on his pizza until Ryou translated the conversation for him. Katsuya, with his poor grasp of English, appeared to be struggling to keep up with them regardless of the offered translating. More than that, the kid had a look of empathy and understanding, his eyes were honest as though he had experienced things that defied explanation himself.

"Its like physical pain, the longer we stay near each other the more intense it becomes. I know it sounds insane, but its like when Fred is sitting beside me, there's these hands just pushing me to move away from him and in the opposite direction at all times. But what would cause that?" George asked in self directed bitter humor. A humor from what sounded more like a bad joke than an actual fact and yet...

"To be honest," or as close to 'honest' as Bakura was willing to go. "We came here looking for a book originally, a book that Monte had in his possession when he kidnapped Cat. She got her hands on it when she escaped and gave it to us for safe keeping. So we gave it to Malik's sister who works for an Egyptian museum. Only, recently that book was stolen again, we went to Cat, hoping she might now something. Assuming that it was Monte who committed the theft when she told us about Travis. From there we've encountered a great deal more that exceeds what the world at large would associate as 'normal'. You shouldn't worry about talking to us."

"Its funny that you mention a book though," Fred commented thoughtfully as he finished up bringing the drinks and sitting back down. "We had a book we kept in our family for ages. Then after the camping trip it disappeared, we have no idea where it went... Just that after Uncle John died..."

Bakura repeated what he was told for the other two while his brain positively buzzed at that morsel of information. A book, one that 'disappeared' and given the time of death would have put it before Kaiba would begin his search for the Blue Eyes White Dragon.

"This is going to be hard on them... but..." Malik noted, realizing that 'they' may have had the Book in question all along. In fact it would have made sense that Pandora stole it from them after the camping trip. Or perhaps mistook the book for one of his own and took it by accident.

"Do you know anything about that book? Have you ever looked inside it?" Bakura asked, concerned if the book was stolen by Pandora. He didn't seem stable enough to form an organization on his own, so was Zorc possessing him as well? If that was the case why did Zorc allow Malik to use the man before?

"Its been in our family for generations, going as far back as Egypt," Fred began, before sighing, "there are stories behind it, but we never paid them much mind."

"Something about a family duty to oversee and keep the book safe, but really that was more mom and uncle John's thing than dad or ours. We mean, 'Keep it safe at all costs'? Really? A book? What can it do?" George followed up with, before plucking a random dot of pepperoni and eating it.

So of course their mother and uncle, the two who would therefore know more, were out of commission, one in a mental hospital, the other a spirit in a graveyard.

"We took the book out of the house, just us two, something for our regular camping trip. Thought it might help as a prop for ghost stories, only Uncle John came after us specifically for the book. Which was weird enough for us, but whatever..." Fred recounted. Only to hit that same mental wall that always cropped up, he knew they were all there, the beer and then nothing. He wasn't an avid drinker so he chalked it up to lack of tolerance, but...

"Let me guess, there was a dragon guarding the book designed thing around it," Jounouchi threw out in his weak English.

Earning himself a surprised reaction out of the twins who turned to face him in disbelief, their eyes as wide as the sun and blinking in amazement.

"How..." Fred asked, stunned.

"Yes, how did you know?" George asked earning Jounouchi's own surprised reaction as he turned to look over at Bakura and Malik. Less because he didn't understand what was 'said' and more because their reactions were so honest and he was simply guessing because of Blue Eyes.

"Mom told us once that there used to be a pair of small tablets that went with the book, one of a man with a staff the other a dragon. The dragon got broken by John though..." Fred confessed earning a wistful look on George's face.

"He was like six years old, trying to help clean the room and he knocked it off the shelf by accident. Didn't expect it to be so fragile, after that he took a toy dragon from his room to try and make up for it. He spent years finding new, stronger looking dragons to try and replace the tablet... Which might sound strange, but weird things started happening after the tablet broke." George began when Fred interrupted.

"Things would go missing, the house got robbed like somewhere up to five times before John tried to fix the issue. They got home security that would strangely turn off when everyone was out of the house allowing for more attempts at theft. Until, he reasoned a dragon was needed, and kept collecting dragons and putting them next to the book. But when you're a kid the dragons you have access to are rather tame and cute. Things would settle down again, but the dragon would literally be torn to shreds in days."

"Eventually the rest of the family started joining in, buying dragon figurines and pictures of more powerful looking dragons. All of them would break, some more quickly than others, posters torn from the walls until he came home with a Blue Eyes White Dragon card. From that, at the time, new card game that had been released." George explained, his eyes lost to the memories.

"Yeah strange that a company would make a card that looked exactly like the original dragon on the tablet." Fred confessed when he noticed Ryou's flat out amazed expression sitting naked on the young man's face.

"But there were only four Blue Eyes ever made, and currently Kaiba has three and the fourth was in the hands of a friends' grandfather. Until Kaiba ripped it in half..." Bakura pointed out as his realized how close and far they had been to the mark. A book with two tablets that went with it one with a dragon... These two, their family, their whole family that apparently traced itself back to Egypt had the 'book' in their possession and had been protecting it?

Bakura felt goosebumps as he realized just 'how' close they were, the family was 'protecting' the book. The odds that the uncle died out of demonic murder rather than suicide was even more higher.

On the one hand, there was this strange sense of excitement that they were 'so' close to the truth. While on the other hand, Bakura wanted to politely step outside and scream at the gods that this even was something that had to happen.

While the Spirits were in an uproar; they had followed the conversation and now came to the same realization that Bakura did. That these two people were descended from their mother land, that somehow they had been tasked with the duty of protecting the Book that had caused their suffering. The attempts of theft after the dragon tablet had been broken could easily have been the demon trying to escape. In the back of his mind, Bakura could recall when they originally tried to plan out what had happened that night. Malik's suggestion that maybe the Demon faked the suicide and actually murdered John came back to mind.

The twins professed that they didn't hold on to the old faith traditions of their blood. Perhaps the uncle didn't kill himself rather lost battle against the demon? The interior of the magic shop was protected from the Spirits so perhaps the uncle and mother still retained some magical traditions?

While Bakura explained what the twins had told him, his mind raced through what it could mean. The tablet breaking 'by accident' tearing apart any dragon that got near the book, the tablet wouldn't have had colors, how would they know it was Blue Eyes. Bakura was sure of it, he would have bet his soul on that the tablet was the one that symbolized Blue Eyes.

Though, as he sat there talking he found himself wondering if Blue Eyes merely got knocked over and broke on accident. Or if, like the other dragons, it had reached its limit and broke as a sign of the seals degradation. It 'had' been three thousand years after all and while Mahaado may have been able to avoid some if not all effects of the Demon by also being Dark Aligned, the Dragon was another matter entirely.

Yugi, as the Pharaoh, sealed himself with the intentions that the seal not be broken until the world ended. The demon had been sealed within the Sennen Puzzle with Yugi's past self, so it couldn't have been in the book as well. The tablet would have been broken when John was a child, meaning long before Yugi was born. Unless it was timed to when...

When 'did' Yugi's grandpa get the puzzle pieces from the Pharaoh's grave exactly?

While he spoke he could see the effect of his words resulting in naked shock in the eyes of Jounouchi, Malik showing more restraint. They understood what Bakura was saying, but Jounouchi's reaction was also noted by the twins who both were watching them out of curiosity.

"Some of this is resonating with you? You... know about this?" Fred noted aloud as he picked up on Jounouchi's wide eyed look. While, not overt, Malik's own reaction was subtle with his disbelief and emotions. "How? This is just old stor-..." he cut himself as he recalled that this trio used apparently used 'magic'. All these years their mother and uncle tried to talk about magic and their heritage came back to him. As he realized he was sitting at a table with people who were probably about to tell him 'yes magic is real, you should have listened to your mother.'

"You don't just believe us about our Uncles' death, but this as well? That seems irrational," George noted, wondering if somehow they were being lead on. The hour was getting late, and he could see Frank and the rest of the crew trying to clean up discretely. Why now and why like this? How could they end up with three people willing to hear them out, consider them sane, and NOT try to use real world logic...

"They need Mahaado more than us at the moment," Jounouchi commented when he found his jaw muscles again. "They need to see an honest priest magician from Egypt I think, because anything we say? Is going to take a lot more time that this place has for being open." He jutted out his jaw to the cleaning going on around them while Malik nodded in agreement.

"Jounouchi's got a point, Mahaado 'is' a genuine magician not a stage one, he is the one person who can convince the pair. Not just that magic is real, but that they may have been dealing with a potential demon for all these years. Its quite possible that when the tablet was broken it wasn't an accident, rather a warning that the seal had been broken and the Puzzle pieces were once again active." Malik noted, as his mind processed the information. Perhaps for Bakura or anyone outside of the Tribes sent underground, the Seal that the Nameless Pharaoh, now Atem erected, until the end of time. But for those who lived outside of the light of the sun?

It was always understood that the day 'could' come that the Puzzle would be restored so that the Pharaoh could be reborn. Thus it would make sense that the restrictions on the book would possibly break down. Not only break down, but since the demon was sealed in the Puzzle with the Pharaoh it was possible that the Tablets would have served as suitable warnings. So why wasn't the Tablets and Book left with his tribes?

As annoying as it was, that was a question for Kaiba's past life self, because Malik was honestly not sure Mahaado would even know. But was it even 'safe' to try and talk to Kaiba about his past life self? Given how that one hotel ended up just by Kaiba visiting it? Malik wasn't looking forward to trying to communicate with what was, possibly, a mad God. Making the fact that Kaiba could even 'function' all the more interesting. Was he, or even Yugi, avatars? Living embodiment's?

Regardless though, Set wasn't recorded as someone who believed in putting all his eggs in one basket, so it was possible that he intentionally sent the book away as a means to protect the tribes. After all the Rod 'did' corrupt him... Much to Malik's personal chagrin. After three thousand years suddenly, compared to the rest of time, all of the Items were dispersed from the Eye with Pegasus, the Ring with Bakura, to the three that Shada had taken. Couple with the Book and it seemed as though the universe had begun giving very clear signs that the Nameless Pharaoh was being reborn.

But if Zorc was in the Puzzle it would explain why the book started reacting, it made sense as a contingency plan. If somehow the Pharaoh was able to defeat it in the Memory Game, it would have a place to retreat to. If the Pharaoh could physically reincarnate as Yugi thus escaping the final fate he faced 3,000 years ago. Why couldn't Zorc? Even if it wasn't a physical body, he was getting closer to getting one now that this group existed.

One thing was certain though, this family wasn't part of the group, and their duty to oversee and protect the book was justified. Giving the trio a point of origin for the Book's presence in this country, and now they had to figure out where its path lead from here.