Yu-Gi-Oh: A Past and Future Pharaoh

Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix

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Kuriboh was back.

Determined little green paws were pawing at his spell book with the fiercest of determination... The others were having dinner and the Pharaoh was on the roof enjoying the evening, leaving Mahaado here with Kuriboh...

"Little one what is it about my spell book that you yearn to get?" Mahaado asked as he finally reached out and grabbed the furball. Size wise Kuriboh was larger than a cat, but size meant little when facing the fluff. Placing Kuriboh on his lap he let his spell book open and held it magically before the small spirit.

He flipped the pages slowly allowing the little furball to look through the pages. After all what harm was there? Kuriboh wasn't a magician and lacked a mouth to properly cast spells to start with. In fact, Mahaado wasn't even sure if the little one could read.

Which the answer was, no.

Kuriboh never learned to read his native language. Mokuba was teaching him modern Japanese when doing his homework. But the words in this book were of his homeland. So instead the little spirit focused on the images it saw since the Prince wouldn't be channeling magic through the Kuriboh the way he did during duels. No Kuriboh needed to find the spell and learn it himself!

Flip.

Flip.

Flip, flip, flip...

The small spirit began to realize he would need time to sit and examine each page to find the images he needed. So rising up he floated over and shoved the book down and began working page by page.

Leaving Mahaado leaning back in the air and growing a bit concerned. This wasn't the innocent naive behavior of a child. The little one was too fixated on something and while, again, Kuriboh could not cast... getting someone else to cast was possible... 'I don't need him trying to photocopy my spell book.' Mahaado thought, his mind going back to that rather large white machine... 'or make one explode.'

Such intense focus in so little a spirit!

With nothing else to do, and unallowed to return to his tablet, Mahaado resigned himself to sitting there. Scratching the little spirit on the head while Kuriboh continued his 'very important' research in the magicians' spell book.

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The yacht was gently rolling along in the water, it was amazingly soothing but Honda had yet to figure out how anyone could drink or eat on it. The group was clustered in the living quarters of the boat, where once Malik enjoyed malicious planning. But it was now refitted for guests and more normal applications.

Honda had been offered, forced, the couch while Jounouchi settled with a chair, as they sat as guests. Isis and Rashid had made snacks and the quartet sat around the low table after hearing Honda's retelling. Not just of the Turtle Game Shop, but news report, the pictures and the absence of this 'Misty' woman.

"Groups like this do not become so powerful over night, and given what we were told about Pandora, it is clear its been decades... So it would be possible that this woman is already been made a victim of these people." Rashid noted as he sat there, "given what you have presented, it is possible that this woman had family taken. More over possibly taken herself if she tried to do anything to help her family. Hence the photos, if she took the picture itself, it would explain why she's not in it."

"Yeah... people being taken off the street, from their homes. If this is allowed to continue or escalate to governments who can force it..." Jounouchi agreed before crossing his arms. "And no one knows what that book contains."

"Mahaado knows," Isis corrected before taking a nibble of a rice ball. Over the fluffy rice she saw the pair of teens look at her with these matching expressions of pure surprise. After she swallowed she resumed, "Yugis' father instructed Mahaado to find the source of the malice in the Sennen Items. So of course he read the book."

"Wait," Honda blinked in amazement. "So Mahaado knows how to make the Sennen Items?" As Isis slowly nodded, as she started to follow him on his line of thought. "So even if we destroy the book, what good is it? If they have access to him through the Dark Magician collection?!"

Jounouchi and Rashid both shared mutual looks of growing horror at that.

Mahaado knew how to make the Sennen Items, was already Yugi's precious 'Maha' and was the only active, though admittedly not living, magician in the world.

Oh and Yugi was in fact God and could instantly wipe the universe clean if he was ever motivated into having a tantrum about someone taking Maha from him.

So nothing really major.

Just a casual day.

"And we can't just call up Industrial Illusions and ask them to take the Dark Magician Collection down. The cards are already distributed." This creeping horror started to build in the pair, and somehow, despite being younger and not connected to Yugi's Sacred Circle of Priests as priests their fear was... Rather infectious to the older adults in the room.

"I mean its bad, but we 'are' Yugi's Priests, we can call upon him to adjust things to keep Mahaado safe..."

"Yeah but, ok," Jounouchi began as the gambler in the back of his head started making bets and calling odds. "Mahaado, himself, is in a tablet, and uses the cards as a type of gate to who ever summons him right?" The pair nodded. "And each card 'can' be used to manifest a copy of him, and that's what they are. 'Copies'."

"And share in his knowledge..." Rashid rumbled out as the quaint little rice ball snacks they had started to churn into mochi in his stomach. "Thousands of copies of him that know how to make the Sennen Items..."

"Then there's the Magician of Black Chaos, when Yugi used him it was framed as though a higher form. But its still Mahaado right? Its part of his collection. That magician looks like the argument of morality doesn't exist for him." Honda added.

"We... we never saw the Magician of Black Chaos in our past..." Isis admitted, "Master Heisheen never called it forth though we heard descriptions."

"So all of them know how to create the Items. But does the 'group' know that Mahaado knows? I mean he was part of you priests so it couldn't have been common knowledge right?" Jounouchi asked, his voice so close to breaking at the terror forming in that boat.

"... I would love to ask Yugi, but I doubt he will answer due to his desire to be fair on these matters," Isis admitted. Despite the easy rocking of the boat she began to feel as though she was beset with a storm given this.

"So we need to keep this among ourselves, and find a way to limit that knowledge to the copies if at all possible." Rashid noted slowly as he began to gather up the plates, good ol comforting busy work.

It was so quiet outside, there were distant calls of the occasional seagulls only to be disrupted by the sound of laughter...

Chuckling began at the base of Jounouchi's stomach rose up and began to overwhelm him as the weight of the situation continued to sink in. "We know so much of what's going on and we can't do anything... Its really hilarious when I think about it. I mean its like this boat. The world feels normal and safe and yet just outside is this vast ocean we are so close to drowning in. Its hilarious!"

Everyone looked him, a mixture of sympathy and awareness in their eyes as they did so.

"But this is more than that, we can pilot it, drive it through the storm to safe harbor if we are smart and careful." Isis replied with an almost reproachful tone. 'Children these days have it so much easier...' she thought as her mind went over the childhood she had in both this and previous life. Granted her mother and father were not 'harsh' in her first life.

But mother could see the future with far superior accuracy than Isis. What were the odds she could get into mischief against 'that'?

"I know... If the last few years have taught me anything we can overcome anything," Jounouchi agreed as the laughter began to die down. "But its just, think about it. We were focused about what was going on here in Domino, while outside of here people were getting kidnapped, families were being cursed and sealed away. Its... I dunno, its like being at home. I work hours at a shop fixing cars sweating my ass off. Only to come home and find dad passed out drunk and having gambled off 'more' money that I have to pay off. It just never seems to end!"

'That' explanation made far more sense and caused Isis to nod slightly chastised by the reminder. Jounouchi did work and part of the reason why he was around less was because of said work. But she only focused on the work, an understandably difficult job done in the heat, but the reason...

"It is isn't it," Rashid agreed, "If the group doesn't know that Mahaado has an active awareness of the ritual requirements the only... Oh..." The older man frowned, his lips dipping downward as the awareness came back to focus. "Bakura would then be the only one that would reasonably know how to create the Items. Seeing that he was the only survivor of the event and while granted he was a child."

"He would know parts and they could try to strong arm their way through the rest... Either way, King of Thieves or not, he's in danger as well." Honda realized as the thoughts played through his head. "So we have the God who created everything, a minor god, the walking recipe for making the Sennen Items and the rough equivalent of 'I saw this in a cooking magazine last week lets try' edition." Honda had ticked each thing off with his hand before rolling his shoulders and slumping himself against the back of the couch. "It makes going after gramps and Yugi make more sense. They left a message for what would be a lesser god in this case right?" Honda rolled his head to look at Isis who nodded tentative.

"Yes, they seemed to believe Yugi was a god who had a providence over 'a' sphere of humanity or the world. 'Not' the providence of creation in and of itself."

"So odds are they won't want to tangle with him after the whole hospital stunt." Honda continued, "but us? We're still up for grabs. Cuz Yugi obviously didn't just smite the demon or any of them out of hand."

"True, they have to be careful, but we literally are a walking target of everything they want to complete their plans..." Rashid acknowledged with a sigh. "Malik wants to allow our tribes to return to the surface, to find a life above instead of in the shadows. However; a multitude of tribes suddenly returning to the surface after thousands of years? I fear these people may have enough clout to try and offer 'assistance' to our Tribes."

"And no one would ever see them again. Hell I doubt anyone would care in the region because of the religious aspect. That and the tribes have Yugi..." Jounouchi agreed as he thought about it, but it was a thought that raised the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck. Being casual about it, or indifferent was one thing. But, despite never seeing them himself, these 'were' people, living breathing people who had their lives dedicated to Yugi.

Just as Honda's friend Misty. She had family and friends the picture clearly reflected that and yet she was gone. "Homeless on the street are still people... I can see the governments turning a blind eye though because it would be an easy clean up crew to them. Cleans the streets, looking nice to the 'civilized' public, so why not throw away a whole series of tribes? Where are they supposed to go? The news isn't exactly hiding the constant fights in that area for land already. Adding 'more' people who claim that land?"

"That's why Malik was ok with dropping everything huh?" Honda theorized as he watched the weight of Jounouchi's assessment weigh the pairs' heads and shoulders down. "What 'has' been going on? You haven't been home and while this normally isn't our responsibility. They're your tribe, there must be something."

The pair exchanged glances at each other, wordlessly discussing the uncomfortable state of affairs.

"You are not wrong, the tribes wish to stay underground but Malik insists on them going above. He argues that Yugi has returned and that their reason for us to be below is over, which is true. But the elders of the individual tribes counter that the Tablets are still there, and that the world above wants nothing to do with us." Rashid confessed, low and steady.

"It is understandable, they have nothing to show their lives here, and 'ancestral land' means little when its 'everyones' ancestral lands. We'll be killed off in a minute if we try to assert a claim to it," Isis admitted. "When I went above, it was only myself, finding work was not really difficult and I went from there. But multiple tribes can not do as I did." Isis conceded as they sat there.

"Perhaps we should entreat Yugi to visiting us? While he won't speak on everything, what he can would be of great benefit..." Rashid offered only to be rebuffed by Jounouchi.

"There is no way Yugi is just going to-,"

"what?" Yugi asked cheerfully while seated on the other side of Isis.

Outside a flock of seagulls sitting on the yacht flew off, dispelling any belief that they would run.

But with a scream like the one Jounouchi gave, a shriek as much as a scream could one even be surprised?

"You're supposed to be in Florida!" Honda accused as he sat there, his mouth the only thing that worked.

Yugi had literally just appeared between blinks, and was seated as naturally as though he had been there the whole time.

"I am," Yugi replied with the same amused cheerfulness as his first reply though he used the same 'I' as the Other Yugi. "Rashid and Isis are my Priests, its my choice if and how I answer and you wanted something direct. So its this or I'm dropping a magic eight ball on the table and letting you four have fun."

"Thank you Pharaoh," Isis replied with a faintly whimsy smile on her face. Honda was as stiff as a board and Jounouchi as white as a sheet.

Yugi answered with a faint shrug, amused by the sharp contrast of responses he was getting. "So I know what you've been discussing, but I will be willing to talk about the Tribes. After all they're duties have been fulfilled yes. Without my direct intervention anything regarding them going above would result in their instant executions." Yugi agreed with a polite nod of the head.

"What about the state of the world if the demon gets unleashed?" Jounouchi struggled to say because after screaming 'that' long and loud? It had caused him to start coughing.

"What about it? If the push becomes a shove it comes down to what the people want. If they want annihilation via the demon, then I'll will grant them that oblivion. If they want me to put a stop to it than, again, I will put a stop to it. Actions have consequences when brought to proof before the Grand Creatrix." It was a coldly analytical reply, though Yugi's use of 'I' shifted back to his normal modest word. The fact that he was, in essence saying 'if the world wants to burn I'll light the match', froze Jounouchi and Honda.

"I realize that sounds harsh, but look at it this way, its like being a boss. The employees can only be written up so many times before they're going to get fired. And like employees, they can be replaced."

"Pharaoh has found a way to speak freely," Rashid noted approvingly as the others floundered.

The contrast between their sweet, self sacrificing Yugi and the Almighty in one body was starting to make Yugi and the Other Yugi feel trivial.