Yugioh: A Past and Future Pharaoh
Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
Beta By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
A/N: I didn't forget Honda!
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
When he opened the door, the first thing that was visible was the long glass case. Another glass case took up the back wall, and another took up the wall lining the left side of the room. In each of the cases, cards, models, brightly colored boxes with images rested. Behind the counter at the back was Grandpa Mouto and his daughter in law, with a box they were unwrapping at the time.
"Oh hey there Honda."
A light blossomed from inside the box, breaking free to shine like a supernova. So pure and white that in the waking memory what happened next was lost. But here, in the dream world, it wasn't so lost. Flesh melted away, bone burned to ash so fast and so hot that only the shadows seemed to hang in the air alone. The smaller of the two shadows began to waver, growing, stretching out the form of a small elderly man to be replaced by something larger. With huge muscles, and chains hanging from normally restrained limbs. It reached out trying to hold back the blinding light before it tore into his eyes blinding him. But the loud boom was beyond the shadow's ability to block out. The force that had already moved beyond the speed of the hand slammed into him like a punch from a god. Sending him flying backwards across the street, and it was just by some miracle that there had been no traveling cars or trucks at the time. His leg smacked into the streetlamp behind his shin, causing his leg to make an unnatural v shape.
Darkness was a blissful thing when one was over exposed to such light. But the dream reminded him of the pain his body had gone through that day. Pain that caused him to see the sharp white of light again. Light that came, not from the violent explosion of a bomb, but of the daylight streaming into the hospital room. Light that was reflected off of cream colored walls, white ceiling, the pale sheets of his bed and the sparse white furniture.
But it could have all been his own hallucination perhaps there were no walls, perhaps he was ash like Grandpa Mouto and Yugis' mom? Perhaps the surgery was a dream itself and he was alone fading away into death? The white light burned so hotly that it washed out the color in the room confusing Honda. Was he in the Game Shop or the Hospital? One hand held a death grip on the thick medical plastic bar on his hospital bed as his mind scrambled between past and present. While his other hand was held still by something other than his own terror.
Jounouchi had straddled the chair, his arms reached over the railing of the bed and was gripping Honda's left hand firmly. A physical link to something living for Honda to trace back and ground himself in the reality of the hospital room rather than the road outside the Game Shop.
The blond looked like he was thinking pretty deeply over something, the corners of his mouth were pointed down. For a moment, Honda stared at their joined hands and fought to control his breathing. The doctors had told him that he would still suffer from the nightmares for a long time, that trauma this serious came with such things. There would be drugs to be taken to help dull the noise of the nightmares, letting sweet oblivion take Honda instead of terror. Normally Honda was alone when the nightmares came, he could hide them from his family and not make them worry more.
It was distance, he could vaguely hear the sound of Jounouchi reacting to his voice before releasing Hondas' hand and leaning back in the chair he had been straddling. But it was 'sound' at least, it was something to encourage Honda into believing what the doctors had said. Maybe not 'all' of his hearing would return, but he wouldn't be locked in the world of the soundless forever.
Jounouchi didn't look any different then he had when they began their adventures in Duelist Kingdom. Honda was left pondering over how he felt like he was the one changing, while Jounouchi still looked the same punk he was when they met Yugi. Jououchi held out a sheet of paper, apparently the teenager had opted to write out what he needed to say before while Honda had been asleep. Did Jounouchi forget that Honda could hear a little better now? But regardless he turned his eyes down to the sheet held before him before taking it into his hand.
Someone stole the book from the Ishtars.
That lone starting line was enough to make Honda look up at Jounouchi in surprise. It explained why Jounouchi didn't just 'say' what he wanted to. The whole issue of the Book and the group that killed Yugi's family wasn't something they brought up in public. He knew that the cops were at a loss for a direction. They didn't see the Egyptian writing on the wall, so all they could think of that it was some form of random act of violence. Why would they give a bunch of teenagers any notice for something that was of the supernatural? But the group knew the book had been placed with the Ishtars and left on their boat. Who else could have known?
So Ryou, Malik and I are going to see if we can track it down. Yugi's busy looking after Mokuba while Kaiba out of commission, so we're going on our own.
Jounouchi had averted his eyes as Honda read the letter. But it was in the letter anyway, Jounouchi was about to go with part of the group and was leaving Honda behind. Of course there was a sense of logic, Honda being in recovery and being disabled. Only it didn't stop the pang of resentment that this unknown group had inflicted upon him. He looked up at Jounouchi again as he put the sheet of paper down. "You're not going to go to the police?"
The blond shook his head, before grabbing the notebook and began writing.
Can't. Isis never put the book on the register of the museum, so as far as the police would look at it, it's like taking a library book. Something about it not being proven as 'authentic' whatever that meant. Then there is the question of 'why' did she not submit it to start with, which takes away from her authority in the museum and credibility to Egypt.
And Isis had refused to send the book to the museum since, by doing so, it would in turn make the book a target, ironically, to anyone who would desire its power. It was supposed to go back to the rest of the clan and be guarded there. But now it was gone and there one had it. Put a blank book on display with the tag that it was used to summon a near world destroying demon? Most people would scoff at the superstitions of the ancient world. However; there would be people who would take such writings seriously, and no matter how hard Kaiba worked to hide the truth. That demon that cost Yugi his life three thousand years ago could be reborn into the modern world. They had both seen the play back of that war, and knew the severity the world would suffer if Zork was allowed loose. Or at least what was left inside the Puzzle, because that was pretty much the gist of it. Zork had been defeated and sealed away, it had been re-amassing power through its proxy the Spirit in the Sennen Ring, and using Ryou to do it.
Perhaps in the end, in each Item, Yugi's other past self existed, fighting against Zork. Perhaps in the end the Puzzle was all he had left, his last bastion before succumbing to Zork's power. But what did Honda know? He knew only the bits and pieces of magic that had been shown to him during his time with the gang, he was no Mahaado. When compared to the life that Mahaado and the others had lived three thousand years ago, or even the ghosts that Ryou was dealing with now? He much rather have his perfectly boring life.
"I understand, I'll be back home by the time you get back. No, I get why you have to go, just don't do anything stupid ok? I'm not going to be there to think for you. Seriously Jounouchi, you need to remember who you opted to travel with. You're going to be with the two biggest trouble makers in the group, even if Ryou tries to behave himself," Honda pointed out. Since, yeah, Ryou could get itchy fingers and no one knew what was the trigger to 'that' little impulse.
Jounouchi nodded absently, before getting up, their parting gestures all that were left as he walked out the room. But the image of Hondas' nightmare still played out in his mind. Hearing and seeing the teen thrashing in his bed, recounting 'that' moment had been painful. Now it was Honda, but what if this group went after any one else connected to Yugi? What if they bombed his mothers' house? How far was this group willing to go?
Worst yet, could Yugi stop this group? He forced a tie by dying the last time, but Egypt was wrecked after that battle. What would happen to Japan?
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Misty, an American orderly married to a Japanese something or other, had been rather new to the hospital. When Honda was first admitted she had been a constant in his life. With long clean cut blond hair and a modest expression, tall to almost statuesque, she was surprisingly firm when the need arose. Her Japanese was poor, not that Honda could have heard it in the beginning anyways. But she had very gentle hands and she had come to help him out as he got ready to be discharged from the hospital.
She served as his crutch when he began packing his few belongings away in the overnight bag his parents had brought him. The stacks of notebooks people used to talk to him with were next to go. Odd to think he had now two sets of notebooks, one for school and such and one for the gang. Since obviously it was filled with things that no one who was part of the group would understand. Misty reached for those books, but he quickly and gently pushed her hands towards the school books that he had with him. She blinked and nodded a cheery, gentle smile on her face before she left his side to retrieve them.
The mind numbing silence he had been forced to accept wasn't exactly there anymore. The doctors were saying that the operation had been a success, that he would slowly gain back some of his hearing. Already he could hear the faint noise of the intercom calling for particular doctors, the far distant rumble of the normal day in the hospital. True it sounded like it was miles away rather then just outside a door not ten steps away from him. But it was noise, beautiful distracting noise.
But that didn't wave away the fact that the surgery had been costly, some of Honda's savings for college had to be tapped just to afford it. That he would still be required to shell out more money for the rehabilitation of his hearing. So that he could get used to the new 'near' verses 'far' aspect of his hearing. Not to mention any surgery that was done on his knee was going to require more money. By the time it was said and done, between the insurance and college funds he would get those surgeries and rehab. But college was now out of the question. There would have to be loans taken, grants utilized, but those grants and loans had time limits. Hoops needed to be jumped in order to obtain them and he had missed several deadlines already.
His parents were already working on trying to get him into some of those loans. Resting on top of one school book was the math he had done the night before out of nothing else to do. The major reason he had not wanted to do the loans was the interest and repayment issues that came with loans. In the beginning they had already singled out a single loan that had been viewed as the best plan for them and that was already in the bank for them. But now with the attack, his family had been scrambling to try to get him some of those grants.
But the odds looked that he wouldn't get into those schools that he had been dreaming of, at least not in the year he wanted to go. Causing him to twist a little with envy at the thought of his friends going to college while he was left behind because of a bum knee and bad hearing. Than again Jounouchi was looking towards a trade school if he absolutely 'had' to go to a college at all. Yugi was still struggling, at least that's what everyone decided. Since he wanted to take his college funds and use them to rebuild the game shop.
But everyone else had plans and they were going forward with them, leaving Honda behind. It was maddening in its own way, how he had such high test scores, showed so much academic promise and go nowhere. His anger would flare out and simmer down into nothing at random intervals, if for no other reason than because of Yugi. But not so much him as for those who surrounded him. How could being a year behind everyone else in college measure up against being dead and sealed in stone for three thousand years. Mahaado pretty much confirmed the very concept of an afterlife, by denying himself that very place for so long. But not just him, the Ishtars were the leaders of a group that protected tablets just like the mage's. Not just the tablet of one mage, but of many people, innocent and criminal who never got to see the other side.
Or perhaps they got to, Mahaado had sealed his soul into his tablet, the others just had their Ka's ripped out of them. Perhaps there was a difference that he didn't know about or understand, but even so. Mahaado was still here and there you go. He wanted to be selfish, and complain about the injustice of the world that he had to go through this at all. Every possible avenue for selfishness was blocked by the cold hard reality that his situation wasn't as bad as he wanted to make himself believe.
Yet when things starting getting seriously dark, there was Misty, encouraging him to get angry and upset. "These are your feelings and you have a right to them. So long as you don't forget that its not the world, and there is more to life than this pain. Go ahead and get angry! Better to be angry and let that anger out than let it settle into you like a smoldering fire!"
She would write out for him, in her painstakingly slow and clumsy Japanese showing an Western sensibility that forgave him for his emotional reactions to his situation. As opposed to the frowns or expectations that he stay silent in his pain. While at the moment she finished zipping up a bag and returning to his side. Ready to help him walk as needed as he searched the room to see if there was anything else he might have overlooked.
The books and papers, cords and clothes were all packed up by what he could see, leaving nothing. Once he left the room it would be ready to be cleaned and provided to another person who needed it. And life would, as it ever, carry on forward unconcerned with the details of the average life.