Author's Note:
Chapter 32 is here!
So in this chapter basically almost all the mysteries of this fanfiction are answered. I can't believe I finally made it here…
Two storylines here: Yusei in Egypt and Aki still stuck in her memory world.
Unfortunately I had no space in this chapter for the evil Signers and what the remaining good Signers are up to, but I'm hoping to bring them all back in the next chapter.
Finally, huge thanks to Jade546 and to this anonymous Guest who have been leaving me dedicated and supportive reviews for each chapter. I wish I could thank the Guest over a PM but hopefully a callout at the beginning of the chapter helps a bit!
Big thanks to any of you who have also favoured this story, me as a writer or added this to alerts.
You all inspire me!
NineInchNailed.
"Every drop of flame
Lights a candle in
Memory of the one
Who lived inside my skin."
~"Shadow on the Sun" by Chris Cornell.
It was seven hours and forty five minutes later that Yusei Fudo had landed at Cairo International Airport. There he miraculously got through multilingual customs at a speed of light and was soon on a high-speed shuttle to the city of Giza.
Entering the city as the transit crossed the Nile river, his breath hitched seeing the majestic peaks of pyramids outside of Giza, visible above even the tallest buildings. There was something in the air here, something powerful, felt by each person who had ever visited here: walking in the presence of primordial and ancient human history.
There was also the heat which was so potent that it seemed to reach beyond the skin and sink deeper. It seemed to close in and for awhile it was as if breathing through a mask, the air thick and dry with the smell of sand. He had to take off the black hoodie he was wearing so he could make it through the duration of the ride.
His final stop on the shuttle was at Cairo University.
"Cross the Nile river and arrive at Cairo University, located in the heart of Giza," was what Bruno's instructions said on the printed sheet of paper.
He walked through the busy, multicultural campus, thankful for the directions and shortcuts given to him, including the exact places and timings of arrival. After all this is over, perhaps Bruno could consider a very successful career as a travel agent…
"Follow the main path to Faculty of Archaeology building."
As he made his way there, he could sense some glances upon him. It was probably an unusual combination of the criminal marker, his somewhat crazier hair and the fact that he was a foreigner.
He approached the building and cautiously entered, breathing out in relief at the full-powered air conditioning. Then he threw on the long-sleeved shirt again, pulled up a hood to hide his hair, and continued through the hallways.
"Lecture hall B, room 123B. Egyptology Undergraduate class. Egyptian Myths and Pharaonic Texts, EA218H1."
He found the room and pushed the double doors of the lecture hall very, very lightly.
The lecture was in progress, as the class began at 10:00am (thanks for the details, Bruno) and he arrived just after 11:35am. Because the doors were at the end of class, he was able to slip in quietly and without disturbing too many people. It was a rather large class, give or take 200 students. A few heads turned to look at him but returned to minding their own business shortly after. The professor, a small man, was scurrying around at the front of the class, speaking excitedly about the subject matter and gesturing at the projected images on the wall.
"Before his murder by Set, Osiris watched over the world with Isis by his side. In all things, he acted in accordance with the principles of Ma'at which, as you've learned earlier, is the principle of harmony and balance of all things," the professor narrated in English while Ancient Egyptian illustrations flashed on the large screen.
Yusei found an empty seat at the very last row. Despite not having a computer or even a notebook he didn't look too out of place. At least he had his phone, which he checked to find a few messages from Crow and one from Ruka. They asked how he was and gave updates on Carly (which were the same as yesterday's, i.e. delicate surgery in progress and her state still listed as "critical"). Ruka's message said: "I hope you're returning soon."
He put his phone away and tuned in to the lecture again.
"There are many different variations of this myth, however Ma'at is the one element which remains constant within each of them. This concept of harmony which is disrupted and must be restored. Egyptians believed that everything in the universe is maintained within a constant balance and human beings are an integral part of that universe – they too, are necessary for the primordial Balance. The gods fought their own cosmic battles but the responsibility to maintain Ma'at rested with humans also."
I came in at a good time, Yusei thought as he listened.
"But I digress," the bubbly professor laughed. "We'll go over Ma'at and the responsibilities this moral principle had on every Egyptian citizen, in the later classes, as well as how it was implemented by the ruling pharaoh. Back to the myth. Eventually, Osiris had been brought back to life by Isis. However, he has been rendered incomplete and could not watch over the world as he had before. Thus, he had descended to the underworld and became the righteous ruler of the afterlife.
"Oh, we're running short on time," the teacher caught himself as he looked at his watch. "You're not going to be happy but it's time for a quiz. I had promised five to you over the semester. Remember, these make up 5% of your final grade." He motioned for two teaching assistants to begin handing out the papers to students.
A girl and a guy seated close to Yusei groaned out loud. "I'm not doing it," she complained to her friend. "Even if I get 100% on it it's only going to be 1% of my mark. What's the point of this? This class sucks."
"Me neither," her neighbor agreed, yawning. "I'm behind on the readings too. Meh, whatever. Let's just not hand it in."
The teaching assistant came by and passed all of them the paper. The guy and the girl rolled their eyes and accepted the sheet but did not bother looking at it. Yusei read the contents:
EGYPTIAN MYTHS AND PHARAONIC TEXTS, EA218H1 | POP QUIZ #3.
STUDENT NUMBER: _
PLEASE CIRCLE ONE MULTIPLE CHOICE ANSWER.
1. Which god became a major figure of worship by the Fifth Dynasty in the 25th and 24th centuries BC.?
a) Nut
b) Ra
c) Horus
d) Tefnut
e) Isis
f) None of these
2. Who was known as the first deity in the Heliopolitan creation myth?
a) Osiris
b) Atum
c) Atem
d) Geb
e) Ra
f) None of these
3. The Great Ennead was a group of nine deities in Egyptian mythology worshipped at Heliopolis. Which of these gods is not part of that group?
a) Nut
b) Nephthys
c) Shu
d) Ra
e) Isis
f) None of these
4. The obelisks (also known as tekhenu by the Egyptian builders) were constructed as objects of worship of which god?
a) Isis
b) Osiris
c) Ra
d) Nephthys
e) Atum
f) None of these
5. The Wedjat was an ancient Egyptian symbol of protection, royal power and good health. It is also known as the Eye of…
a) Ra
b) Osiris
c) Set
d) Atum
e) Horus
f) None of these
Should I attempt to complete it? Yusei scanned the other people in the lecture hall. The majority of them were scribbling on the paper, some already getting up to hand it in. Others, like his annoyed neighbours, were collecting their belongings and heading towards the exit.
"Please do the assigned readings on the syllabus," the professor encouraged over the noise, accepting the papers handed to him. "Chapters 10, 11 and 14 of the textbook. If you have any additional questions about the material, my office hours are twelve to two today and on Thursday. Thank you and see you all next week."
Some students lined up to chat to the teacher about the class, asking additional questions or picking his brain on comparable topics.
Yusei waited a few minutes and then joined the line when he could guarantee that he was going to be the last.
By the time it was Yusei's turn, the teacher was already in the middle of gathering his papers from the desk and putting them away into a briefcase. "Yes, how can I help?" he asked distractedly, fumbling with a book which no longer fit into the bag.
Yusei dropped the Sky Dragon of Osiris and the Winged Dragon of Ra on the desk in front of him. "I believe these belong to you," he said in English.
The professor froze and the surprised purple eyes looked up at him.
"Don't they, doctor Mutou Sugoroku?" Yusei asked, switching to Japanese and pulling down his hood. "No, rather – Mutou Yugi?"
That night, Aki Izayoi lay curled up in her bed, clutching tightly to the covers. Lights off, quiet as a mouse.
It was five minutes after ten o'clock in the evening that the door knob turned but the door wouldn't budge.
Aki shivered further into the covers and held her breath, squeezing her eyes shut. Don't come in here, don't come in here, don't come in here.
He twisted the handle a few more times, then knocked on the door lightly.
She pretended that she was sleeping, pleading that he wouldn't open it with a key that he undoubtedly had.
A couple of seconds passed, slow. Then she heard the footsteps walking away.
She couldn't relax though and didn't fall asleep for a long time. It was only with the first breaks of daylight that she had dozed off into uneasy, tense sleep, but had to awake a few short hours later to begin the daily dueling training.
That morning Divine did not say a single thing about his attempted night visit. Aki was also too scared to bring it up and decided that she would never mention it unless he's the one who asks about it or if he tries it again.
That morning was also when she'd noticed that something started happening. It would have made her jump for joy in the past but now, under Divine's watchful eye, it worried her: her psychic powers were weakening.
"Mutou Yugi," the professor repeated and answered in Japanese: "It's been awhile since I've heard that name."
"It's you, isn't it?"
"It is," Yugi picked up the briefcase, the cards from the desk and stood next to him. He was rather small in stature, quite skinny and he had wild yellow, black and purple hair. While he should have been around forty years of age, he had such youthful energy and so few, if any, wrinkles that he could have passed for late twenties. "Please – another class will be starting here shortly. Let's go and speak elsewhere, I have an office just around the corner."
Yusei walked out with him. "Mutou Sugoroku, is that your new name?"
"Yes, it's how I'm known to everyone except my friends," Yugi smiled. "Mutou Sugoroku was my grandfather."
They walked through the hallways of the Architecture building, the walls lined with Egyptian arts, scriptures and sculptures; it was like walking through a museum. "I know who you are," Yugi said. "Fudo Yusei, you're the ruling King of Games in Domino City."
"Neo Domino, you mean."
"Sorry, old habits and names die hard," professor Mutou stopped by a door and unlocked it, motioning him through, "Neo Domino and Satellite, right? Here we are."
Yusei stepped in and looked around.
"This is my office here, I also have one in London," Yugi said, closing the door behind them.
Just like out in the hallway, there were many Egyptian-themed things here: paintings and a few sculptures behind glass. Multiple bookcases, one of which held many photos in frames. Smiling faces. One of them was an elderly man with a bandana and gray hair and he held significant resemblance to the man he'd just met. "Is this your grandfather?"
"Yes," Yugi said. "Many years ago, when he passed away… it was a hard time for me. He was the one who raised me. Once he died, I had to do some soul searching: left the city, left the country. I traveled and I ended up here. In Egypt. This is where my grandfather used to explore. He used to be a great Egyptian explorer, you see. And somehow it just clicked. I wanted to continue with his legacy, with what was once so dear to him and what's became dear to me. So I had changed my professional name and began studying archaeology. I left the world of Duel Monsters behind and took up a career in Egyptology."
"Do you live in Giza?"
"I do but only for a few months of the year," Yugi answered and placed the briefcase on the table, laying out the God cards in front of him, and taking a seat. "Most of the time I'm with my wife in London. She has a dance studio and I also teach at the university there."
"What do you do in Egypt?"
"Teach, as you've seen," Yugi smiled. "But mostly research and excavations. The important question is what are you doing in Egypt, Fudo Yusei? You're a long way from home."
"I've come to return what belongs to you," Yusei nodded in the direction of the cards. "And I was also hoping to obtain some answers. But…I don't know where and how to start."
"One question at a time, then."
"You wrote that letter to me," Yusei said. "You've given me the Egyptian God card." These weren't questions but they may as well have been. Why, was what was circling in his head in bold letters.
"Yes, I sent that letter over two years ago."
"I got it-" Yusei quickly assembled a timeline in his head, "-just about three weeks ago."
"It took a long time getting to you."
Yusei paused. One question at a time? There were way too many. "Two years ago… Mutou Yugi-san, how did you know of me? I wasn't a King of Games yet, then."
"He told me what to do and who to write to," Yugi replied.
"Who told you?"
"Mou hitori no boku," Yugi gestured at one of the photo frames on his desk. "The other me. Yami Yugi. Also known as Pharaoh Atem."
That evening, Aki felt more exhausted than she had in a long time.
Her powers were noticeably weaker, for some days now, and this frightened her. She knew that Divine had noticed this also but he had yet to say anything about it.
In fact, the two of them had barely exchanged words. He hadn't tried to kiss her again, hadn't hugged her and hadn't so much as tried to touch her. To be honest, she was perfectly okay with this. She even felt…relieved. But at night she couldn't shake off the feeling that he was out there. That he might try to come and see her and she didn't know how she could get him to leave if that were to happen.
Every night she'd begun locking her door. And every night her thoughts ran free, they ran outside of Arcadia Building, outside of the promises Divine had made to her…and to Yusei Fudo and to the other Signers, to Jack Atlas, to that younger girl Ruka and even to her twin Rua. She wanted to see them. She wanted to speak to them. A conversation about the marks of the Crimson Dragon and even about something else, about something normal like books or movies or likes and dislikes.
She thought about the next time she'd see Yusei. When would that happen? Hopefully soon…somehow. He was a King now. She wondered what he thought it was like, if he enjoyed this new fame. She wanted to say she was sorry to him. For hurting him during their duel, for having smiled at his pain. She felt ashamed. Did he have to rest up after their duel? Did he have to patch up the wounds she had caused him? Was he in a lot of pain that evening?
She wondered how she could open the conversation the next time they were to meet. Should she go ahead and call him by his first name only? Would he be okay with that or should she ask him about it first?
Thankfully, she also hadn't had another one of those…graphic thoughts in awhile. The fact that those came to her still shocked and embarrassed her. She worked hard to push those out of her mind, refusing to let herself acknowledge them. That foreign intimacy, that heat. It was awful. It was inappropriate. And they only served to complicate things when they didn't need to.
That evening, as she'd returned from the dueling practice, she locked herself in her room and tried to distract herself from the other Signers, the anxiety of her inexplicably waning powers, the thoughts of Divine and Yusei Fudo. She changed into pajamas and engrossed herself in books. Before she knew it, the night had settled-in deeply and it was past 1am.
Something happened then. The mark of the Crimson Dragon lit up on her arm but its scarlet glow wasn't painful. Rather, it seemed to be alerting her, beckoning her… And as she felt its warmth, she knew without a doubt that it was something about Yusei.
She came out to the balcony outside her room and looked towards the lit skyscrapers of the city.
"I can sense it," she said quietly. And it seemed to her that if she looked hard enough, if she just concentrated, that she would be able to see him. Within a starry night sky his would be a star that would shine just a little brighter than others. "Yusei, I know you're fighting. The vision that Crimson Dragon showed us… Is something starting?"
The vision of the spider geoglyph, the purple flames ripping through the streets. Was this connected to that? Was Yusei in a duel? Was he fighting something related to that fearsome image?
She stood there for some time, looking out to where the mark was calling her, breathing the fresh cool air; thinking of him and of the others chosen within this shared fate. And then, as suddenly as it lit up, the mark stopped glowing.
A tense, strange feeling settled awoke in her. It…could not be described. It was a certain hollowness, a certain unpleasantness, as if a start of a pain. Aki looked away from the mark and looked out towards the horizon again. Something happened to Yusei.
"Pharaoh Atem?" Yusei repeated, remembering what Mokuba Kaiba had once told them. The spirit of an ancient duelist who became Yugi Mutou's other personality when he'd assembled the Egyptian artifact. The spirit with whom Yugi had won all the battles. And the spirit that had died.
Yusei sat down across from professor Mutou at the table and picked up the picture frame.
"One of the only photos I have left of him," Yugi said. "Do you see him?"
It was Yugi Mutou and his friends from when they were all teenagers. A happy, disheveled blonde guy in the middle, a brown-haired guy next to him, a guy with bright ghost-like white hair, and a brunette girl smiling at Yugi. But…something was slightly different about this Yugi. He looked a little more serious, even his hair seemed different, and he seemed a little taller somehow. "Didn't he…"
"Leave? Disappear? Die?"
"Yes."
"He did. But…. It's hard to explain. Sometimes things that live with you, they stick with you. Sometimes those that are gone from us are never truly gone, you know?"
Yusei thought back to his parents and how he would never have known them if not for that one picture he had. He held no memories of them and yet he had visions of his father in times of need. "I think I do."
"Atem is gone, there is no disputing that. However, I have seen him. He had come to me. Dreams or visions, it's hard to tell. But… he came to me that night and he told me what needed to be done."
Yusei didn't know what to say and Yugi noticed it.
"Two years ago or so, Yusei," the Egyptologist and former King of Games continued: "I was here during my month's trip. And everything was normal. Except that one night I was awakened by what seemed like the rising sun. It was bright outside, as bright as mid-summer's day even though it was midnight, and it looked to me as if the sun itself was outside my window. Then it vanished and that was when Atem came to me. After so many, many years… I thought I'd forget what he looked like, what he sounded like. But as he stood in front of me, the same way as he had countless years ago… He spoke to me, in a voice I only heard in my memories. And he told me that a god had gone rogue that night."
"A god gone rogue? What does that mean?"
"It was Ra," Yugi reached out and touched the golden card of the Winged Dragon of Ra on his desk. "The three Egyptian God cards have been buried in the rubble, Yusei. They were buried with Atem for almost thirty years. By all accounts, Atem had taken them with him when he departed to afterlife. And that night, Ra had escaped. It abandoned its original guardian and it disappeared. Nothing had ever happened like that before."
Yusei felt a chill down his spine. "I was given a crash course on this," the original Mahdi had once told him during their first fateful duel. "I was the one that triggered your awakening, Osiris… I didn't know who I really was until quite recently. Two years ago, to be exact… I think you could say that I had some help. Yusei also recalled his other comment: "What matters to me is that it's you, Osiris, standing in front of me and no one else. It could have been anyone else… it could have been the Pharaoh again."
"With Ra gone, Atem gave me the Osiris and Obelisk cards. He told me to send them away because if I didn't, that they'd be discovered by the wrong hands. They were no longer safe. He also told me that all three will eventually return to me when the time is right. And when they return, I will bring them back to where they belong. They're Atem's cards, you see. He's their main guardian. I would not be capable of controlling all three for a prolonged period of time. They're too volatile, too dangerous, and some people will always try to obtain them."
"So he told you to send Osiris to me? He didn't explain why?" What about the third card? Yusei also wondered in the back of his head. Who did you send that one to? And did it already return to you?
"He did not. And I did what he had asked of me. Then a few months down the line I heard that there was a new King at Neo Domino and that it was you, Fudo Yusei. I knew then that it had been sent to the right person, just as Atem had foretold. That there was destiny to be had here."
"Destiny…"
"Did you use the card? I guess, when you've finally received it? Did it help?"
"Yes. Against the enemy. A couple of times. It had saved lives. But the first time I've seen it… Mutou Yugi-san, it did something to me. It branded me, left a mark. However, after the last time I had used it the mark had disappeared."
"That's strange," Yusei considered what he'd said. "I've never heard it doing that before. But maybe it's because this one had shared a connection with you. It resonated with something in you. Maybe it's an indication that you were the one who could control it. I guess Atem knew that. Not every person is capable of controlling an Egyptian god, you know. There are but the select few."
Yusei recalled all the times he had used it and how, aside from the pain, it carried with it the potent feeling of power above all else. How it had numbed his wounds and made it possible to defeat Set in his original form. "After the last time that I had used it, I knew that I no longer needed it. That it had fulfilled the mission it needed to. I knew then that I could return it to you."
Yugi nodded, appearing to understand everything, and then pointed out: "I had sent you the Sky Dragon of Osiris. But not Ra. Now it's back here, lying in front of me. How did you get it?"
"That same enemy had it," Yusei said. "I had obtained it after a duel. He knew how to use it, how to summon it. But during that duel, for some reason…Ra stopped obeying him."
"Had it been used for evil purposes?"
"Unfortunately, I believe so," Yusei responded and took the time to tell Yugi about what had happened at Neo Domino. How he received the God card from him and how on that very same day the sacrificial duels had started. They were orchestrated by Set, the Egyptian god of chaos, who'd manipulated countless people into these duels with false promises of grandeur and victory. He was responsible for many deaths. The situation had gotten so bad that Neo Domino had implemented a dueling ban. Around the same time, a covert organization popped up – the so-called Free Duelists Association – which kept dueling alive but underground. It then came out that Set and the organizer of FDA were working together all along, while promoting a new alternative to Kaiba's Solid Vision and Momentum technology. It was due to launch in three days.
"What new technology?"
"They call it Freedom Forward," Yusei answered and Yugi frowned, but encouraged him to go on.
Yusei told him that when he dueled Set for the first time he found out that Set was scheming something else. He was looking for Osiris whom he called his antithesis. "He said that I was him," Yusei said. "That I was Osiris reborn and that I was meant to come battle him."
"Not Horus?" Yugi spoke up. "Horus was the one who always battled Set, according to Egyptian legends. It always came down to a battle between the two of them."
"No, he said Osiris was his antithesis."
"I guess that makes sense," Yugi pondered out loud. "Horus fought for revenge but Set's main conflict was with Osiris. Osiris could not fight him then… but maybe he'd always wanted to try."
"Do you believe this, Mutou Yugi-san?" Yusei asked slowly. You don't think it's ridiculous?
"Do you?" Yugi reversed the question. The weirdest of conversations and yet he didn't seem to blink an eye.
"I don't know."
"Because it doesn't matter what I believe," professor Mutou said. "You were the one to receive the card holding the power of Osiris, Yusei. You were the one branded by it. You're the one wearing the Eye of Horus around your neck. Do you believe in destiny?"
The Eye of Horus, Yusei absently touched the pendant hanging around his neck. Aki's present on the day that began this whole arc and the Ancient Egyptian connection. The gift that hid and protected him from Set. "I believe in the destiny that I choose with my own hands," he answered. "The destiny of the Signers of the Crimson Dragon. I don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my own future. I don't believe in predestination. I believe in the power of choice."
Yugi nodded. "Perhaps you and I are of the same mind, after all. Please continue."
Yusei went on. Set had deliberately skewed the Great Balance with the sacrificial duels because he wanted to find the one sent to defeat him and to restore the equilibrium. He wanted to strike a pact. He summarized the original Mahdi's words: "If you somehow get rid of me then others will come after me. The fight will never be over. You will never get the peace that our deal could provide. I'm trying to create a perfect world for you and I: there is no surge of evil or good. Where everything is in perfect balance, where you and I perfectly coexist. Where for every evil deed I do you do a good one. Imagine: no more wars or cataclysmic events in this city. No more massive economy-draining restorations. For as long as you and I are in this together, there will be equality… You and I, the perfect companions." And he had turned down the evil God's offer, despite having spent a few moments seriously contemplating it.
"The Great Balance, yes," Yugi repeated. "The principle of Ma'at. The harmony which is disrupted and must be restored."
"Mutou Yugi-san… do you think there is truth in what he said? That there can never be true peace in my city? That cataclysmic events will never stop happening?"
"That's a hard question to ask, Yusei," Yugi said. "Do I believe that there will ever be a time where some won't thirst for blood, when wars will stop, when natural events like earthquakes will seize to occur? No, I do not."
"Is there no way to overcome that? What if there was a way? What if it meant teaming up with an enemy?" Yusei asked, involuntarily revealing the regret hidden within him. The worry that he had made the wrong choice. A fear of a mistake, of a wrong decision which would send everything tumbling down. His fear of losing Aki had come true… And having lost Jack, Rua, Carly also… "If anything like Zero Reverse were to happen again…"
Yugi stood up and approached the water cooler, pouring two glasses for them. He returned and handed him one. "I had of course heard about Zero Reverse. Even though I don't live there I still check how things are at that city. There was also the more recent Arc Cradle incident. I had also seen broadcasts covering those sacrificial duels you've mentioned. Bad stuff has always happened in that city. But so do the many good things. The unification of Satellite and Neo Domino, for one."
Yusei had a sip of refreshing water and kept his eyes glued to the ground.
"If you want to ask me if you've made the wrong choice by turning down Set's offer, Yusei?" Yugi asked. "I can't answer that. Because you already know the truth. It's not up to a single person to hold the responsibility of the world on their shoulders. That's impossible. And you can't trick the world order, the natural balance of Ma'at. And besides… that city. That city will always have some problems. It summons to itself, heroes and villains. They gravitate to it because it is a battleground."
"What do you mean?"
"I've always believed that Domino city is the so-called axis mundi. It's a belief, or a philosophy, that there exists a centre of the world. It attracts to it the spiritual, the supernatural… It will always have calamities because of what it is. That city will never seize to have problems and I don't mean it in a negative way – more that just a single person isn't able to tame and save this city. No one is. Not you, not me, not anyone else who'll come after our time is up. And that is fine because that city will always balance itself out, no matter what disasters may come. In my opinion it will always be a battleground of good and evil. And new generations will always come to defend it."
Yusei slowly looked up to meet his eyes. He always knew that Neo Domino circulated through the blood in his veins. It had ingrained into his skin. Leave with me, Sherry had said to him. But that city was his home. It lived in his heart. And it took him a trip to Egypt, to this mystical place in the middle of the world, to return yet again to the conclusions he had reached a long time ago. His life will be in that city. "Then within my time, I will try to watch over and defend it for as long as I can," he said.
"It is a choice you can make," Yugi smiled. "But do remember that the only thing any of us can do is try our best in the time we are given. And that sometimes victories come with a cost. But we must not lose sight of what's important to us, to what's precious to us, and to live life to its fullest."
"The whole world is not your responsibility alone, Yusei. Only your life is," Aki had said to him in the garage on that strange, significant day. "You don't have to protect everyone. People need to be given a chance to fulfill their own destinies, don't they?" With her he could live happily, love selfishly, breathe freely. And that was okay. It was what he wished from the bottom of his heart. In this reality, being with Aki and protecting that city was what he would fight to his death for. Or, rather, die a second time for.
"What else?" Yugi asked. He smiled: "I won't lie, I haven't enjoyed such a conversation in a long time. I feel like you and I have known each other for many years, Yusei."
Yusei returned a smile. It was true. "Almost as if we've met before."
"I believe that, in a way, actually," Yugi stated. "Maybe we have. You ever heard of multiverse theory? Perhaps we have met once, in another time or place."
Yusei winced. Flashbacks of fevered dreams (or alternate paths of reality). Rua and Ruka in London, Crow and Jack traveling the world and dueling, Aki in Germany (not with him), Bruno perished within Arc Cradle. Antimony coming to him hours ago, telling him to come here in search of the truth. That weird, innate feeling that something could be different. And how maybe within that other reality his and Yugi's paths had connected somehow, maybe they've even dueled against a common enemy. "Maybe…"
"Don't mind me," Yugi laughed. "My head is full of crazy theories. It happens sometimes when you invest yourself in books and ancient literature as much as me. Now, do you have any other questions that are bothering you?"
"So… Ra had escaped from Atem's tomb," Yusei went back to an earlier discussion, hoping to brainstorm more with a new friend. "And I had found out that it joined Set's cause. Then, last time, it stopped obeying him. How do you think it happened?"
"It probably went to him directly," Yugi suggested and shrugged. "I can only guess at what its reasons are. It's a fiery spirit, you know. Even as a Duel Monsters card it's always been the hardest to control, the most independent and the strongest. It has the most complicated summoning conditions. I've only ever known two people who could control it – I guess the third now, if Set had been able to summon it. And Ra in Egyptian myth had always had his own agenda. He often schemed versus other Gods of the Ennead. There were even stories of him plotting to exterminate the human race. So who knows? Maybe it wanted to help Set at first but then changed its mind."
"Why would it want to help Set?" At that moment, looking at Winged Dragon of Ra on that desk, Yusei felt sparks of hatred. Was everything that happened its fault?
"Maybe it decided that he was at a disadvantage. I really don't know, Yusei."
"Disadvantage," the captain of Team 5D's repeated. He gulped and looked away.
He must have been something on his face (it was pain) because Yugi had asked next, very carefully: "Did Set do anything else, Yusei?"
"This way you will know what to do. How to save all your friends. And you will know the truth," Antimony had told him when he handed him the plane tickets and sent him here.
"He took away the ones precious to me," Yusei answered, still looking elsewhere. It was easier to talk this way. "It's another reason why I've come to find you, Mutou Yugi-san. I came to return the cards to you…and to ask for your advice. Maybe you can help us. I don't know what to do." And he told Yugi how he had defeated Set once, with the help of Sky Dragon of Osiris, and how he'd actually died as a result. How Aki, a fellow Signer of the Crimson Dragon, had sacrificed herself in his stead and Set had taken her over. And here was the catch: dueling didn't solve anything. He had dueled the new Set in Aki's body twice. And he wasn't able to save her; not even reach her. Furthermore, they had lost Jack and Rua under Set's spell also. They were now three Signers short. If dueling didn't help he didn't know how he could possibly save them or how to purge the darkness from within them. Meanwhile, Aki's condition only seemed to deteriorate.
Yugi listened attentively. When he finished, the former King of Games was thoughtful for a few moments. And then he asked something that startled him: "Do you feel that…your friend…wants to be saved?"
"What?" Yusei felt stunned. "I…I think so." Why wouldn't she? Why wouldn't any of them?
"Are you sure?"
"How can you ask that?" Yusei managed, troubled and upset over this.
"Fudo Yusei," Yugi said regretfully. "I'm sorry for saying this. But it is my strong opinion and I speak from my own experience: you can't save someone if they don't want to be saved themselves."
During training, Aki's Black Rose Dragon attacked a dummy and destroyed it. She was breathing heavily, feeling dizzy.
Her powers were still decreasing and the mark of the Crimson Dragon hadn't glowed again since that night. And she couldn't help but think about him. Yusei… Something happened to him that night. Was he okay? She wished there was a way to contact him. She wanted to see him.
She put away the duel disk and took the elevator from the duel arena, coming out on the main floor.
"What's wrong?" Divine asked, approaching, and she had to suppress the fact that his sudden presence made her jump. "Do you feel sick?"
"Not really," she mumbled.
"Tell me what's bothering you," he asked…or rather, demanded. Then he added, a little gentler: "We're friends. There's no need to hide anything from me." This was already more words than they had exchanged for a couple of days.
Are we friends? She wondered, meeting his eyes. And then she lied to his face, without blinking and without caring: "Nothing is bothering me." Leave me alone. I don't want to see you right now.
"Aki, psychic duelists like us are social outcasts. Though we didn't want these powers, we were born with them."
Aki frowned and looked down. Every time he spoke like this, it was almost like he hypnotized her and she couldn't help but think how mistaken she was for trying to think anything else. All the times she'd do something as simple as walk through school and hear the murmurs from her classmates. The fear on her parents' faces…the people who were supposed to support and love her no matter what? If they were against her…she had nothing else. Her power destroyed those around her. It was normal for her to hurt the ones she loved and for them to hurt her in return. She used to be all alone…until she met Divine.
"No, you were still alone until you've met Yusei and others that day," her own voice spoke up within her unconscious. "Don't listen to him. He wants to ruin you. If only you knew what he has in store for you…what he's done… The people he hurt. What he'd done to Misty and Toby. You have yet to meet them. And you won't know the truth about Divine until it's too late. If only you…if only I knew this then." A brief flash of consciousness, which of course could not influence the world of memories.
"And due to these powers, our friends, parents and society discriminate against us," Divine carried on and Aki was back within her fifteen-year old self. "In order to create a home for people like you, I created Arcadia Movement."
He leaned closer. "I understand you," he insisted. "Only I can stop the anger within you."
"I know," she managed (another lie?), and began to walk away.
That was when Divine said something which froze and scared her to her core. "Yusei cannot save you."
She gasped, in shock, and stopped in her tracks. Her hands clenched into fists. Her heart began hammering rapidly in her ears. She suddenly felt exposed, nearly naked. He had read through her and seemed to have seen what was at the centre of it all.
"I'm the one who rescued you," Divine declared. "I'm the one who gave you a home when you had nowhere to go. Don't forget that you owe me a debt of gratitude."
I owe him, she thought. I can't escape him. Is it…is it futile to try?
She slowly departed from him and made it to the balcony to get some air. Thoughts of Yusei Fudo still bombarded her memory, even after what had just happened. His promise, his conviction. I will take on your sorrows. "Why am I thinking about him?" she asked herself, nearly hysterical. Why couldn't she stop? What was wrong with her? The endless days now… this guy had lived in her head and she couldn't get him out.
"Have you seen enough?" a voice asked her.
There was a strange glitch. Almost like a pause in memories. Darkness grew and spread until it morphed into sadness and into something worse: a realization.
Aki looked back and saw him. The sad expression in his deep amethyst eyes; the unruly yellow, purple and black hair, the dark blue attire. He'd been here the whole time, since she began seeing these memories, starting with the experience at school, the destruction of her family's home, meeting Divine, meeting Yusei, the Fortune Cup…
She spoke his name but the sound didn't return to her. He had told her his name when he had first appeared.
"Are you done?" he asked again.
"I don't know what you mean," Aki answered uncertainly. Where are we? There was darkness here. The lack of understanding and comprehension.
"Have you seen enough of your past to see how you can overcome your present?"
"My past…?"
"Have you seen enough to begin fighting?"
What's happening? "I don't know what you're talking about." She said his name again and he looked away.
"Yes you do. This is what you've escaped and what you have to face," he said.
"You will help me kill Fudo Yusei," Mahdi had promised her after she lost their duel and she screamed. His fist connected with her stomach and she doubled over, falling forward and deeper through the shadows and into the haze of pain.
Don't…don't…don't let Yusei come here after me, she thought, disoriented (in the past and in the future). Don't let him find me. Don't let him come here. Don't…please, please don't…I'll hurt him. I'll kill him. She began sobbing, (then and now) and she begged for this to stop.
He was watching her, with those sad and knowledgeable purple eyes.
Yusei was on the ground, covered in blood. It seemed to pool from underneath him. Her arms could not still his shaking. The wet, shallow, scary sound that was his breathing. The disturbing, moaning noises. He was suffering. His mouth was thick with blood. He's dying, she saw with clear understanding and guilt which could never be conquered. He's dying because of me. Because of the way my powers are.
"Yusei, wake up, wake up, please wake up," she pleaded while shaking that broken shell of a body. Please, please forgive me. Oh god, please forgive me.
"It wasn't your fault," he said, sternly. "Don't you see? Fight this. Get yourself out of here."
"No, no, no," she whimpered, shaking her head. "I can't. I can't. I did this." "Because he's sacrificed himself to save me. I lead him there. I did this to him with my wretched power."
"The worst sacrifice he could have done. Life thrown away for garbage," Mahdi's voice answered her in that hospital. He had already latched on to that hopeless darkness in her soul and he knew exactly how to feed it.
Yusei was on the operating table, head drooped to the side, lips lightly parted. Blue eyes open and blank, those fascinating, incomparable eyes… they were dull. Empty. Pupils still and dilated. Yusei wasn't in there anymore.
I wish I were dead. I wish I were dying instead of him.
"Then go back to where it's safe," he told her, remorsefully. "And maybe soon you'll see how you've fought for yourself in the past and how you can do it again. Because he can't save you if you can't find a reason to fight for yourself."
Face streaked with tears, Aki nodded and dipped back into the memories past Fortune Cup, the beginning of the Dark Signers arc. The time Rua, Ruka, Himuro and old man Yanagi came… How she dueled Misty…
His name still echoed inside her scattered thoughts, guided by his helping presence and soon devoured by the angry, poisonous shadows of Set.
Atem.
"It's why you have to be sure," Yugi continued. "Do you know that she wants to be saved? Do you have any doubts at all about it?"
"I…I don't know."
"Let me tell you why I'm saying this because I don't like to say this. It's because I have seen this with my own eyes. I have gazed upon true evil a few times. It manifested in monsters, in spirits, in Gods... But the worst was within this one person. His name was Malik Ishtar. He'd endured a difficult and painful childhood. I think that evil had "found" him, it searched for someone who was vulnerable and desperate and in the time of great pain that darkness "heard" him. It latched onto him and transformed. Within that pitch blackness and suffering, this evil had been "born" within him."
Yusei's eyes widened as he listened, unable to help but to hear similarities with what had happened to Aki.
"He became Yami Malik. And he was one of the select few who could control the Winged Dragon of Ra. This evil destroyed everyone around him and it tried to kill everything the original Malik loved. And the more it lived, the worse it got. We saw it too…the deterioration. Because when there is so much power involved, the host begins to wither away. I hope it's not what's happening to your friend."
Yusei felt those horrible pangs of fright again. He had seen it, the gaunt, the headaches, the bleeding, the progressive worsening of her condition. And hearing this from Yugi too?
"But that evil had been defeated," Yugi said. "How? Yes, a duel. But it couldn't have been defeated by Atem and I alone. The original Malik had to intervene. He had to fight for himself. Because up until that point, he had given up. He wallowed in his misery, he accepted this as punishment for his deeds. He'd accepted his powerlessness. And when he did that, that thing kept eating him. And that's the only way I know of that evil can be truly purged. A host has to fight for him or herself. I repeat this again: a person cannot be saved if they don't want to be saved."
Yusei nodded, slowly.
"I'm sorry if that's not what you were hoping to hear," Yugi added, softly. "But it's the only thing I have from my own experiences. I could be wrong, it's true. But I want to help you in any way that I can, Fudo Yusei. If you'd like to take both the Egyptian God cards again to aid with this quest, I'd only be too happy to return them to you."
"No," Yusei shook his head. "No. I think I understand now what I need to do. And why I need to do it with what I have. I think it'll be the only way…to reach her. To reach all of them."
Yugi made a small, compassionate smile.
"Thank you for telling me that story," Yusei managed.
"I think the main takeaway from it is that it has a happy ending," Yugi insisted. "But…it was a difficult journey."
Yusei was silent, thinking everything over. Aki… did Aki not want to save herself? Did she blame herself? He didn't know. Maybe she did. But he just had to work harder than ever before to reach her. Their next duel would be the final attempt and he was going to give his all. He knew exactly how he would do it.
"May I ask you a question next, Yusei?" Yugi asked.
"Sure."
"How did you find me?"
"That's a good question. I have a friend, he's a sort of mechanic-whiz and a computer genius. He'd found you, somehow."
"Oh okay."
"To be honest, I didn't even know who you were until Kaiba Mokuba came and told all of us about you. That's when I connected the dots and figured that you were the one who've mailed me the letter. I had no leads until then."
"Kaiba… Mokuba?"
"Do you remember that name?"
"Of course!" Yugi exclaimed, happily. "Wow. It's been so many years. Kaiba Seto's younger brother. How was he?"
Yusei's jaw set sternly. He'd remembered the times that guy insulted them, threatened Aki… He'd also had a hand in destroying their property and forcing them to relocate. "He was…tall."
"That's hilarious," Yugi laughed. "Mokuba…tall. You wouldn't believe it but he used to be so tiny. Always carrying his brother's suitcase around, nearly the size and weight of him. He was a very nice boy."
Too bad, Yusei thought, that he didn't grow up to be a nice man.
"So he came back to Neo Domino?" Yugi went on excitedly. "Last I followed, both Kaiba brothers were gone outside of Japan. I think Kaiba Seto owns half of Wall Street. Not sure what Mokuba is up to, but hopefully he'd found his own calling."
"I'd say so."
"Well that's good!" Yugi exclaimed and got up to look outside the window, as they both became aware of some commotion outside. There were more people than usual out there, more voices. "Huh. I wonder what's happening out there. Is that a helicopter?"
There was a knock on the door. Yusei glanced at Yugi.
"Probably one of my students," Yugi said, approaching the door. "My office hours are still in effect." He opened it.
Outside stood a very tall and thin man. He had brown hair and he wore a trim gray coat which seemed to float behind him. He looked a little bit like…Jack Atlas, actually. His posture was impeccable. The most notable feature about him were his cold, blue eyes.
Behind him, Mokuba Kaiba was standing, looking displeased.
Yugi, eyes wide, took a step back. "Kaiba," he breathed out.
"Yugi," Seto Kaiba concurred and revealed a blue card in his hand. "What is the meaning of this?"
And seeing it from the distance, Yusei knew that it was the third Egyptian God card.
Obelisk the Tormentor.
Holy shit did I really just bring Seto Kaiba into this fanfiction? And Mokuba is back too. I hate him but I think since I made him a big part of earlier chapters I need to give him a little closure before all of this is over. I'll try to fix him a little bit, too.
Oh yeah, and I threw a few hints here and there and in the previous chapters, but yeah Yami Yugi is sort of around here too. But he's not really "here" per say.
Sooooo I hope you guys thought this chapter was kind of fun, full of original Yu-Gi-Oh! references. I hope most of you knew what I was talking about.
Did anyone do Yugi's pop-quiz? Did you pass, lol.
Of course I'm also implying that Yugi's "wife" who "owns a dance studio" is Anzu…
I also had to go back and try to calculate the duration of time in Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds that this storyline took so far. I got 19 days but I could be wrong… It definitely feels like six years (ha-ha-ha). I'm going by the timeline where we assume Yusei was 18 in Episode 1 and 20 in Episode 154 (the near future for 5D's). In my fanfiction, he'd turned 20 without those changes that happened in 154, and it's been 19 days since he got the God card on his birthday.
Oh yeah also Yusei speaks fluent English apparently, even though he never went to school, but let's just let that slide because of how hot and awesome he is.
Anyway, so what happens in the next chapter? Are we going to find out how Seto Kaiba got Obelisk the Tormentor? Did Yugi send it to him? Is Mokuba going to apologize for being a jerk in the early chapters? What is Dark Aki and evil Signers up to? And are we finally going to find out what the deal is with that evil senator and the Free Duelists Association?
Stay tuned and thank you for reading!