Yu-Gi-Oh: A Past and Future Pharaoh
Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
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"He what?"
Malik held the phone to his ear, but his eyes were trying to look further than they were made for. In front of him was the brown paneled wall of the interior of his yacht and it could have been nothing at all for all he saw of it.
"You think this is easy for me?" Bakura fairly demanded on the other end of the line, running his fingers through his hair to get the mess of white out of his face. He sat on the couch in his apartment and stared at game board before him. An expression of perplexity and mild panic mixing rather interestingly on his face. He took another breath before trying again, "we managed to wake Yugi up. Yes, in the manner of calling on a God. He got to the roof and turned the spirit the demon created into an actual Duel Spirit by speaking Words of Power."
"... what have we unleashed?" Malik asked meekly in horror while Bakura snorted.
"You wanted this power last year, remember?" He pointed out, "Isis and Rashid have taken up arms along side Kaiba. Who, by the way, has managed to summon Blue Eyes White Dragon into the physical world again."
"Ok, what about us taking a trip to the hospital right now? Because I 'need' to see this," Malik finally asked as he continued to strain his brain and picture 'any' of this happening. Their own prayers working to wake Yugi from his coma? Words of Divine Power? Kaiba summoning not 'just' his own Ka, but Blue Eyes herself? He was already standing up to leave for the thief's apartment. Even if it had been months since his return to Domino. This 'still' felt like a rush in the worst way.
"I don't know if the bus will take us directly to the hospital if there's a real dragon flying around it, but sure. Come here and we'll meet up, while you're on your way I'll try to see if I can reach the others."
Once the phone hung up, Bakura slumped himself back over his knees and took strained breaths to calm his nerves. Gods were real, power wasn't just an ocean a person who found it could take from it selfishly. Yugi was a God and Ryou had done terrible things to both Yugi and his precious Maha. Yugi had Words of Power that would allow him to shape reality and who knew what else by just 'speaking'. How was he going to hold any normal conversation without smiting someone? Could he?
In front of his eyes there was his carpet, laid out in a field of a single color that he had walked across time and time again. Simple, mundane, common place... It was.. 'I need to ground myself, I can't afford to panic...' Yugi waking up was supposed to be a great thing, he could resume being leader as Pharaoh and Ryou could go back to his little bunny ways. But if Yugi was using the Words of Power than how could Ryou go back? How many things was said in a normal conversation that, with the right power, could be devastating?
Too many.
"Things have changed certainly," his Ancient mother noted, her voice also one of trepidation and fear. "I, all of us, were aware of who he was, but to see him use that power. So casually express it with such a confident command... How many Pharaohs existed before and after him, yet none could do what he did tonight alone... This age of man does not even have one of his power..." She had the glimpse of the Field of Reeds, seen how no Pharaoh had 'true' power. Perhaps that was why they had readily attacked Yugi, not realizing what he was holding within himself. Now that He was Awaken, what was to stop him from punishing them? From turning Osiris' heart or the Scales of Balance against them!
Ryou wasn't alone in his apartment to his own observations, though he would have been to most others. Members of the village were there, many in semi huddled postures. Expecting some form of punishment to be meted down from On High it seemed. Dead souls trapped between the living and afterlife and now scared of Yugi and what he could do to them. They clung to the corners of the room, a brave one or two praying to the sky. Prayers for a deity to take pity and keep Yugi calm. Which Yugi was ever calm, irrational violence wasn't his thing and that was the only comfort that Ryou could think of.
Given what Yugi could do to the world.
After all 'Words of Power' were just that, 'words' that had the power to influence reality itself. For all the myths of the world, the religions that were still active, Ryou and Malik had managed to awaken something out of myth and legends. They didn't wake a friend from a coma with wishful thinking...
They...
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Were to gather in front of his apartment, Ryou not even bothering with letting them reach his apartment. They agreed to come with an amazing amount of obedience for a group who hadn't really been given a reason to take orders from Ryou. Now that he pulled the leash, here they came, as though he wasn't once possessed by a soul stealing demon. In the back of his mind he recalled the current schedule to reach the hospital.
As expected there was no bus going to the hospital, with notices that the hospital was experiencing power outages. Ryou only had to wait for Jounouchi and Honda, thankfully, Anzu was at the hospital and Malik had already left to join up. High above him the sky had finally found freedom from the clouds that Kaiba had pulled in. Stars that managed to pierce the modern glow shown steady while he waited.
The bus he recognized that Malik would take rumbled along towards him, slowing down expectantly. Malik was waiting by the folding doors, giving a polite farewell to the driver the moment he could get out. While the driver noted that Ryou didn't stand up and accepted the silent signal that there was no one to pick up here.
As the bus pulled out and rolled away, Malik joined Ryou at the bench amusement only lightly lost in the darkness. "You that eager to see this?"
"More that it would be faster when Jounouchi and Honda get here. Anzu's already at the hospital, and I haven't told the pair that Yugi's awake yet. Didn't need them drawing more attention than what's going to generate when they see Blue Eyes." He answered before his thoughts pipped up with a, 'if the news hasn't seen her and already aired her presence.'
Malik raised an eyebrow as Bakura leaned forward, hiding his face in his hands with a soft groan. "What? What's wrong 'Kura?"
"I just had a thought, what if the news sees and airs Blue Eyes around the hospital? The spirits say she looks real, but like 'hologram' real? Or 'real life dragon'? How would a camera pick up the image of her in the sky? Kaiba tech is great and all, back when Pegasus was using the dueling fields, when it was aired on tv you could see 'some' faint outlines on the holograms. Kaiba's first Duel Disks had some of that though not as severe..."
"But his holograms look real enough, so what? Just tell the news that he was dueling Yugi on the top of the roof to celebrate Yugi's recovery." Malik replied with an easy, relaxed shrug only to see the problem and frowned... "Wait... Blue Eyes is probably doing dragon things to stay airborne though right? That's the real problem, in the game the holograms have just four static animations really. If she's actively moving, it doesn't matter if she's a hologram or not. People are going to want to play 'that' version of the game."
Bakura nodded into his hands while Malik sighed, "I don't understand modern technology all that well yet, still.." He looked up and let the thoughts wash over him, viewed the sky and the stars while Bakura viewed the darkness of the ground below him and his hands that covered his face. "Maybe this is just how Kaiba deals with stuff.. Maybe he's finding his purpose in this chaos he's bringing. Or he's paying for what happened all those years ago."
Ryou lifted up his head at that and found a faint, bitter smirk forming on his lips. "So the Gods misdirected their disdain for the Items creation the first time and this time got it right?" He asked side eyeing Malik with dark eyes. "I don't know if flawed Gods are something we need to think about right now given who we're about to go see."
They sat staring at each other for a long minute before Malik sighed and broke the staring contest. "Next bus?"
"They'll be on the same bus, however; it could be the next or the one after it given the storm plus hospital put them on an awkward dispatch time."
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"Yes, now that the storm has died down its important that we reach the hospital. So meet me at my apartment, we should all meet up as a group."
The words played over Honda's mind as he sat next to Jounouchi on the bus, his cane resting against his thigh. It was dark, the storm was gone but that didn't brighten the world enough for his liking. Evening trips to the hospital to see Yugi made him worry over the state of things there. Especially since Anzu and the Kaibas were already there 'with' the older Ishtars.
When Honda tried to home in on where the hospital was, his brain applied a 'things are going bad' neon sign with an obnoxious arrow pointing down. It wasn't funny. It wasn't cute. Worse yet, he couldn't figure out what to expect. Once upon a time he would have assumed a duel was happening on top of the hospital.
Cards would be involved, maybe the Shadow Realm.
Now a duel could 'actually' be happening on the roof of the hospital and someone could die without even using a card.
While the bus in question was steady noise of conversations, words lapping over and over again yet he could pick up bits of them. Meal plans, work schedules, television show discussions, glorious sound restored fully. Only now it gave him a headache, the silent pulse of his heart beat lost to the vibrations of so much sound. Bus noises and ac that was running, conversations, from being banished from this world of auditory sound only to be thrown back in suddenly.
It gave him a pounding headache by the end of the day but it was so worth it.
"What do you think we'll run into when we get to the hospital?" Jounouchi asked, holding the token notebook that Honda still had to carry. No longer needed for dictation, rather to comfort Honda's parents. Jounouchi was happy to carry it around now, making notes of all the shit that had been going on during the trios trip to California. Stuff he didn't have time to tell Honda since Honda couldn't use the phone yet officially. Instead he just 'cranked' up his hearing a notch on the volume, let his parents realize he could hear a little better than before.
Let them think it was the surgery, that way they would feel that the money was well spent and not wasted because... Kaiba could heal it.
"Between everything you've and I have seen? Anything is possible, and honestly that's what kind of scares me." Honda admitted even as his mind ghosted him over to the Memory game that they had traveled to in Egypt. Hell even the crap that Noa had pulled was pretty horrific, sure it was a computer program of a dead child. But Domino made out to appear utterly abandoned, while trapping Yugi inside it so well he thought it was 'real'?
"Can't be that bad or the police would be there though right?" Jounouchi countered the dread that Honda spoke of to the best of his ability. After all Ryou wasn't going to be able to sneak them into the hospital if the cops showed up. So whatever happened had to be minor, 'but if it was then why call us to go there? No, it has to be something important, while not important enough to get the cops. So what?'
"Well if it was Yugi waking up, wouldn't it be Anzu calling us? Even if it was Ryou, he would just say it right?" Honda pointed out as he continued musing as the city lights smeared themselves against the rain water on the bus windows.
"Yeah, you got a point there," Jounouchi finally admitted with a sigh. "Man I remember when it was easy, just trust Yugi to pull the right card and we were done. Honda, we got back and just..." He shook his head in the darkness, his head low. "I've never taken part in an effort to stop a suicide. Shit, after we were all done? I was scared man, it all hit me when I got home. How close I was to finding a guy hanging from a tree because the world got to much for him."
"Hey," Honda grabbed Jounouchi's shoulder and gave it a squeeze, "you did the right thing. You knew, you went, and you saved him."
"I know, but it still feels wrong that he was put in that place to start with... I just remember the stuff you told me and... you weren't..." Jounouchi swallowed, and somehow his brain finally caught up enough to realize a bus at night was 'not' a good place for a conversation such as this.
Honda didn't answer, he just gave another squeeze and settled back against his seat. In that silence Jounouchi heard the story, for there was no instant denial, or attempt at redirection. It was an honest answer, and it let Jounouchi take comfort in the darkness as he got to sit there. Just sit and think and pray and thank whoever it was who gave Honda the strength to give the world another chance. Even if it 'was' Kaiba in the end that sealed the deal.
Several stops came and went, before the pair reached the stop to Ryou's apartment, Jounouchi, now fully trained to do it. Pushed the necessary button so the bus would slow to a stop, and now that he was standing, he could see something white in the darkness. Mop of hair white actually, and his concerns about the hospital came back in force. Ryou should have been in his apartment, instead the headlights of the bus washed over him, turning his already pale hair and frame into something ghostly.
Honda stood up as well and the pair approached the front of the bus. Where they could see Malik sitting by Ryou as casually indifferent to the bus as Ryou. When the pair finally disembarked from the bus, the pair waiting for them merely made some room for them on the bench.
"Soooo," Jounouchi finally began as he looked around aimlessly. The bus stop was the same bench with sign and small sheltering cover as the others. The apartment building looked whole and undestroyed, "why are you out here? This 'that' big?"
"Yes," Ryou replied quietly, before sighing, "Yugi woke up."
"WHAT!?" Both guys blurted out before excitedly cheering... until they noticed that neither Ryou or Malik seemed all that happy about it. "What?"
Ryou sighed before he filled in the pair on what had happened, from the attack on Yugi in ICU, to the currently happening duel on top of the hospital. Unabashed shock was a word for it certainly, leaving the pair at a clear loss on how to respond. "It was easier to tell you here between buses than each on your own over the phone. We need to get there, and fast, this was the fastest option I could think of."
"Yeah, we get you. Gee though, you 'prayed' for Yugi to wake up and he did... I can't even wrap my head around that. Was he just waiting for a prayer to serve as a type of alarm clock?" Honda pondered aloud while leaning on his cane. Stability in its presence while Jounouchi processed the information as well.
"Someone pinch me because I'm pretty sure after hearing a story like that, I must be still asleep." Was the reply from Jounouchi which was answered by a pinch on the cheek from Honda. "OUCH shit that hurts! You didn't have to be rough about it!" He retorted as he rubbed his abused cheek and glared at Honda's shadow hidden smug expression.
"Good news, Yugi's awake, bad news the demon has finally made his second move against Yugi," Malik noted for the pair. A simple reminder that there was more to this than just Yugi waking up. The demon was actively able to create beings to torment or attack Yugi or any of them at this point, a fact that sobered up the pair into settling down.
"So it starts huh?" Jounouchi finally asked, his fingers still soothing the ache of his cheek as he looked at Ryou. The weird sensation of staring at a white haired head for answers instead of the typical triple colored hair. Looking to Ryou instead of Yugi.