Gemini

Summary: Shadii made a mistake in sending Yami back to be the ruler of the ancient world. Now, all of Egypt is in the midst of an uprising, their blood-lust targeted at the pharaoh himself. No light to balance the wielder of the Shadows, there is no hope in sight.

Warnings: Shounen-ai, slight yaoi, and possibly some graphic material. Tread with caution, and watch out for younger audiences that just might be in the room at the moment.

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"Knock, knock, knock. . ." Sugoroku tried rapping on his grandson's door for the thousandth time that week. As usual, there was only silence that answered his call. Not a comfortable silence, either. No, this was a dead silence, that which one would receive tapping on the gravestone of the deceased.

Dead. That's what Yuugi was. An empty shell lying and taking up space. Was he even breathing anymore? Did he think, feel, or even crave nourishment? When was the last time he had any water?

Everything he had done before, he had done with his yami. Every laugh, every dream, and wish and hope and desire, if his yami didn't fulfill it for him they would pull through it together. How could they not? They shared a consciousness for goodness sake!

But they were more. Lovers. Partners. Soul mates. If one was lost, the other would never recover.

Summoning his remaining strength, the aged man pushed open the door to the empty, quiet room.

The sight that greeted him broke his heart and scarred him at the same time. Yuugi, his sweet, bright grandson, was lying the same position he had been in the night before, head on its side on his pillow, facing the door. His once gleaming violet eyes were now an empty plum, blood shot and wide open, starring at absolutely nothing.

He was still wearing the same school uniform that was on the day that Yami left, shoes untied but still on. His bed was crumpled and strewn, but he didn't even seem to notice.

His face was sunken and pale, hair limp and dull.

He looked like a corpse.

"Yuugi," his worried grandfather tried. As expected, no response. His eyes didn't even seem to register the room's new occupant. Not even a flinch of the skin.

Dead.

"Yuugi, please. You need to get up. I know that this is hard for you, I know what it's like to lose a love. But you have to pull through."

Nothing.

Sugoroku sighed, sitting next to his non-responsive grandchild. "Yuugi, please. You haven't eaten anything in three days, you haven't bathed, have you even had any water? Gotten up to go to the bathroom lately? Yuugi. . ." right now, of all times, his voice seemed to want to leave him, cracking with a sickening panic. "Yuugi, you're scarring me."

Dead silence.

Something wet fell down the old man's aged face. After all this time, a tear finally fell.

Three days. All in three days. Not very long ago already felt like another life-time. Another universe all together.

Yuugi was now lost to all. The only one that could save him was his darkness, and Yuugi's darkness died five-thousand years ago.

Five-thousand years was separating the two, and Yuugi didn't even have the puzzle to open up a portal to return to the only one that held his life and sanity in the very palm of his dusky-skinned hands.

Yuugi didn't hear his grandfather walk in. He didn't even hear him talk. All that kept happening to him was the constant replay of the day that his life left him.

Shadii had come to them one fateful afternoon while the two were basking in the sunlight in the city park. It had been two years since Battle City, and it appeared that all things had been resolved.

They couldn't have been more wrong.

Shadii had began to explain to them that if Yami did not return to complete his rule, the ancient world would be thrown into complete pandemonium, and Yami was the only one that could stop it.

As always.

Yuugi had become viciously jealous after-words that Ryou and Malik didn't have to lose their yamis. No, only he did. It was at that moment when he wished that it wasn't them that was always the savior of the earth. As far as he was concerned, the planet could suck his dick and drown in flames, so long as he didn't have to be separated from the one person that knew him inside and out. The one that he had scoured every corridor of their soul, knew them inside and out and all of their secrets.

Yami. . .

All gone.

Shadii had immediately taken them back to Egypt, to where they had uncovered Yami's tomb.

What creeped both of them out, was the fact that there was a body inside. Yami's old body. It hadn't turned completely to dust like some of the older pharaohs.

Yuugi was forced to put the puzzle on the mummy, and Yami disappeared with it. Shadii said that Yami's soul was going back in the years by a way of regression through his body. The puzzle went with him because, as it was said, that there was only one puzzle throughout the years, and it went with Yami.

Shadii had said that if someone had found the ability to simply go back one day, or even two, and leave the puzzle in the present time, when they went back to look for the puzzle where it had been the previous day, it would not be there. It would only be in the present time.

So basically, the puzzle was lost to him five-thousand years in the waiting. He would never see it again. Not even if he looked and waited. Someone would have to transport it through the years.

And right now, only Yami could do that.

And Yuugi, of course, couldn't go with his yami. It was simply forbidden.

Yuugi's grandfather wasn't the only one worried about the seventeen year old. More than his friends that couldn't make it through to him, either.

The shadows were almost frantic.

Yuugi had been the light and the balance to the pharaoh, the wielder of the darkness. Yuugi kept his sanity in tact as well. Without Yuugi, Yami would not have been sane, and therefore not able to control the shadows, the shadow realm, or the monsters within.

And Yami was their favorite son.

Yuugi's welfare was, aside from Yami, their number one priority. And Yuugi was now even beyond the reach of the shadows, and the monsters as well.

Mahaado, the Dark Magician, was as sick with worry as Sugoroku. Though he couldn't exactly voice it.

Three days. Three days of hell. Three days of depression and grief and despondence. He wanted to die. He wanted to wither away and never see the world again. Everything reminded him of Yami, and every memory of Yami would make him replay that time three days ago when his yami left him.

"I hate you, Shadii," Yuugi hissed, to low for mortals to hear, but the shadows sure did.

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Yugioh sighed again, angered and exasperated all at the same time. His high preist, Seth, was not giving him the good news that he wanted.

"What do you mean, Egypt is angry? That they're questioning their God? I closed the shadow-realm, did I not? What more do they want?!"

Seth sighed, running a hand through his frayed hair. "Sire, the news on the streets is they want a ruler that is kinder. They say that they're tired of your anger, your outbursts, and your iron fist. Some have said that they'd rather be eaten by Duel Monsters than have to live with your laws any longer."

"Bullshit. Mortals do not question their gods. If they even try, they won't be able to overthrow me. It has never been done in our history. I'm not about to let it start."

Seth repositioned his silk purple robes. He knew that it was going to be hard to get this through the stubborn-ruler's head, but he never thought this hard.

Two hours of debating. Two long hours of explanations and rebuttals and flat-out refusals.

"My pharaoh, they have sworn to get rid of your icy heart."

"Ice is harder than gold, it will not bend under the weight of ruling the greatest power in the world." Crimson eyes bored down on him, daring him to disagree.

"Yes, pharaoh, it is harder. But when gold breaks, it bends in two. When ice breaks, it shatters. The same will be with you, when your limit is reached."

"Gods have no limits."

Seth began rubbing his temples. "And what will you do if they do rise up against you? How will you deal with it?"

Yugioh didn't not answer. He felt that he didn't need to, and he didn't want to.

Ever since the pharaoh's return to his body, he had been cold and vindictive. There wasn't a soul that could get through to him, and not one that could reason with him. The embodiment of Set himself, some had said, instead of being Re-Atum like he was supposed to be.

"Gods help us," Seth whispered.

Yugioh, as of yet, had not divulged to anybody yet that he still had access to the shadows through his puzzle, and he did not plan on telling anybody until it was truly necessary.

Seth got up from his chair and walked out of the conference room, intent on getting some fresh air.

Opening the door, Yugioh heard him gasp in horror. "Gods help us," he croaked.

The pharaoh walked up behind his preist to see the stairs that led up to the palace, visible through the open colonnades, covered with what looked like all of Thebes at his doorstep.

No, it was more than that. Yugioh recognized the designs of the different tools. Scythes and pitchforks, hoes and swords and clubs. . .Cairo, Thebes, lower villages, Upper and Lower Egypt together must be hear to get rid of their pharaoh.

"By the gods," he breathed. Seth was right. And they were out there, screaming. Torches were burning, blades were flying, and they wanted blood.

Yugioh's blood.

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Want me to continue? Hope it was long enough. Guess that I could have made it longer. Oh well. Tell me what you think.