Yu-Gi-Oh: A Past and Future Pharaoh

Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix

Beta By: Lady Lunar Phoenix

A/N: So this arc was prewritten by about 4 to 5 years in advance. But when I started to apply the lyrics I realized that some were too long for the website so I extended them so each lyric got a chapter. Needless to say it uh added about 5 to 8 chapters to this arc. In an effort to be fair, you could consider this the last arc of Book 1. Because lets face it, we're already over 400 pages in.

Also just to clarify, Kaiba does NOT have a Yami of any form or function. He's heavily traumatized and a lot of what 'Set' is, is like having a nervous tick to you or me. When he gets nervous or anxious or any real emotion that he can't show because of being a CEO, it manifests in the form of his own powers. Annnnd that can be clearly a 'problem'.

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The clock on the barely important bottom corner of the screen read 1:30PM and he didn't need to leave for the press conference until 9AM. He had gone over the announcement so many times, especially now, that the words were bleeding into his nightmares. Far too much time had been spent in 'recuperative sleep' rather than work, leaving him too wired for rest now. He clicked on Maya before scrolling to click open a folder marked 'Little Domino'. Amid folders for the program he was making, the one marked 'Characters' was selected.

Within the master folder there was a series of other files specifying each 'character', and Kaiba knew eventually he'd 'have' to add more. There would be a time when he had to make those models, but right now making the main 'two' for interaction was the higher importance. Already there were mock ups of the town in question, and realistically speaking; all this was for helping that stupid Magician learn basic computer functions and more Japanese.

Because he knew how that damn mage thought. Tell him that he was to learn modern Japanese both spoken and written and the basic functions of a computer, by using a computer game? The magician would just use his magic to simplify the learning process! The very fact that he would be using 'magic' to translate and not learn it himself was a violation of intellectual principle in Kaiba's eyes. Indifferent to how odd it would be for random people to see mouths moving in one fashion and producing sounds not according to it. The magician would just put his purple cone hat self in the game. Which, while amusing, was 'not' productive for educational purposes.

RING

But he didn't have anything more structurally necessary for Yugi. There 'was' all those models for Yugi from before, so he merely grabbed the most generic one that would grant him freedom to craft. Allowing Kaiba to make little Yugi into a cat boy, give the brat a tail, lion to be exact, proper type of the ears, both requiring the proper selection of colors to match that outrageous mane that Yugi already supported as 'hair'. Really the only thing left was to finish tweaking the personality and it would be a very good 'pre Other Yugi' Yugi. Though he opted to keep the skin color that of a Japanese person rather than an Egyptian.

RING

A Yugi with a ball of yarn fetish, but that would take work for the Mage to find, the tail chasing would be the first thing found. But Mahaado was proving difficult, knowing the mage, he would resist the use of a cat based character for himself by association. Kaiba had pondered for a while on what to do, and for a time, resigned himself to his creative block. Until now, the best he could think of was the Japanese Kitsune, at least it would properly symbolic for Mahaado.

RING

He clicked on Mahaado's file, leaned back from his keyboard and gave the 3D model a long hard stare. Removing the armor was one thing, but clothes 'were' something that needed to be addressed, whether the mage should be in his typical priestly robe or in modern clothes. Perhaps let the mage have his priestly robes and let Yugi play dress up as the game progressed? He certainly made a lot of yowling about Kaiba 'playing dress up'. Besides the mages' hair was considered feminine by today's standards, the eye make up? Seriously. What was wrong with some slacks and a button on? Mahaado even tolerated it enough to wear in public, sort of. Which showed he didn't object to it!

RING

Yowling cub.

Pointy ears with black tips and how many tails would he give this guy? Technically he couldn't be a single tail, between his age and the amount of power he possessed. Maybe just make him a nine tail and be done with that mess, but how to attach 'nine' tails to a human model? They had to be balanced to look normal, otherwise he would look more like a plush cat instead of a fox. Actually, black wouldn't be a good tip, perhaps an off white?

RING

Click

Flat, unamused, "...I know you're in there Seto. Pick up the phone."

With that in mind, he leaned forward and began working away on his computer, clicking a list of 'ear' types from the source file he had. He had wolf references and foxes were similar, so he began working through the shape and began on sizing them down to fit the model before him.

A soft, frustrated sigh drifted through the room, "I'm not going to apologize for this, Seto. Pick up the phone."

Once he had selected it, he began removing the armor from the model on the screen before him so he could get to the head better. Why the hell did the mages' Ka have to look so silly anyways? It was more intimidating when he wasn't 'in' the blasted thing and you only saw a pair of red glowing lights in the helmet.

But no he had to look like an idiot, could have at least changed the appearance up some, what with that long tunic piece not helping him any. Sure it was a 'robe' but he had a well developed body 'under' it and it would be more impressive to show off 'that'. 'Unassuming to ensure time to cast spell' his ass!

"I left a pair of videos for Isis, by the time you willingly 'acknowledge' that this conversation is taking place, she's probably already given one of the two to them. Either one of the remaining videos will be destroyed depending on... things..."

Next was making a copy of that ear and flipping it so it would look proper on the other side of Mahaado's head. Not difficult in the slightest, and upon increasing the magnification of the screen he was able to align both axis that he needed to for the ears to look properly aligned on Mahaado's head.

"Jounouchi will be a handful I can imagine, he's...they've gone through a lot all at once you could say. He's been trying to be helpful and this... I'm not happy about this either Seto. But I can at least trust you not to physically lash out against her. Heh, I can't even get you to pick up this phone."

Then there was the fur issue, foxes didn't, by default, have long fur really, nothing that really synced up with Mahaado's own hair style. Sure, the CEO 'could' have cut it to something more fox like, well it wasn't like the cartoons were ever 'that' in depth about the reality of short hair fox/short haired human. And if he cut Mahaado's hair, he would probably end up with a yowling Yugi latched onto him like some angry kitten, all hissing and fussy.

"Isis saw this..." he sucked his breath in and gave an immediate follow up pacifying tone, "I know I know! You're the 'master of your own destiny' you don't believe in seeing the future, you even proved that back in the Battle City Semi Finals. But... Seto this wasn't like that, we tried. Isis checked and rechecked everything she saw, and we went through every possible scenario that appeared."

Maybe fluff up some of his hair, not like a mane or like how Yugi's naturally looked now, but enough to help make the fur flow better. Since he wasn't going to bother thinking about ear fluff tufts in Mahaado's stupid fox ears. Stupid mage was being difficult enough as it was, having to make a human/fox hybrid. Though considering how Yugi fused Mahaado to various other monsters, there 'was' an active question on if Mahaado even minded. Or what did he even 'think' when Yugi came up with these stupid ideas.

"The Other Me could have handled it, I'm sure that's what you're going to say. That I'm too soft, too considerate, that I should have gotten you involved because it's you and Mokubas' safety we're talking about. Which would have completely derailed 'why' this happened in the first place." A soft rueful sigh, "though, I'll agree that having the Other Me here would have been great. Not having this all on my own would have been... yeah."

There was little in reshaping the face, instead Kaiba focused on Mahaado's eyes, binding both pupils then slitting them both into a proper shape. Glancing at the clock showed that he was pushing towards 6:53AM, which was fine. Sometimes he got a little 'too' invested in his character modeling and upset Mokuba when he missed meals, or sleep, or socialization.

But that meant he had stared at the computer for literal hours, so he resigned himself to sitting back from the computer. Opening a drawer and pulling out the extra case he had for his contacts, and probably would give his Ophthalmologist a straight out heart attack. Since he didn't all but put on latex gloves when he removed his contacts.

Damn Gozoboro to whatever part of hell he went to.

With them gone, the whole office was a complete blur. He could see the rich browns of his book shelves, the light from the screen of his computer, but without his contacts or glasses everything was a mangled blur.

"This was the only chance we will have. Every other possibility that she saw had them get away, and these are the ones Seto! They're the ones who kidnapped us! Not only that but it's going to be the last time they will be all together ripe for capture. Any warning that we knew what was going on was going to make them scatter, and in doing so we wouldn't be able to focus. How would we know anything that was acted against us, was our main target? These guys? They just want your company, but you know we have bigger fish to fry. So it was better to get these ones out of the way first." A soft sigh that ended as a weak chuckle.

"Tell you, and you'll just increase the guards and drive away our current target. Have someone waiting outside the building and whoever goes after them was going to be ki-" He cut himself off from that word, then tried again. "Was going to di-" He stopped for a bit, as the sound of something being dragged along an uneven surface filled the room. "I wish..." The voice was starting to choke, so young, so foolishly naive about how the world worked. "No. I'm past wishes. If wishes came true, my grandpa and mom wouldn't be dead, the game shop would still be open and we wouldn't have to deal with this. If wishes came true. If they did... Seto what did we do so wrong? What did we do to make you hate us so much? If only..."

Probably put some wardrobe functions in the game so he could try 'on' clothes, since Mahaado's whole deal was just to magic it on him. Damn it was it going to murder the mage to emulate the living by putting on clothes like the living?! At least Kaiba wasn't going to go off and add those scars on Mahaado's original back to the model. He wasn't a sadist regardless of what others may thought of him, not that he wanted to ever be the 'voice of compassion' for anyone.

"Who would have thought that someone would want to bring back that demon? Science has done some nice things, but a 'controlled' environment? Are they kidding? That monster destroyed Kemet! So many innocent people died, and 99 of them are still stuck in a limbo thanks to that monster, and these people want to bring him 'back'?! I can't. I won't let that happen Seto! But I know for a fact that any other option will result in me losing more people that I care about. So I made my choice, I won't lose anyone else. Not without a fight."

"I know what you're doing right now, as if I was sitting right there. You're sitting at that desk, looking at that computer 'working'. Seto I 'need' to talk to you. I need 'you' to talk at all. You can't live life by shoving everything that hurts you away. Its like stuffing a closet eventually its going to take that one reason to open that door and its all going to fall out and smother you. Please just pick up the phone! I don't want to think that this good-"

CLICK

Seto pulled his hand back from the phone's dial pad and settled back into his seat. He was supposed to just look away from the computer and focus on something in the distance. But that really wasn't going to hold much weight, when he couldn't even 'see' anything far away. What with his vision damaged beyond medical treatment, his contacts or glasses.

Weight. Hmmm...

Kaiba sat there for a moment, before pulling out a spare pair of glasses and looked at the computer monitor before him. It was right where he left it, a close up of an orb with a slit down the middle, the keyboard in its tray so it was more comfortable to him. In a couple of hours he was going to get into his limo, be driven to the center for the announcement for KaibaLand's opening and the tournament that would be held in its honor.

He could afford breakfast at this point he decided, standing up from his desk and moving towards the left side of the desk. Flinging the phone to the ground as he passed it, shattering the silence of the room with the tumbling thuds of the phone as it and its handset fell to gravity. A faint sound of the dial tone slithered into the air at its wake louder than any other phone. The computer monitor went next shattering the screen as it hit the carpet under foot cracking the screen upon impact. Blacking out instantly leaving the glow of flames in its depths. Most of its cords were snapped out of the back of it, with only the HDMI cord stretched back to the desk. Just have the usual breakfast, Mokuba wasn't coming with him for the second time. After all Mokuba, despite being a child, had been forced to endure the shock of the trip to Colorado and all it entailed. So it was for the best to let his brother have a break of his own.

RING

He had been doing so well after all. Running the company was like walking, right step, left step moving forward.

RING

Not appearing like a complete failure to the child. Providing food and clothes and all those mandatory things that people needed to live.

RING

He couldn't protect anyone, not without turning them into monsters. It was a miracle that he could even walk to the door in his office.

RING

He opened the door into darkness.

"Seto? I can't force you.. well... I could, but that wouldn't be right. We're friends. I know you won't listen to the videos I left."

Heh, it was kind of funny seeing the Sennen Rod again. The orb and its two wings were surprisingly clean, despite a good portion of it was suddenly implanted into his chest. The hands holding it were suitably bloody though, as was the large ankh and the blue and white priest robes.

"But I have to go now."

Kinda hard to remember how well toned he was given how he dressed in the modern age, but High Priest Set was always a good reminder that he could be impressive when he wanted to be. Dead eyes stared at him as he was pushed back.

"I know you won't think of this as a type of abandonment, and I'm glad for that. But I also don't want you to think that you have to do this all yourself."

High Priest Set shoved him against the desk, almost as though expecting some form of self defense or rejection. Set looked like hell with his eyes smeared with khol like a bandits masks, his hair was wild and hung clumped with sweat and blood to his neck. He let one hand go from the Rod and grabbed the collar of his Modern self's shirt and yanked them around. Driving the CEO into the wall and pinning the CEO in place with the Rod leaving him pinned; a bug in a box.

"So in a way, I'm going to go and join the Other Me." There was a faint soft laugh. The voice dropped into a wistful tone, "could you call Maha out of his Tablet once in a while? You should hang out with the old gang for a bit, Isis and Rashid would enjoy it I'm sure. Just like the old days."

Set shut the door to the office with a blood soaked hand, leaving Kaiba hanging pinned to the wall. He walked to Kaiba's desk, ignoring the damaged technology that existed ages after his own death. Making himself comfortable in that luxurious chair that should have existed back in his day, so soft despite the leather. He leaned back and watched as the shelves of books ignited and burned down quickly to ash. Flowing into pillars as the room turned suitable for a proud Egyptian Pharaoh.

Leaving Kaiba hanging on the wall, his hands shaking as they covered his face, knocking the glasses to the ground. Tears leaked out between his fingers as he quietly hung there sobbing.

"But if something happens, call me. Please just call me and I'll come back, no matter what. We're friends. So get over your ego and call me."

There was no phone.

"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry. I've only ever failed... I failed you as Atem and I'm failing you now."