Disclaimer: I don't own Yuugioh. I might go cry emo tears now, though.

This is the sequel to Under Pressure, by popular demand. Sure maybe I don't have the timeline down perfectly, but I'm close… sort of. And I haven't decided whether or not I'm going to make Ishizu Atemu's girlfriend, so give me your opinion on the matter. I have two different plots depending on whether or not she and Atemu are together, so get your votes in while they count.

Review when you're done, please.

Guardian

Returns

The last lazy hour of the last lazy day of the last hectic year at Domino High school for Yuugi Mutou seemed to want to crawl by like a drop of sweet honey on a frigid day. Now eighteen, an official man, Yuugi was looking forward to life after required schooling, though the thought of moving from his mother's wonderful cooking and his cushy bedroom to a cramped two bedroom apartment and eating only ramen noodles until after college was not a prospect he looked forward to. He knew his grandfather and mother would never throw Yuugi out into the streets but the youth knew after nineteen he was considered a failure and a moocher.

Yawning widely, Yuugi glanced around the chattering classroom; it's occupants buzzing with anticipation of no longer being considered adolescent. Going on about Edward Toppest tight butt seemed adolescent when compared to preparing for college or sending in last minute applications to a random college. Staring at Monica Eward's fake breasts seemed adolescent compared to making sure the U-haul was ready to go by the time graduation was over, being the first to grow a "deep" college five-o-clock shadow to impress the co-eds, and deciding on how to tell mother that the SATs didn't go quite as planned.

An earth-shattering snore shook the room. Yuugi jerked straight up to see his teacher snoozing, leaning so far back on her rolling chair he was worried that it would slip out from under her… again. Mrs. Chetian was notorious for falling asleep at the end of the year, growing resigned to the fact that as long as her students got their diploma, they didn't give a damn about the last day of school. Morbidly obese, elderly, and largely disliked, Mrs. Chetian was just an all around bitter woman, and how she had gotten married was beyond her students. What was even more baffling was the fact that she had three children… that particular fact made the students want to gag so badly, it was disregarded as if there were no children with the surname Chetian.

Yuugi frowned at Mrs. Chetian's sleeping form with the bitter resentment of a young man who had almost failed her class because she had misplaced his essay, which had also happened to be the most important essay of the year. She had found it several days later in the bottom of her bag, but Yuugi was still furious with the injustice. The woman had never even apologized. This was also the reason he grinned as three boys in the back of the classroom began throwing paper wads at her gaping mouth. There was an adolescent cheer of glee when one boys actually made a paper wad into her mouth but it was quickly stifled when Chetian stirred roughly in her chair. The boys ducked under their desk as if it were a tornado, but Chetian merely snored an enormous snore again and drooped her head in slumber once more.

The class had begun to buzz with chatter again when Ms. Noverola, a plump but pretty faced Freshman English teacher from across the hall poked her head into the classroom to see why her ceiling was rumbling. The expression on her face slightly bemused, Noverola left when the classroom claimed to have heard nothing.

Yuugi crossed his arms on his desk and placed his head on his arms, staring out the window, watching the airplanes go by, leaving behind a trail of smoke and toxins. The youth smiled, thinking of his friend Joey and how he would have launched into a rant about how no one cares about the condition of our air and how those damned planes were the main cause of the hole in the ozone layer.

Joey had changed so much over the past year and a half it was slightly disturbing. The once hot headed, blundering boy he had been seemed like so far back in time that Yuugi could hardly remember him. Joey was now level headed and poised, every move he made calm and smooth, as the wind, brushing past so subtly, shifting ever so slightly, dictating the environment around him so fastidiously. But then he could become as threatening and furious as a hurricane…

"Yuugi, man, did you fall asleep? Because Damien wants to draw on your face with permanent marker."

Yuugi pulled his head up slowly to face Joseph Wheeler's eyes, calm, as they had grown to be in the past year.

"He's not asleep, Damien," Joey called across the room. Yuugi heard Damien swear but begin to talk with his own friends. Joey frowned at Yuugi's detached gaze. "Are you okay there, buddy? You seem a little…" Joey paused, choosing his words carefully, "distracted."

"I guess I am a little… distracted," answered Yuugi. Joey nodded.

"About graduation tonight? Me too," said Joey.

"Yeah…" said Yuugi, having forgotten completely about graduation. "That. I'm distracted about that." Joey's sidelong glance proved to Yuugi that Joey knew that graduation was not bothering him, but Joey kept it to himself. Yuugi was glad for this. He didn't want Joey to worry about him. Yuugi placed his head on his arms again. They sat in silence for a moment.

"Yuugi?"

"Yeah, Joe?"

"I don't think I'm ready not to be an adolescent yet."

Yuugi glanced back up at Joey, taking him in, thinking of all the changes that had happened and all the changes to come. How different was Joey? Yuugi knew the answer to that. Joey was completely different. He was no longer a boy. He was a man. A grown man.

"Joe?"

"Yeah, Yuug'"

"For you, it's a little late for that."

-

- - -

-

For some reason, leaving school was easy for Yuugi. He didn't understand the weeping girls, throwing themselves in each other's arms, claiming to never forget each other. He didn't understand the groups of people breaking into song, the Vitamin C song that he had heard so many times over the last week he wanted to hunt down the wretched woman and throw something heavy at her. For a moment he wondered if it was bad for him to be so terribly apathetic toward the idea of leaving school. Joey convinced him it wasn't.

Joey's reasoning was that the reason the others were so caught up about missing each other was that they would most likely never see their dear friends again. That or they believed the bunk about high school being the golden years of life. Joey reminded Yuugi that he would see his best friends almost everyday seeing as he, Joey, and Tristan were all getting an apartment so they wouldn't feel terribly alone. And though Tea had moved to New York to fulfill her dream of becoming dancer she would go back to Domino for holidays.

"It's not such a big deal, you know? We're all still together."

But Yuugi didn't feel that way. He felt as if so much of their group was missing. Seto Kaiba had moved his headquarters to Hong Kong, China. Duke had bought out the old Kaiba Corps. Main building and turned it into his game headquarters, after convincing Mister Solomon Mutou to merge companies, resulting in the Mutou family experiencing a kind of fortune they had never experienced before. Duke now flew all over the country building new shops and stores.

Even Atemu had left the country a year and a half ago. He had hurried to Egypt because it seemed that Shadi had fallen deathly ill, taking with him, of course, Diana. The Ishtars had faithfully gone with him, along with Mahaado and Mana, another gaping hole in the group Yuugi had grown accustomed to. Though Shadi had gotten better with the presence and care of the Pharaoh and his friends, it seemed more and more business was keeping Atemu in Egypt, whether it was Mana and Mahaado's desire to tour the country they had so dearly missed or Atemu having to spend several months persuading Shadi to just take the damned medicine the doctor prescribed to keep Shadi from getting so ill again. And yet, though Atemu had to fight Shadi's hard headedness and there was always work that needed to be taken care of, Atemu always seemed to be having a blast every time he wrote or called Yuugi.

Yuugi ignored the stabbing pains in his heart from missing his dearest friend, knowing that Atemu was the happiest he had ever been in his life. How could he be so selfish to want Atemu to come home after all the poor man had been through?

"You're not selfish," said Joey, once when Yuugi had voiced his opinions. "You just miss your pal, that's all. There's nothing wrong with wanting to see you friend again."

Yuugi decided that Joey knew what he was talking about and allowed himself to be mildly comforted, though he still felt a little guilty.

"You've got too big of a heart," said Joey, noticing Yuugi was still a little down. "You feel bad for the slightest thing, which I good, don't get me wrong, but you've got to know the difference between actually doing something bad and just being human." And when Tristan voiced that he really missed Atemu as well, Yuugi didn't feel as bad.

"No more school," said Tristan, as they walked out of the front gates for the last time. "No more god damned school."

"Thank God for that," remarked Joey, stretching his arms high as if praising the Almighty.

"We've still got college," Yuugi reminded them. "You know Atemu would come back and maim us all if he caught wind that we hadn't gone to college."

"Hey, at least it'd get him back in the country," said Tristan. "Every cloud's got a silver lining."

"Until we died from blood loss," said Joey dryly. "Or I strangled you myself for reciting proverbs." Tristan and Yuugi chuckled.

"Hey Grandpa said he had a surprise for me when I get home," said Yuugi suddenly remembering his grandfather's sly behavior that morning by spotting the shop from down the black.

"That was kind of random," remarked Joey.

"You two want to come?"

"I don't know… I've got to pick up Serenity from the train station at five-o-clock," said Joey, brushing back his sleeve and glancing at his watch. "She and Ma are coming to see me graduate tonight." Joey seemed to swell proudly as he spoke as though his mother and sister seeing him graduate was the greatest thing to happen to him.

"Yuugi, why are there… like… three extra cars in front of your house?" asked Tristan. Yuugi squinted against the late after noon sun and sure enough; three cars were parked neatly in front of the quaint game shop. But this was not surprising seeing as how his graduation was that night. He assumed the surprise his grandfather had kept from him was extra family coming into town for graduation.

Yuugi headed toward his home, Tristan and Joey right behind him, just as curious about the new cars as Yuugi was. As they neared the shop and the cars, Yuugi noticed a small black one with a baby seat in the back and the windows rolled down halfway. This was odd. He didn't have any cousins that were still young enough to need cars seats. Suddenly Yuugi rounded on Joey and Tristan.

"Do either of you smell that?"

"Wasn't me," said Tristan, putting his arms up defensively and taking a step back.

"Not that," snapped Yuugi. "It's actually a good smell." Yuugi turned to Joey for assurance, but the blonde merely shook his head.

"Allergies acting up. I can't smell a thing."

"Incense, guys! Incense!" cried Yuugi, running to the black car with the window open and staring in. The therapeutic scent of incense was wafting from the car like a smoke signal. "Who is the only person we know who uses this kind of incense?"

"Uh," said Tristan stepping closer so catch a better scent. "Your mom?"

"No!" Yuugi spun toward his front door, staring at it as if he were a small boy deprived of his comfort blanket and on the other side of the door was his mother with his blanket in her arms. "No, no, no!" He sprinted up the stairs, suddenly anxious and giddy. Slamming the door against a wall as he burst into his shop, Yuugi bounded ahead maybe three steps before suddenly becoming rooted to the spot.

Behind the counter, Atemu sat, engrossed in his latest book, a plate of celery smeared with peanut butter next his usual cup of tea. The man didn't even seem to notice the slamming door or the dinging of the door's bell, just flipped a page obliviously. Yuugi stared in silence and blinked, testing to see if his eyes were playing a trick on him. They weren't.

"Atem!"

Joey and Tristan did not seem to be having the leg malfunctions that Yuugi did; they sprinted into the shop and would have knocked Atemu to the ground had they not had such a powerful grip on him. Atemu only had time to cry out in surprise before he was smothered in Joey and Tristan's weight, both wrapping their arms around him. Laughing at the surprised look on Atemu's face, Yuugi sprinted forward and collided with Atemu, Joey, and Tristan, hearing another grunt from Atemu, wrapping his arms around all three of them.

"How touching," said a kind, warm voice from behind the group. The three attackers glanced around while Atemu caught his breath. Mahaado was leaning on the doorframe leading to the living room, watching every their every move, as usual. Yuugi had forgotten Mahaado's tendency to play bodyguard for Atemu, as he had when Atemu was Pharaoh and Mahaado was still a priest and human.

"Mahaado!" Joey and Tristan once again sprinted across the game shop to hug Mahaado, as they did Atemu. The only difference was Mahaado was ready for them. And though he embraced them warmly, he still watched over their heads as though Yuugi would whip out a knife and stab Atemu in the heart.

Suddenly Yuugi remembered Atemu's immense dislike of being touched or manhandled and for a split second was worried he had already gotten on Atemu's nerves. But Atemu brushed himself off, straightened his jacket, and turned to face Yuugi, surveying him as a brother looking over his favorite sibling. Yuugi immediately flung his arms around Atemu again, though this time Atemu was able to hug back. It felt as though a gaping chasm in Yuugi's heart had been filled; his best friend was back, his brother was back.

"Atem, you've been gone for a while," said Yuugi, pulling back a taking a look at Atemu. The man had aged, though very slightly. His frown lines had been dug deeper, both crawling down from the corners of his mouth to the edge of his face. Telltale lines had formed at the corners of his eyes, though ever so faintly.

"I know I have," said Atemu, looking as though he immediately regretted being gone so long. "But I'm back now."

"Why so suddenly, Atem?" asked Joey.

"You're graduation," said Atemu proudly. "We wouldn't miss it for the world."

"Who's we?" asked Tristan. "You mean everyone came back?"

"Well, Shadi had to stay behind," said Atemu, frowning slightly. "But yes, Malik, Ishizu, and Odion are upstairs, Mana is helping your mother with dinner, Diana is in the kitchen, underfoot, I'm sure, and Mahaado and I are watching the shop while you grandfather is napping." Yuugi noticed Atemu's English was a little hesitant, as though he were having trouble remembering the right words, but that was only to be expected when Atemu had been speaking nothing but Egyptian for the past year and a half.

Atemu took up his glass of tea and sipped what was left neatly, peering over the rim of the cup at Yuugi.

"Are you serious?" cried Joey excitedly. "Everyone came back just for our graduation?"

"What do you mean 'just graduation'?" asked Atemu, his large crimson eyes turned suddenly onto Joey. He balanced the empty teacup on his palm. "This is a reward for your hard work throughout high school. It's very important."

"Pssh. A money order would be a much better reward," remarked Tristan, only to receive a deathly glare from Atemu. There was a jingling sound and Yuugi saw Cheddar, Atemu's basset hound and James, Atemu's enormous orange fat cat trotting in the room at the sound of new people.

"Besides," said Mahaado petting Cheddar, "think of how much bunk Lord Atemu had to go through to make sure you three losers made it to graduation."

Yuugi's heart skipped a beat. Lord Atemu. He had almost forgotten that two years ago, Atemu had been dubbed Lord Guardian of the Shadows. Suddenly Yuugi noticed that Atemu, already a slender man, was even slimmer than the last time Yuugi saw him, possibly because of the stomach disorder he had acquired around the same time he was named Lord Guardian. Vivid images flashed through Yuugi's mind of a towering tidal wave dangerously over Domino Peer, Empress Typhoon latching to Atemu's arm, plans of marriage on her lips, Atemu laying in a heap in a bed, his entire body racked with pain, a enormous army of vicious Beast creeping over the horizon, lead by two Traitor Princesses, Atemu and Proteus the Water Sprite clinging for dear life to a tower, Proteus desperately trying to keep a grip on Atemu's arm but slipping, and the giant vile dragon that was the deranged form of Aura…

"Yuugi, are you still with us?"

Yuugi blinked roughly and stared at Atemu as though seeing him for the first time. "Yeah, Atem… I'm fine."

"Right," said Atemu, still watching Yuugi carefully as though the younger might suddenly have a heart attack. "You're… fine."

"Hey guys, I got to run to the train station," said Joey checking his watch once more. "Serenity. Ma. Ringing any bells?"

"I'll give you a ride," said Atemu, looking his own watch as well. "I've been trying to find an excuse to get out of this shop all day. You know, I never…" His sentence trailed off, making Mahaado jerk his head away from his and Tristan's conversation. How unlike Atemu to not finish a thought. Atemu's gaze had shifted from Yuugi and Joey to the shop's door, and he glowered at it as though he expected something unexpected to happen. Yuugi noticed a slight shift in Atemu's shadow.

Suddenly Atemu's face was completely serious and dangerous, as Yuugi had only seen a couple times in the past. Yuugi saw the frown that etched lines into Atemu's sharp face relentlessly.

"So you'll give me a ride?" asked Joey, trying to drag the room out of its awkward silence.

"What?" snapped Atemu briskly, glaring at Joey before remembering the conversation. He immediately put on a completely different face, a face that was suddenly kind and gentle, as the others had grown used to it. The sudden change worried Yuugi. "Yes, Joseph, we'll go get your mother and sister."

"Yuugi and I'll stay here to get ready for graduation," said Tristan. "Mahaado are you going with them?" But it was not Mahaado who answered.

"No," said Atemu, his crimson eyes now on Mahaado. "I'd rather if he stayed here."

"Of course, Lord Atemu," said Mahaado, seeming to understand that Atemu had the air of a man who wanted to make sure there was someone to protect Yuugi, his family, and the Ishtars if something went wrong.

Atemu collected Diana, who seemed like a little China doll made in the image of her mother, Lady Nyx, the woman who had been Guardian of Shadows before Atemu. Diana's long raven hair was pulled out of her face into pigtails, her large black eyes happy and curious of the world around her. Her pale white skin seemed even lighter compared to Atemu's dark bronze skin. Atemu strapped Diana into her car seat and he and Joey left for the other end of town.

"I wonder what he was so worried about," said Mahaado thoughtfully, watching Atemu's car turn a corner.

-

- - -

-

"I can't wait to see my little sister again," Joey was saying, turned around in his seat, playing with Diana.

Atemu smiled. "I'll bet. When was the last time you saw her?"

"About four months ago," said Joey, frowning slightly. Atemu sighed through his nose, a headache forming in the back of his head from sitting in heavy traffic. He drummed the fingers of one hand on the steering wheel to the music on the radio.

"That's a long time not to see a sibling," said Atemu, watching the person in front of him brake for every slightest thing with extreme annoyance. "And your mother? When did you last see her?"

"Almost five months ago. She was sick last time Serenity came over," explained Joey.

"I'll bet you're glad to have her at your – Jesus Christ!" Atemu slammed on the brakes, barely stopping soon enough to avoid ramming the person who had just cut him off in the bumper. Joey's face was smacked into the headrest, but he was busy trying to calm down Diana to notice his bleeding nose.

"You're not the only one on the road!" Atemu roared at the bright green car. "Joseph turn around, I don't want you losing an eye because this moron can't drive." Joey did as he was told, mentally telling himself off for sitting backwards in a car during rush hour. Atemu spared Joey a sympathetic look and said, "There are napkins in the glove box."

"Tanks Anyem," said Joey nasally. As he reached into the glove box, he felt Atemu exiting the freeway and felt his heart speed up. And sure enough when Joey looked out of the windows Atemu was pulling into the train station parking lot and his mother and Serenity were sitting on a bench outside the main building.

"Nice to meet you Atemu," said Mrs. Wheeler, hugging her son. "I've heard nothing but good things about you."

"A pleasure to meet you as well, Mrs. Wheeler," said Atemu, watching Serenity and Joey play with Diana out of the corner of his eye, Serenity and Joey laughing just as much as the two year old was.

"You take care of her all by yourself, Mister Atemu?" said Mrs. Wheeler, watching her children tickle Diana.

"Oh yes," said Atemu, frowning slightly. "All by my lonesome."

"Atem, what's that?" Diana asked suddenly pointing to something in the sky. Atemu followed her finger's direction, his face suddenly fearful.

He spotted what she was pointing at and felt his heart skip two beats. He was suddenly reminded of Greek Mythology and the Sirens. It seemed like a beautiful woman with hawk wings and legs was flying at them with incredible speed. Her hair was honey blonde and her eyes were vivid emerald and she was flying straight at…

"Diana!"

Atemu bounded forward and shoved Joey and Serenity into the grass before falling to his knees, scooping Diana into his arms and rolling out of the way. He had barely gotten an inch out of danger before the woman swooped down and back up again, her talons scraping the asphalt loudly. She perched herself on top of the train station, the sounds of frightened civilians suddenly filling the air.

"What the hell is that thing?" bellowed Joey over the screams and tells that the woman was causing.

"A Wind Sprite," spat Atemu, scrambling to his feet. "What is she doing in this realm, though?"

The Sprite swooped down once more and knocked Atemu off his feet, though he kept his iron clad grip on Diana. She turned to face Atem, a look of pure annoyance on her face.

"Give me that child!"