Yu-Gi-Oh: A Past and Future Pharaoh
Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
Beta By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
A/N: Not much here to change or fix, just establish the time of day a bit and some dusting!
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"Hey! Malik!" Lo and behold, Jounouchi LIVED! The blond shouted at Malik while waving at him from across the street with Bakura following up. Jounouchi seemed of high spirits, while Bakura was walking behind him with a book in his hands. Which was impressive when the blond turned towards the crosswalk to join the blond Egyptian while the white haired teen followed easily. Was he really reading and just that good or was he only pretending to read?
Malik walked to the crosswalk on his side of the road and waited for the traffic lights to change and allow the other two members of this team reach him. After he had been done with his 'discussion' with Isis he found himself pondering less on Pandora and more on his assistant. He figured it would be easier to get a discussion going with the pair and see how far they could follow this lead.
When the lights changed the pair walked across the road and joined up with Malik. "Lets go to the park, we would have an easier time talking about things than we would out here." Bakura suggested, lifting his head up from the book long enough to greet and instruct the pair with him.
"Sounds good to me, I had a thought that I wanted to put past the two of you," Malik agreed and Jounouchi nodded readily before they began their walk.
"So Mahaado got the item for us, its pretty innocent looking to be honest," Jounouchi drawled out for Malik. He pulled out what looked like three dark stone hoops linked together just large enough to grasp with one hand, from a back pocket of his pants. Jounouchi handed it to Malik to let their fellow teen study it though he was wondering how they would carry it.
When they had originally discussed the idea of the item Bakura had pointed out several issues that they hadn't thought of. Pointing out how certain shapes would be irrational, a short rod being easily mistaken for an assault weapon, a ball easily stolen by a stray animal or awkward to carry outright. As well as it having to be a simple shape and design since it wasn't intended to last forever, thus the need for complexity wasn't there.
Though Bakura had proven himself as having a good foresight about how easy it was to grab out of a pocket, a solution was found with the Egyptian. Having Malik carry it in one of his larger pockets was decided to make the most sense after all no one could wear it. If there was a threat to the group they couldn't afford to have someone latch on to Malik's wrist or forced into a tug of war with Malik as the rope.
Each hoop was big enough to grasp with a single hand while designed to create a rounded triangle shape. Black in color with symbols of some sort in gold running along the outer part of the rings. Which was good considering the size of each ring was meant for one hand. In the crafting designs, Bakura had worked more with Mahaado, his own instincts as a thief proving useful. "He also said its designed so that the three of us 'must' be in contact with the rings for it to work." Bakura explained then an spare thought slipped to the front and he added.
"And as a warning, he has to be summoned for it to work, which means Mahaado can 'not' be sleeping in his Tablet. Otherwise it won't work, because Mahaado is confirming our contact with the item to activate it." Bakura explained for Malik, keeping his face in the book to help keep his words closer to him.
"And money bags is keeping the magician on the loose to keep an eye on everything, and having Mahaado report back to him in his dreams." Jounouchi added before shaking his head in confusion. "Magic is so weird, I'm glad we have Mahaado around and stuff but this is going into levels of weird that I am not used to."
"True enough, resolving everything with a card battle was far and away simpler than what is going on now." Malik agreed, "I want to think this is so fun and exciting, I want to see what happens next." Malik smiled at the thought, but there was a melancholy tone that spoke that this was not a frivolous or foolish thought. He slipped the rings into the pocket on his thigh before finishing this thought with more wisdom than he would have had when he first returned to Japan. "But to say that regardless of the loss of life that it involves is heartless. Who knows how long and how far this will go? I'm glad that I'm not hidden away anymore, yet this world has so much sadness in it. I always thought the outside world was a place of infinite possibilities that were being denied me because of my responsibilities."
"Yeah, fighting the good fight is never easy though, you're protecting lesser evils as well as innocent people. But you know, it all comes down to choice. We have a choice right now guys, we could just say 'screw it' about the book and walk away from all of this." Jounouchi pointed out in such a casual way that it caused Malik to turn his head and look fully at the teen as they walked. In the distance they could see the park and at the moment there were brightly colored clothes of kids running about it. "But by choosing to fight we're choosing to accept the scars that come from a fight. So we only have ourselves to blame when the repercussions cause us pain cuz we could have turned tail and ran. Only living as a coward is no life at all. Even if you talk big, a coward is a coward and fighting is harder."
Malik and Bakura glanced at each other then back at Jounouchi as they realized that he was talking more about himself and Honda. Out of all of them, Honda and Anzu were the weakest of the group currently with them. Bringing the thoughts back to everyone who had been involved with the Sennen Items before, there were many who would have been harmed. Mai having been dragged into a Shadow Game with no understanding of what was stake until she was far too gone.
Others who had witnessed loved ones gone mad, all victims of a war that began three thousand years ago. They could have ran off, yet all felt bound and obligated to stick by Yugi's side due to his determination to help them. Yet was he really helping them out of trouble they themselves got into? Or was he really manipulating them into situations they couldn't get out of because of magic? Maybe that was the thing, maybe Zork had wanted to manipulate situations to make people hate Yugi.
"Jounouchi?" Bakura asked quietly as they finally started crossing the street towards the park. Given the guy was scared of Ghosts he didn't bring up how the tribe was starting to get closer to the blond out of an apparent honest interest.
"I've been thinking, we could all be like Malik and have blamed Yugi for the crap that happened in our lives. But what if that was what Zork wanted? We're not like you guys who have a direct reason to be in Yugi's life, we opted into this mess. We weren't good people when we met Yugi, it would have made sense that we give in to hate or negative emotions like Zork would want. But instead we went against the grain of what he expected and ended up following and helping Yugi out in his struggles. So what if Zork is trying to get out of the country? He needs to find a place with a view of death that would be dark enough to suit him. I mean, the Items are gone, yet the Spirits from Bakura's village is still hanging around him. Why? Why not move on? For us, we're raised to believe that there will be another cycle after this one. It makes being killed a lot less darker and that's something that Zork can't use." Jounouchi sat at a table they approached as he continued his thought, so far in it he didn't realize how he had literally captured Bakura and Malik's attention.
"That is a surprisingly in depth point of view Jounouchi," Bakura nodded as he glanced around at the spirits.
"For Ancient Egyptians, the belief was that we were judged by the actions we took in life, if found worthy we would live on at the side of the Gods. Hence why mummification was so important to us, yet if we failed we would be wiped from existence." Malik explained his tone thoughtful as he put the surprising input from Jounouchi into context.
"Ancient Egyptian death beliefs would leave the spirits rather scared I can imagine. Being damned as an evil soul by a member of the royal court would make the idea of being judged pointless. They are rather fascinated by your point of view Jounouchi, but I can see the notion. Any religion that has death as a final stop for eternity would be more ideal than being here. Having their souls condemned to the Items would keep the hate alive for eternity in a faith based on an definite end. Instead of faiths where you just reincarnate and can start over, sure the souls would be imprisoned for a time. But faiths where you can move on to a better life wouldn't have the same weight." Bakura continued the train of thought, the ghosts around him looking rather amazed. Did they never think they could move on? "Besides, he's found that Yugi's too strong here now, he's got too many people willing to back him up when called on. The last battles proved that, so now Zork has to grab his things and run for another country. We can't just drop everything and run to another country to fight him. The world doesn't work that way and its the only way he has left."
"Yeah, we have to find him and put a final end to this, he can't be allowed to keep messing with lives like this." Jounouchi agreed before leaning back to look at the sky.
"So what exactly brought this deep and amazingly comprehensive thought process out of you?" Malik inquired, leaning forward from his seat at the table. Just having that kind of insight from the Japanese blond was rather surprising. Malik never really thought Jounouchi was capable of higher reasoning, just stronger emotional responses.
"Too many hours in the hospital waiting on Honda to wake up," Jounouchi answered with a subdued voice. "I'll be honest, I'm not used to doing stuff like this without him around, we've been partners in crime for so long that... well it feels wrong to me. But just.." he flailed his hands uselessly before his face as though he was swatting a fly.
"Its going to get worse before it gets better?" Bakura offered as the spirits milled about in the park, while 'mother' settled next to the table with a few others by her side.
But Jounouchi's answer caused Malik to sit back and once again for all of them to put this in perspective. Even if Jounouchi joked around, the reality was that he was going on a... on a... what?
What 'were' they doing? Calling it a 'quest' felt cheap, like a board game with no real world implications. But there were already two people dead, one person who had been crippled and they still had other friends in various parts of the world? What of Mai or Ryuji? Sure they were on the search for an evil tome in an effort to save the world, but this felt bigger.
They had taken advantage of their first adventure coming out unscathed and now they had a pair of deaths on their hands and one of their own was crippled. Saying it was an 'adventure' or 'quest' felt petty and flimsy. Calling it a 'mission' had this weird growing mixture of feelings, on one hand being appalled and nervous, after all they were just teens. On the other hand, they had friends and loved ones they wanted to protect. The world wouldn't do it after all, how could a group of teens convince the world powers that this was threat? Calling it a thrill to be able to go after these people wouldn't do the emotions justice.
"I had a thought," Malik took over the on and off again conversation. Once the pair were looking at him he resumed. "Pandora first had the book, and Catherine stole it, so I think we need to find her. She's sane and she knows enough about Pandora she may just know how he would have come across a book like that in the first place."
"But with the nature of the book, couldn't it have put itself in some magic shop and compel Pandora to get it?" Jounouchi asked, tilting his head a bit out of confusion.
The table was rapidly filling with spirits, Bakura was book ended by his mother and one other female spirit, but the men and women were getting more invested in this conversation the longer it went on.
"No, after we got to meet Mahaado, my sister brought the book to Mahaado. He confirmed that the book has the tattered remains of a sealing spell on it." Malik explained, before elaborating, "Bakura and I snuck out that night, but while we were gone my sister had Mahaado come over. They discussed the book and all Mahaado could tell was that it had been shielded by the power of the Blue Eyes White Dragon until recent years. So it had to be somewhere protected by people who knew the evil it would bring and kept safe."
"Wait, Blue Eyes?" Jounouchi asked surprised, he knew that Zork was weak to Light based monsters, but that the dragon would do such a thing?
"Well, yes, I don't know how but she pulled it off," Malik replied giving acknowledgment that part of the story was missing. "But that makes finding out what happened all the more important!"
"Wait, what if Yugi's Grandpa had the book?" Bakura asked in mild alarm as he looked between the pair. He recalled faintly that the man also had one of the four original Blue Eyes White Dragon cards.
"Nope sorry, Bakura, Kaiba tore the card up to keep anyone from using it against him before even Duelist Kingdom happened." Jounouchi shot the idea down ruefully with a shake of his head sending his bangs softly swaying side to side. That was the last time that Kaiba 'ever' got to be an ass to them to that degree. But then he straightened up as an idea cropped up in his mind. "But Mokuba probably knows!" Jounouchi exclaimed at the thought, remembering how Mokuba used to be a twisted little kid. "We can even test out this thing that Mahaado made us, so we can just hop over to the mansion!"
"Yes, but I think we should check on Catherine and ask her if she knows anything," Bakura voiced looking about subtly to make sure the kids and grown ups weren't getting into ear shot of them. "Even if its a dead end, the fact that Pandora was after her is a problem that fell on our lap."
"Huh? How?" Malik turned to look at Bakura only to receive a flat stare from him.
The blank stare from the teen caused Bakura to finally sigh in annoyance before elaborating, "you found him? You gave him the chance to taste magic and power beyond what he had, which probably left him open to getting the book?"
"Oh... Oh yeah."
Bakura shook his head while Jounouchi chuckled softly, "yeah, I just realized something. You're the old man in this group aren't you?"
"Huh? I told you the white hair has nothing to do with-" Bakura began only to have Jounouchi shake his head.
"Yeah, but you're older than Yugi or Kaiba from back in Egypt. Mahaado looks his late teens and from what we've gathered the majority of Yugi's original circle were about his age. But given what we know of the Items, for their creation to affect you, you had to be old enough to understand what was going on. But the others were just babies-" Jounouchi was apparently on a roll to showing that he wasn't completely an idiot.
"Can we not discuss that?" Bakura cut him off turning his gaze towards the ground. "Yes, yes Yugi was pretty much Mokuba's age when everything happened. Kaiba and Mahaado were our ages, but three thousand years has a way of affecting a person. It makes the fact that I gave in and allowed the death of an innocent child more poisonous to me. If you haven't figured it out yet, Kaiba's father is the one that destroyed the village, my acts put the son of the villages' murderer on the throne of Egypt." He covered his face with his hands as he felt those ghostly touches on his shoulders and arms, ruffling his hair even while voices whispered. It was never 'his' fault was it? He always could just blame someone else for his pain and misery but he never did anything to overcome it.
Suddenly a hand got a hold of his bangs and 'TUG'!
"Ow! Malik!"Bakura yelped as he grabbed Malik's hand and pulled on reflex to get the guy to let go.
"Stop being so hard on yourself, we talked about this!" Malik gripped as he continued tugging. "You'll just set yourself up to be a victim again and the goal is to 'stop' being a victim!"
"Sorry, sorry!" Bakura replied, squirming to get free from the hair abuse. "Its just hard to deal with those memories and realize its happening again."
"Old man," Jounouchi chuckled in amusement, leaning back as he watched the two, "Ok, so I guess if we're considering Egypt that makes you troop leader by age."
Yep, if Bakura 'did' fall back into darkness he was opening a door to the Shadow Realm and depositing Jounouchi first.
"First meet up with Mokuba, so we can make sure this thing works, then we go find Catherine," Malik confirmed, before pulling out the item from one of the deep pockets of his pants. The sun was bright as it continued its path to the west, warming them and lifting their spirits before reality could sink it down.