Complete chapter revision began on August 24, 2005.

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Their legs were tangled together on the bed, black leather-clad limbs twisting together peacefully. The shorter of the two's back was rested against the headboard of his bed, while his other was on the opposite side, back lolling back over the rather short footboard. (No funny stuff in the bed, sillies! xPPP)

Nineteen-year-old Yuugi held the Puzzle in his hands; slim fingers tracing the Eye of Ra in a fond matter, though his amethysts told a different tale. "Kkwy…" he murmured to himself, watching as the Shadows he could only see radiated from the golden edges of the pyramid. His lightning locks hovered over his downcast eyes, shielding them thoroughly.

"Yes, Aibou?" Atem inquired, perceiving the single word his light had made and thinking he was calling to him.

Yuugi's head snapped up from the Puzzle, darting around the room, looking at anything but his darkness. "Oh…no, not you. It's nothing."

"Oh. Are you sure?"

"Yes. Why do you ask?" Yuugi thought he was hiding his trouble very well compared to how he usually handled his feelings.

"Little light, your eyes. If you wish to hide your emotions from people, you'll have to walk around with your eyes shut for the rest of your life. I can tell something is troubling you. Console in me."

Yuugi's eyes locked with Atem's, and he dropped the Puzzle back onto his torso. "Pharaoh…" he began, only to be promptly interrupted.

"Yes, I have evoked the memories of my past life as a Pharaoh, but I am the same 'Yami' to you, my light. Treat me no differently as you would before I learned of myself."

Yuugi snuggled further into the headboard and sighed. "I suppose so. I guess my head is just…blurred with…things."

Atem arched an eloquent eyebrow. "Things such as…?"

"The meaning of life," Yuugi admitted. "Not mine, though. Yours." Without waiting for a reply, and without even looking up to see the inquiring expression on Atem's face, he continued again. "You've led us in the Shadow Wars (I've just realized this sounds like something from Star Wars…la la la… xPP), dueled all the evil villains, and finally gotten your memory back. You've supposedly done everything you were meant to do. What now? What will you do now?"

Atem's eyes clouded. "I don't-"

Ring!

Yuugi's head snapped to the phone on his bedside cabinet, then back to Atem.

"Go on ahead, Aibou. I need to think for a while."

Yuugi was hesitant. "Maybe I shouldn't have brought this up."

Atem shook his head. "It was an inevitable subject, I suppose. Go on and answer the phone. I'll keep to myself, give you some space, and think in the Puzzle."

"Ah…okay."

Atem willed his makeshift, solidified body back into the confines of his Pharaoh-like Puzzle chambers.

Ring!

"Moshi moshi, Yuugi Mutou speaking," was the last thing he heard before the door of his Soul Room door banged close.

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Shadi was a rather dormant guardian. Fate only gave him tasks to implement and messages to convey every so often. When he was not currently performing his sanctified duties for the pharaoh and his light, dispatched by the gods, he had a relatively still life.

At the moment in mind, Shadi sat atop a primordial pyramid, customary manila robes billowing in the sultry Egyptian atmosphere. His legs were loosely propped up, his elbows resting limply over his knees, and his fingers were intertwined together with the twisting cord of the Sennen Ankh hanging past his palms.

His mind was not in focus, and his indigos, usually devoid of pupils, were even blanker than usual. (I mean, where the hell are his pupils? O-O)

An apparition suddenly materialized before his unfocused eyes. Shadi snapped to the spirit's attention, eyes widening.

The man's ghostly figure before him was the customary bronze, appareled with a pharaoh's headdress, and slanted, heavily kohl-lined eyes accentuated his Egyptian image. A cloak of pure golden silks adorned his shoulders, draping over a fit chest and naval, and he wore leggings the color of bullion. Golden sandals shielded his feet from the billowing sand of Egyptian deserts and bazaar roads, and he carried a staff. The staff in name was a fantastic thing. It had a smooth mahogany scepter, beaded with tiny amethysts, rubies, topazes, and other rare faceted stones. On its tip proudly sat a golden sun disk, glowing with such power and awe.

The disk staff, supported by the faceted jewels and golden clothing, was the key to the apparition's identity.

"Good morning, Shadi."

"Ah…hello, Ra." (Did'ja see that coming? I sure didn't. I can't describe Ra in a human form. O-o And how do you talk to Ra? Do you call him Ra-sama? But Ra is Egyptian, not Japanese… I dunno. Shadi'll talk to him like a normal person. O-o)

"The time has come, Shadi. I have given Atem his time in this…modern world," Ra said with a hint of slight disgust, as if the modern world were a lesser greatness than his own time warp. "It is time for him to return to us."

"Return to you?" Shadi questioned. "How so? Will he be accompanying you to the underworld?"

Ra rolled his eyes, but spoke in a neutral voice nonetheless. "It was voted upon in the Court of the Underworld (Ammut was rather crabby at the time, I think we interrupted one of his feedings…). We have decided, instead of sending him to the Fields of the Reed and his grant to an early eternal life, to send him back to Egypt, back to the time where he ruled as Pharaoh. He could have fulfilled so many things if he had not sealed half his soul into that Puzzle of his."

Shadi still had that questioning look in his eyes. "But time travel is impossible," he stated.

Ra scoffed. "To inferior humans, yes, but to gods…" He trailed off, smug smirk planted on his lips. "Our will is life's command."

Shadi nodded in understanding, but Ra wasn't finished just yet.

"Life to close-minded humans is simple. There is one Earth, one universe, one galaxy… That is where they are wrong. A so-called 'giant' universe is actually a sliver of time-coordinated thread in a giant galaxy. Each time a minute passes, a new thread is created the minute prior to the one passed, and the people present change their decision. So say, a woman marries her husband at exactly 8:01. They drive off to the reception, while a new threaded universe is created. In that thread, at 8:00, the man may run off and leave his soon-to-be wife at the altar. She instead marries his brother and they fly to Chicago to start a happy new life. Another thread is created at 7:59, where the woman realizes she hates her ex-fiancé's brother's guts and kills him. The threads keep appearing and appearing, making it so there are billions of one person, each in their own universe, each in its own time.

"I can take Atem to a universe warp right before he initiated the ceremony that bound him to the Puzzle. In that alternate reality, a castle guard assassinated their Atem. I can make it as though the assassin did a poor job, and merely wounded the pharaoh. Atem can cancel the ceremony, instead sacrificing another person in the high caste- say a high priest, or a royal scholar- to suffer the entrapment.

"There, he can rule as pharaoh in the time he was trapped in the Puzzle. Then, in that alternate universe, when he dies, he would have completed his life's work- in his own time."

Shadi nodded, taking this all in. "I see."

Ra nodded. "Notify Atem and his…light. I will be ready for him at dawn tomorrow morning. He can have the night to say his good-byes to those…mortal friends of his…"

Shadi nodded dutifully. "Yes sir." (Heh…now Ra is a sir.)

Ra's holographic-looking image dissipated as a gust of sand-speckled Egypt wind blew over the pyramid and Shadi closed his eyes to block out the sand. The gust slowed to a halt and he pocketed the Ankh into the many folds of his robes. He withdrew the Scales and used its dormant Shadows to whisk himself away.

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Yuugi laughed. "Smooth move, Jou. I'm sure she'll forgive you…sometime, I guess…"

"Forgive?" Anzu repeated from the third line, still huffing slightly from the aftermath of laughing so hard she started crying. "Yuugi, Jou spilled hot coffee all over Mai's newest designer blouse. Mai's the type of girl-"

"-who doesn't hold grudges- erm, never mind- who forgives you easily- uhm, no, not that either. Let me think about this for a while," Honda said through the fourth line, leaving Anzu laughing again, Jounouchi making withering sounds, and Yuugi tittering apologetically.

Yuugi closed his eyes and leaned back into his chair. A sudden surge of emotions flowed through his mind, and his amethysts snapped open. He blinked owlishly in anxiety.

Yami? You okay? He received no answer.

"Guys. I've got to go and check something. Good luck, Jou- just tell Mai what you told us."

"That her blouse was all nasty-colored and covered with them coffee dregs?" Jounouchi inquired 'intelligently'.

Honda and Anzu burst out laughing.

"Uhm…yes, Jou…tell her that…" Yuugi arched an eyebrow, and with a quick "Bye," he put the phone back onto the receiver.

Yami? There was still no answer. Yami, I'm going to check on you. He willed himself into the Puzzle and found himself in his own Soul Room. Yuugi looked around and gazed fondly at a giant red plushie in the corner of the room. Albeit it was the color of blood, he simply told himself that they matched Atem's eyes. The giant fluffy bear symbolized his unending innocence, with a tainting of blood corruptions. (Shadow Wars have corrupted him only slightly. Yum. Yeah, but he's still an innocent, kawaii hikari! n-n)

Yuugi padded out the door and stepped out into the Corridor. He approached his dark's door, where the bullion-colored Eye of Ra was engraved into the mahogany-colored wood. "Yami," he called, rapping in the door. "I'm coming in."

The tricolor-haired hikari slowly pushed the door open and was greeted by a wave of exotic Egyptian aromas. The room was surrounded, ceiling to floor, with golden bricks and cloaked with opaque fabrics hanging from above, making endlessly royal canopies in the air. Ancient-looking pots and vases were scattered around the entire place, complimented by large structures of Horus and other Egyptian gods.

Yuugi looked around, feeling rather- erm, even more- dwarfed, surrounded by the chamber's humungous, gaping walls. "Yami," he called out. He ventured to the wall behind a rather large bronze statue of Amon, the god of male fertility (I think…o-O This is what happens when you try to memorize everything from the Da Vinci Code… Heh…Amon is an anagram of Mona- it's crazy…GO READ THE BOOK, IT'S AWESOME!), where a door was located. It was well hidden, but Atem was a rather curious thing (even after evoking his memories), and he had discovered this door at once, immediately telling Yuugi.

Yuugi pulled on the handle and was greeted by a strange sight. His darkness was situated in the middle of the room, in his pharaoh's attire, with a familiar Egyptian guardian beside him.

"Shadi?" Yuugi questioned, staring into Shadi's emotionless indigos.

Atem looked up. He had his thumb up to his chin in thought, and his eyes were narrowed in contemplation. This all dissipated when he saw his light. "Aibou," he said in surprise, his eyes unclouding to be replaced with joy and some relief, "I did not know you were coming."

"I was calling," Yuugi shrugged before turning back to Shadi. "Hello again. This can't be good, can it?" he asked with a pained look that only he could project while revealing his strained exterior and chibi-cuteness. "You only pop around to tell us if evil is brewing, and if you pop into Yami's soul room…that can only mean trouble."

Shadi's indigos flickered. "I'm afraid today's visit isn't as joyous as our usual encounters."

Atem scoffed and crossed his arms whilst Yuugi's eyes widened. "Does that mean it's worse than when you came to warn us about…everything else?"

Shadi nodded desolately. "Before you came in, I told your darkness that Ra visited me today."

Yuugi nodded slowly. "What did Ra-sama say?"

Atem shrugged. "Shadi was just about to tell me."

Shadi eyed the two tricolor-haired people before him. "Perhaps we should speak outside the confines on the Puzzle," he suggested.

Atem arched an eyebrow. "Very well, I suppose. But you cannot deny us information and stall."

Shadi swallowed. "I wouldn't dream of it, my Pharaoh…"

Yuugi just watched in concern.

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The wind swayed the slim branches of the sakura trees outside. Yuugi caught an airborne blossom and cradled it in his cupped fingers. Looking up, he nodded towards Shadi and lowered the sakura. "You can continue, Shadi."

"Ra…Ra told me that he would come for the Pharaoh at dawn tomorrow morning," Shadi stated, acting as neutral as he could.

Atem arched an eyebrow. "Come for me?" he repeated.

Shadi lowered his head. "Yes."

Yuugi looked up at the guardian with wide, questioning eyes. "Meaning?"

Shadi looked down at the hikari gravely. "Meaning Pharaoh Atem must leave, and reclaim his throne as pharaoh in Egypt 5,000 years ago."

Yuugi's eyes widened to a size he himself didn't know could be achieved. "Why?" he asked, his voice cracking.

"aAt…" Shadi trailed off, eyes depicting no answer to Yuugi's question. "…I have to go." The Shadows began to mist at his knees. "Dawn tomorrow morning." They swallowed him immediately, leaving only the grayish residue of used Magic.

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"mr," Atem said gravely, eyes lowered, "we have some bad news…"

……………

"iTA-" Atem spat the name out like poison (they were on better terms now more than ever, which was pretty sad, seeing that he 'spat out the name like poison'). "-Ryou, Marik, Malik… Shadi visited us today…"

……………

The reactions were relatively the same. Gasps, worried stares, short, awkward silences…

But Yuugi was the worst: complete silence and wide, sorrow-filled eyes. The others decided to give him the rest of the time Atem had left in Japan.

(Blah blah blah. Here's their day in short terms: they had fun. The end.)

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It was nearly eleven and they were back in Yuugi's room. Yuugi was situated at his bed, back against the headboard so that he was in a sitting position. Atem was on a round, little pouf with his hands clasped together, elbows balanced on his knees.

Atem's eyes were clouded, a sign of heavy thinking in that mind of his. Yuugi's were worried, a sign of…worry.

"Yami…do you want to go?" the shorter of the two questioned.

Atem looked up from his intertwined fingers. "No, of course not. I would never want to leave you…or our friends."

Yuugi sighed, looking up at the ceiling, stifling a yawn. "I see…"

Atem eyed Yuugi with concern. "You're tired. Go to sleep."

"No I'm not," Yuugi replied stubbornly. "I'm staying up 'til dawn so I can send you off with a goodbye."

"No, you're not. Growing boys need sleep," Atem countered just as stubbornly.

"I'm not a growing boy."

"At that height, I would think so…"

"Not like that!" Yuugi cried, trying to whap Atem.

Atem laughed. "Go to sleep, Aibou."

"Well…I am feeling slightly…drowsy…"

"Night night, Aibou…" Atem swayed his arms around, trying to create the illusion of a dream…an odd dream.

"You're so silly, Yami… Will you…be here when I wake up…?" Yuugi's eyes slid shut. (Yeah, he falls asleep that fast xPPP)

Atem's eyes softened at the sight of his light's peaceful, innocent slumber. "No…" he whispered, liquid crystals forming at his eyes. "I'm sorry…"

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Chapter revision completed anduploaded on September 5.

o.o That was…different. And it took me weeks. O.o /shrug/ Oh, and if you reviewed the first version of this chapter, and you want to review again, just review anonymously with your penname as the…name. Yah, thanks, ja.

Ooooh, and I actually used Egyptian words! Un-n I'm not sure if I used them right, though… /cough/

aAt – Because

mr – Friends

iTA- Thief