To those who celebrate, a belated Merry Christmas, and for those still celebrating the holiday season in another fashion, I bid you good fortune as well. As for me, I came down with a cold on Christmas day, which was a master-stroke of timing. Still, it's mostly cleared up at this point, and I figured it was time to get back in the saddle, creatively.
And so I present to you this. I'm always excited to post a chapter that was particularly fun to write, and this one counts among that list rather highly.
Let's get right down to it, shall we?
Fitting four (five) people into Yugi's bedroom was a Tetris-worthy exercise; Yugi was on the bed, sitting cross-legged with his back against the headboard. Téa sat on the edge. Tristan had pulled Yugi's desk chair up into a corner, and Joey was on the floor.
Yami was actually standing on the desk, leaning back against the wall. His form was translucent; they could see straight through his body to the white wall and the Dragonball Z wall scroll. His arms were crossed over his chest, one leg crossed over the other, as he smirked imperially down at them. "So," he said, "can you see me?"
Joey stared dumbly. "Yeah. Yeah, I can."
"Look like a ghost," Tristan said.
Téa nodded emphatically. She looked back at Yugi. "Is this how you always see him?"
"Usually," Yugi said.
The spirit of the king uncrossed his arms, pulled a silver coin out of his pocket, and began to flick it into the air. It spun and glinted like a miniature shooting star. "You all have questions," he said slowly, blood-colored eyes following the coin up and down. "They have sequestered themselves in your eyes every time you look at me. So! You are all here tonight . . . to ask. Anything at all that might be on your mind. I am the proverbial open book." He gestured grandly. "Go ahead."
There was silence for a long moment before Joey finally asked, ". . . Where're you from?"
"There's a hell of a good universe next door," Yami replied. "Let's go."
"Did you—just quote Cummings at us?" Tristan asked.
"As I have said before, I am Atemhotep, the Forgotten King. The Ghost of the Golden Age. Other equally theatrical names would suit me just as well. And as I have also said, I am not the man you remember."
"You're some . . . counterpart to Yami, some parallel expression of him, from another universe?" Yugi guessed.
"Yes. The gods do not leave anything to chance, you know. They play out contingencies for everything that might, or might not, happen. For every day you eat breakfast in the morning, there is another place, standing sideways from you, where you haven't. For every mundane, and extraordinary, circumstance you can conjure, there is a home for it. There are doors, gateways, into these other worlds. There are seven keys we might use to enter them. You would call them the Millennium Items."
". . . This is sounding like a Stephen King novel. Okay, so let's say we believe this Everett's Theory, sci-fi mumbo-quantum crap." Tristan gestured dismissively. "What happened to you to make you so—different?"
"Any number of things. Chief among them is the fact that I remember my life's days with clarity. The Yami you call your friend, apparently, did not. He knew no more of his days lording over the Black Land than you do of infancy."
"Back where you're from . . . what's different from here?" Téa wondered.
"Scores of things. I'm afraid you'll want to be more specific than that."
"Kaiba," Yugi said. "You've been obsessed with Kaiba ever since you got here. He's different where you're from, isn't he?"
Yami grinned a maniac's grin. "Oh, yes," he purred.
"Like . . . how?" Joey asked.
Yami seemed to relish this. He rubbed his chin. "Mmmm . . . well, when my Yugi first truly interacted with Kaiba, it was in class. He was positively gracious. Smiling and laughing. He saw that Yugi had brought to school with him a . . . most intriguing item. A certain Magic & Wizards card."
Tristan raised an eyebrow. "The old man wouldn't have let Yugi take something that rare to school with him."
Yugi nodded in agreement.
"Well, he did back home. Kaiba asked if he might see the card again. He'd come by the shop earlier on in the week, and tried to barter for it. Through no small amount of talent in sleight of hand, Kaiba replaced the real card with a rather convincing replica."
"He . . . stole it?"
"Indeed. Yugi and I naturally managed to return it to its rightful owner, but the deed was done." Yami shrugged. "And as you have informed me, this did not happen to you. The way that you described your first interaction with Kaiba sounds much more like the second time that we crossed paths with him. Is there a theme park in this city? A park known as Kaiba-Land?"
"That was the working title, I think," Tristan said. "Guess he decided he didn't like how that sounded. Called it 'Eyes of Wonder' instead."
"This may seem unrelated, but . . . does the name 'Chopman' ring any bells?"
"Sorta," Joey said. "Think I heard somethin' about a guy goin' around by that name down south. Why?"
Yami shrugged again. "Tristan. You've a nephew, do you not?"
"Yeah," Tristan nodded. "Johji. Why?"
"Has he ever met Kaiba?"
". . . No. He's only five. I mean, sure, he knows Kaiba. Everybody even halfway connected to this city knows Kaiba. But never met 'im, no."
"Hmmm . . . fascinating. Téa, have you ever worked for Kaiba? Even in a temporary capacity?"
"I haven't."
Yami mulled this over for a while. "I seem to be asking more questions than you. I apologize. You can extrapolate from these questions, I am sure, that each of these things I am discussing are divergences, if you will, separating your lives from mine."
The group shared looks. Yugi said, "Chopman?"
"We'll get to that." The coin flashed in the air again.
"You were askin' earlier, while back," Joey said, "if Mokuba had a gang. Does he, back where you 'hail?'"
"He did, yes." Yami nodded. "The little one had a rather devoted group of followers."
"He's got that here. You asked if he had a gang, specifically."
"Oh, don't misread me. These followers were quite different from the sorts who visit Blue Eyes, Violet Eyes." Yugi blinked. When had Yami learned about the Kaibas' fan-site? The spirit winked, as if in answer. "No, these children were quite fanatical. Carried weapons. Carried out Mokuba's bidding. They threatened me once. Well, Yugi. Forced us into a game of Capsule Monster Chess. Brought me to Mokuba's . . . secret hideout. The little darling said that to spice things up, we should have a wager." Yami lifted a pinky. "If I lost, he would separate me from one of my fingers. Had the perfect little knife for it, too. Perhaps he fancied himself a yakuza? I'm not sure."
Joey's face scrunched up. ". . . You're makin' that shit up. Mokuba wouldn't do that."
"Your Mokuba would not. Certainly. My Mokuba was perfectly ready, even happy, to do it. A most angry child. He's gotten better. It's slow progress, but . . . better."
"Bullshit. Mokuba's a fuck-ton o' things, but he ain't—he sure's fuck ain't gonna cut somebody's goddamn finger off! What game're you playin'?"
"I play no games tonight," Yami said, holding up his hands. "Do you see, Joey? Why I've come here? The canvas on which I needed to paint, so to speak, was much smoother here. If I had tried to bring my Mokuba into this ritual . . . well. You saw how close Kaiba came to making abstract art out of my head, and that's here. Back home . . ."
Yami just shook his head, and they all saw the barest inkling of fear. Or, perhaps it was excitement. Both. They couldn't tell.
"If that's what Mokuba's like," Yugi said, "I can't imagine what kind of shape Kaiba is in."
Yami grinned again, and his teeth were gleaming. "As to that . . . let me tell you about a curious little thing he liked to call Death-T."
"Death-T" is a storyline that takes place in volumes 4 and 5 of the original YGO manga. The thing about Mokuba cutting off Yugi's finger comes from his introduction in volume 3. Fun stuff, right?
"Everett's Theory" is another term for the Many-Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is pretty much how Yami explained it. Or, at least, it's as much of a reference as I'm going to make in this story.
The idea is that the manga story is one universe; the anime story is another. Yami has used the Millennium Puzzle, and the ritual he conducted on/with Mokuba, to bridge the two worlds together.
The Stephen King thing refers to the Dark Tower series of fantasy/sci-fi/steampunk/western/post-apocalyptic/whatever-other-genre novels, wherein this idea of there being an infinite number of worlds features quite prominently.
The "hell of a good universe next door" line comes, as Tristan mentions, from a poem by e.e. cummings. I won't go any further than that, because I hate cummings. Well, I used to. Maybe I'd like his work now. I doubt it.
I think that's it for the most part. There's some more interesting stuff coming up pretty soon. So I'll see you all later.
Have a fantastic day!
