[Note: For those not familiar with the Japanese Yugioh names
Anzu Masaki = Tea Gardener
Honda Hiroto = Tristan Taylor
Jonouchi Katsuya = Joey Wheeler]
The Pharaoh laughs, lounging about in the golden decadence of his palace in the afterlife. He can't help himself. Seto is absolutely ridiculous coming here. To think he spent all this time denying the existence of Egyptian myth for so long when it was resting at the tip of his nose, only to change his mind now. It's as if Atem's absence sent him spiraling into madness. Truly, he must have a few screws loose to throw out the laws of reality and break into the afterlife.
It's hilarious the amount of effort Kaiba puts into this stuff. He never ceases to find new and inventive ways to lose at a card game. Watching Seto refuse to swallow his pride and admit he's never going to beat the Pharaoh is more entertaining than the game itself. Seto declares the third rematch in this sitting. It's pathetic, yet Atem can't help but indulge. His afterlife is lacking in skilled opponents. Instead, he has the millennium puzzle on display in the hall as a reminder of his more exciting dueling career and the friends he made along the way.
Atem beats him yet again. He looks up from his cards and smirks. "Another round?"
"Obviously, I'm not leaving until I beat you." He huffs. The two are sitting on the floor, playing the game the old-fashioned way. No illusions, no duel disks, just two grown men with cards on the hard stone tile. It's cold but not dusty.
"Poor Mokuba. You're going to be here for a while, Seto."
"I have four hours. I'll beat you before then." Seto says confidently.
"And I have eternity." Atem looks his opponent up and down. He plays his first card face down. "Are you cheating death to be here?"
"Death isn't hard to fool. It's none of your concern." Seto responds. Atem can't argue with that. Regardless of how, Atem is overjoyed to have Seto play with him, even if he is on a hard time limit. Hours pass and Seto remains without a victory.
Atem goes to ask if he'd like to play again. He doesn't get one word out before an alarm on Seto's watch goes off. That must mean they're out of time. What a shame. Kaiba nods a jaded goodbye. He's so convinced he needs just one more duel. The man is simply unable or unwilling to accept he will never beat the Pharaoh.
Seto takes matters into his own hands. More than he already has by cheating death. As he passes the millennium puzzle on display on his way out, he reaches a hand to grab it. Once firmly between his fingers, he bolts running faster than Atem has ever seen before.
The artifact doesn't have any use anymore. He knows Yugi will more than likely join his slice of the afterlife no matter what happens. It's a matter of patience. Despite his sentimentality for the item, Atem merely raises an eyebrow at Kaiba's antics. Surely Seto realizes Atem’s soul isn't bound to the puzzle anymore, right?
As fast as he came into the afterlife, Seto leaves it. He returns to the land of the living in a fragmented sea of electric blue. As soon as he lands one foot on solid ground, the puzzle in his hands shatters into pieces. Each piece clatters to the ground with a musical 'tink'.
As he goes to collect the pieces, he's interrupted. Mokuba hugs him. "Seto! You made it!"
"Of course I did." Seto's stone cold facade fades for his little brother. As far as Mokuba knows, Seto could have died in the Pharaoh's afterlife. He hugs the younger siblings back tight.
Mokuba pulls back from the hug. He looks down at the mess of glittering gold pieces. "Is that?-"
"It's the millennium puzzle."
"I thought it got lost when the building collapsed." Mokuba isn't wrong in this assumption. All the millennium artifacts got buried in rubble after Yugi and his band of friends used them to unlock the afterlife for the Pharaoh. Even today, as archeologists excavate the ruins, very few of the artifacts have been recovered. It's expected that the millennium puzzle would take the longest to recover if it survived at all due to it having so many parts to scatter.
"The Pharaoh took it with him. I brought it back. Help me clean this up before the pieces get lost." Seto diverts his attention to the task at hand. Mokuba nods, joining him. He reaches under the high-tech contraptions, getting the few that lodged themselves in spaces Seto is too large to fit. By the end of the hour, all thirty-three pieces are safely closed within a briefcase.
Both brothers are surprised at just how few pieces there are. Seto would've guessed closer to one hundred. But no, it's only thirty-three. A standard one hundred piece puzzle typically only takes the boys ten minutes. One hundred piece puzzles are built for babies, how in the world it took Yugi almost a decade to solve it the first time is beyond Seto.
It is a three-dimensional puzzle which admittedly adds a level of challenge inherently. Still, thirty-three pieces isn’t a lot. This should be a piece of cake.
Solving the millennium puzzle is, in fact, such a piece of cake that Seto spends the rest of the year trying to solve it in secret. He spends many frustrated nights hitting his head against the wall, struggling to put it all together in desperate attempts to duel his dead rival. The puzzle looks deceptively simple, yet it's built in such a way that it must be constructed in a particular order. One wrong move and the whole thing falls apart. He scans it, creates an entire computer program to simulate putting it together, producing instructions as it goes. Seto follows the instructions and surprise-surprise! It falls apart.
It's been a whole year now since they got their hands on the puzzle.
Mokuba wakes up in the middle of the night. He yawns and pads his way through dark halls. On his way to the kitchen, the dark halls are illuminated by the cold light seeping from underneath the door to Seto's office. He frowns. Looks like his brother is pulling another all-nighter over that stupid necklace.
He sighs, cracking the door open. Mokuba winces at the headache he gets by walking in. The office is bright white and sterile, the lights above harsh on the eyes. Seto sits hunched over the puzzle, looking like he's heard of sleep once from a friend but never actually done it himself.
Mokuba rubs his eyes. "Big brother..."
"Not now Mokuba, I'm so close." He doesn't look up from his work.
"You say that every time, Seto." Mokuba's voice cracks. He forgets his voice can't go that high anymore. "When was the last time you ate?"
"No time." Of course, Seto didn't eat. That would be too normal.
"Bro, just make Mutou solve it."
"And admit defeat? I don't think so."
"Don't you think it's a little odd that Yugi is the only person to ever solve the puzzle?"
"He's the only person dumb enough to try. That doesn’t mean anything. " Seto grumbles, putting another piece into place, using chopsticks as tweezers.
"I've been doing some research on it."
"Yeah?"
"One of the lines of hieroglyphs that refers to it, says something about it being cursed."
"A dead Pharaoh lived in it. Of course it's 'cursed'."
"I'm just saying, if I were to make a cursed object, I'd make sure it's custom tailored to whatever person I wanted to curse." Mokuba yawns.
Seto drops his chopsticks. He blinks at the puzzle, dumbfounded. That would explain a lot. Yet at the same time, having a spirit to help win card games isn't exactly a 'curse'. This ancient Egyptian nonsense is weird.
"You good?"
"I'll call Yugi in the morning." Seto stands up, following his brother into the kitchen.
The following morning Seto lays haphazardly across the couch with his smartphone held up to his ear. He hears the phone ringing on the other end. His foot bobs impatiently until an automated message asks him to leave a voice-mail. Nobody ignores Kiabas calls. Ever.
The only logical conclusion is to have his bodyguards kidnap Yugi. Seto huffs. This is such a waste of time. The guards arrive dragging a very willing Yugi by the elbows. He looks awfully cheery for a guy who's just been snatched off the streets.
Seto snaps his fingers, and the guards let the little punk free. Yugi laughs, awkwardly rubbing his arm where the men had squeezed it. "Long time, no see."
"Skip the pleasantries." Kaiba says as his hostage takes a comfortable seat on the red couch across from him. Seto leans down, pulling out a briefcase. Yugi watches with confused interest as the man places it on the coffee table, turning it so the clasps face Yugi. "You've got work to do."
"Uh huh-" Yugi goes silent as he opens the briefcase. The golden glow out the edge feels like home. All thirty-three pieces of the millennium puzzle tucked snugly into custom foam molds to keep them from rattling around in the case. He gasps, inspecting the piece with the eye. Yugi looks back at Seto. "Is this real?"
Seto nods.
"Oh Seto, you shouldn't have." Yugi chokes up. This is probably the nicest thing he's ever done. Seto using him isn’t a thought in his mind. As far as Yugi knows, this is a very thoughtful gift.
"I've done worse." He rolls his eyes. "Solve it."
"It's been a while…" Yugi puts pieces together in his lap, fumbling with the form. This is the third or fourth time Yugi has had to solve the puzzle in his lifetime. Some pieces just fall into place like a memory. In five minutes, Yugi gets further than Seto did in five months. Seto bites his tongue, keeping his envy quiet. Ten minutes later, Yugi snaps the final piece into place. The eye of Anubis glows, firing a golden beam of light at Yugi's forehead. The brightness causes him to close both of his eyes.
"Finally." Kaiba watches, rapt with anticipation. He grins, hunched over, waiting.
The glow fades, returning the puzzle to the appearance Kaiba is used to. The magical energy is gone. Nothing comes of it. Yugi opens his eyes, blinking down at the puzzle. "Well, that was odd."
"Call him out."
It's at this moment Yugi realizes what Seto is trying to do. He's trying to challenge Atem's immortal soul to a card game. Again. "He should be in the afterlife."
"We'll see about that."
"Kaiba." Yugi hisses. Hasn't he been through enough? The aching in his soul for Atem is awful all by itself. The last thing he needs is Seto selfishly getting his hopes up. "Let him rest."
"Do it."
"I'd love to see him again, but this is too far." Yugi never really got over Atem. It's completely normal to miss the dead sometimes. What isn’t normal is the constant aching Yugi feels in his heart. He doesn't miss Atem sometimes. He misses Atem every waking hour of the day. It's not normal even for Yugi. Grandpa passed away this year and while it hurts, it's a completely different kind of hurt. When Grandpa passed on, Yugi lost a loved one. When Atem passed on he lost a part of himself. He feels genuinely terrible for even noticing the difference.
"I'm not letting you leave until you do it."
Yugi takes a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. He looks down at the ground in defeat. "Fine."
Kaiba stares.
"I'm so sorry," Yugi mumbles, pressing a kiss to the puzzle. He calls out, "Yu-Gi-Oh!"
Nothing happens. Atem is nowhere to be found. Yugi breathes a sigh of relief. That's right, Atem isn't bound to the puzzle anymore. He can knock on the door all he wants. Atem isn't there to answer. "Nobody's home."
"You can leave now." Seto stands up, crossing his arms.
Yugi stands up to leave. He stops in his tracks and furrows his brows. It's not just about the cards, is it? Kaiba seems too proud to admit any other motive. He wraps his arms around Kaiba. "I miss him too."
Seto loosens up awkwardly, patting Yugi on the back. "You can keep the necklace. It's useless to me now."
"Thank you." It means a lot to Yugi. Being a spirit, Atem left very little in the way of belongings behind. Yugi has Atem's deck and a few rare photos, but that's it. The puzzle holds more sentimental value to him than Seto could possibly imagine. He peels himself away from the other.
Seto nods, letting Yugi leave. They both go their separate ways, moving on with their lives. At least in theory they do. If anything is a constant, it's that neither Yugi or Seto are very good at letting things go.
He puts on a brave face for his friends, not wanting to worry them, but everyone can tell something isn't right. The sad look in his eyes worries Anzu the most. It's been months since grandpa passed away. Only today has Yugi finally gotten to the point where he can go through the man's room and consider moving into it as his own. Anzu is here to help him with anything heavy, at least that's the excuse she's using.
Grandpa's room is easier to go through than Yugi thought it would be. He kept most of the sentimental keepsakes in other rooms of the house. Anzu picks up a box of Grandpa's clothes and looks at Yugi. "Are you doing alright?"
"I'm fine. Really." Yugi is quick to reassure her. He picks up a box himself, following Anzu down the stairs.
"You don't have to be. Losing family is hard." She sets the box down at the foot of the stairs. Yugi still doesn’t know what he's going to do with the clothes he doesn't plan on keeping.
"I know, I just- I feel bad about it." Yugi stacks the box on top of the other.
"It's not your fault. Old age gets to everyone eventually." She furrows her brows, tucking her brown hair behind her ears.
"It's not that." Yugi sits on the stairs. His chest hurts. He leans forward, looking down at the millennium puzzle as it hangs off his neck. "I feel like I'm moving on too fast."
"There's no wrong way to mourn." Anzu sits down on the stairs next to him. The hardwood creaks under her weight as she reaches an arm around Yugi from behind, pulling him closer. "He wouldn't want you to be miserable for longer than you have to be."
Yugi idly holds the puzzle in his hands, tracing along its edges with his fingers. The golden sheen of the familiar item catches Anzu's attention. She has no idea how he got it back. "It still hurts, doesn't it."
Yugi nods. His eyes burn and he closes them tight. "I don't feel like I'm healing. The emptiness doesn't go away. Like I lost a part of myself."
Up next is Yugi's room. It's mostly a matter of moving his stuff from one room to another. Still, like a child cleaning his room, he gets distracted.
Safely tucked in a desk drawer lies a little black box. Yugi knows exactly what's inside. It's Atem's deck. Yugi opens the box. He gently shuffles through the cards, taking a trip down memory lane. He remembers how he called him out to socialize, and how he got him back by making Yugi explain to Jonouchi why he's like the underdog. It was so silly.
He can't help but wonder how Atem is doing in the afterlife. Even the happiest of thoughts have tears flowing down his cheeks. Anzu sees him shaking from behind and puts down what she's doing. She hugs him, letting him sob into her shoulder.
"I miss him too." She sympathizes, rubbing his back. Yugi knows this. It's impossible to forget how his childhood crush fell in love with the spirit he shared a body with. When Atem left, so did her feelings towards Yugi. Even all grown up, he'll always be like a little brother to her. Which is fine. He's over it. Yugi is grateful to have her as the world's most enthusiastic wingman.
Minutes pass in Anzu's arms. Yugi manages to pull himself together. He lets go of her to blow his nose into a tissue. He's such a mess.
Soon word gets out that Yugi is back in possession of the millennium puzzle. As such, the British museum invites him and a friend of his choice to visit their new exhibit of the millennium artifacts. All expenses covered. The stated goal is to interview Yugi about his experience with the puzzle, but anyone with a brain can tell the museum is also hoping to buy it off of him. If there's one thing the British Museum is good at, it's feeling entitled to Egyptian knickknacks.
Yugi is hesitant to accept the offer. Anzu pushes him to do it, assuring him that he doesn't have to sell the necklace and that it will be good to get out of the house. She even offers to watch over the store while he's gone.
Yugi accepts, and well, he can't not extend the plus one to Jonouchi. It's the perfect excuse to see him again. He's been so far away with his college foreign exchange program. It'd be nice to be in the same time zone even if it's just for a weekend. That and Jou is far more confident in English, something that would be very handy to have while visiting England.
On the way to the airport, he waves to the cat perched on the fence and then again at another cat staring at him from across the street. It's nice to see the neighborhood cats out and about. They're cute. He takes the shuttle to the airport.
Security looks at Yugi funny when he passes through the metal detectors. They let him pass, but Yugi can't help but feel he's being watched. Followed. He hates the airport, everything about it makes him nervous. He supposes he should’ve chosen a less eye-catching outfit.
On the plane, he's assigned to sit next to a veiled woman. She sounds older and seems to understand Japanese well enough to accept his apologies for invading her personal space to find the other end of his seatbelt. The plane has seats in rows of three on either side. The seat directly between the woman and Yugi is occupied by the woman's cat, peacefully sleeping in a wicker basket looking carrier.
Yugi takes a sleeping pill with a bottle of water, trying his best not to disturb other passengers with the cheap crinkly plastic bottle. It's a transcontinental flight, he's going to be here a while. The sleeping pill will hopefully kill time. He pulls out a small chess set from his carry on, playing a game against himself. It's surprisingly easy as he forgets the move he made each time he slips in and out of consciousness. He's basically playing in his sleep.
"That's a neat trick." The voice of an older woman speaks in a language Yugi doesn't recognize but still understands. It's probably just English and Yugi is too tired to notice.
"Hm?"
"Playing in your sleep." Her gloved hand reaches down to pet the large cat.
"Oh, yeah, I guess it's muscle memory." Yugi yawns as he puts the board away. He looks back over to try to see the woman's face and finds that he's suddenly being shaken awake by a concerned flight attendant.
The plane is empty.
"Oh, thank you." He bows, standing up, throwing his bag over his shoulder. "I'm so sorry."