Well, this journey of a year's making has come to an end. Thank you to everyone who has read and enjoyed this fic, and to all those who reviewed! This being my first attempt at fan fiction, I learned a lot. Mayhap one day I'll come back and fix some of the problem spots I only notice now that I've gotten a bit more experience under my belt... but maybe not. There's something to be said about the beauty of the created word, and the author's original intentions.

That said, thanks to all who traveled with me down this road into the Yugi-Verse. May the Fates keep your spirits safe, and the Shadows never take you!

The asphalt underfoot was wet and slippery, making the footing treacherous.

I didn't care. I plowed ahead, dodging the few pedestrians that were out in this rain, weaving through traffic, nearly getting killed more than once.

How far did I have to go? I didn't know. I knew where I had to be, though, and I had ten minutes to get there. Hang on. I'm coming. Don't let anything happen until I get there...

I heard an explosion from the next block over and redoubled my speed. Not gonna make it...

I cruised around the corner just in time to see a black-clad figure step from an alley. The pounding rain bounced off of the long, smooth, metal barrel of the rifle in his hand as he raised it, pointing it at two figures huddled on the sidewalk. Joey stepped between them.

"NO!"

I flung myself at the figure, at Morrison, and the gun discharged. I felt fire rip through me, saw the darkness bubbling up in front of my eyes.

"Tristan!" Joey was at my side in an instant. "Tristan!"

His voice was distant, heard from underwater. My eyes sought past him. "Seto," I said, coughing. "He alright? Mokuba, is he okay?"

Seto appeared above me. "Yeah. He's fine. Damn it, Tristan..." He shoved Joey to one side, stripping off his shirt to clamp to my body. "Don't you dare die on me," he threatened. "Don't you dare..."

But consciousness was too hard to hold onto. I slipped back into the comforting darkness.

Death. Not too bad, all things considered. At least I know I died well.

I came-to in a world of white and a sea of pain. "Ow..."

As is the first impulse of hurt people everywhere, the first move I made was to touch the source of the pain. My shoulder. My head. A good portion of my chest.

"You were very lucky, Tristan Taylor," a voice greeted me.

I squinted against the bright lights, my surroundings gradually solidifying into a hospital room. I turned my head slightly. One eye wasn't working quite right, but with the other I managed to make out a robed figure sitting at my bedside. I groaned. "...Shadi? What the hell, man. I thought I was supposed to be dead. Didn't think being dead was going to hurt this bad."

"Your death was not required," he answered.

"What? Joey?"

"Is alive and well and very worried about you."

"Mokuba?"

"The same."

My stomach turned to ice. "Not...not Seto?"

Shadi paused in a way that made my guts twist. "No. He is alive..."

"But?" There had to be a but. His entire demeanor read, 'but'.

"But he is not the same person you knew from the alternate path."

I wrinkled my forehead, trying to understand this. "What...do you mean by that?"

The Egyptian sighed. "He was greatly changed in that timeline. The sacrifice of Joey Wheeler changed him. Your friendship changed him even more. Those three weeks were a great turning point for him. Had that future been possible... he would have become a very different man. It is the death of that future man that was required. Seto Kaiba will not remember anything of the changes he underwent. I have wiped his mind of them already. He shall grow into the destiny that was set out for him."

It took me a moment to understand this. "So... he doesn't remember anything of what happened?" Shadi shook his head. "Not anything? Not even our friendship...?"

Shadi wouldn't look at me. "When I came to him, he begged to be allowed to remember. I could not allow it. He was... singularly persistent. I had to erase a good portion of his hard drive and destroy several written records, to ensure that he would not recall that alternate path. Your friendship was very important to him, Tristan Taylor."

It touched me, deeply, but with sorrow as well. "That's what you meant when you said that 'all memory will be erased,' isn't it? I'm not going to remember this either, am I?"

The Egyptian shook his head. "The death of that future Seto Kaiba must be total and complete. I am sorry."

I watched as he lifted his Millennium Key to my head. Just before he tapped me with it, I grabbed his wrist. "Just do me one thing, will you?" His eyes narrowed a bit, not liking being touched, I guessed, but I couldn't bring myself to care. "You remember for us. Remember what we could have been? What he could have been? That won't damage the future, if only you know of it."

He hesitated for one long minute before nodding. "I shall hold that memory in trust."

"Thank you," I breathed, letting my hand fall. I felt the end of the metal key press against my forehead, and then I knew no more.

"Tristan!"

Joey bounced my bed as he flopped down on the end and I choked down a yell of pain. "Dude! Careful!"

"You're alive!"

I rubbed my shoulder gingerly. "Yeah, and feelin' everything. Damn it, ow..."

Yugi and Tea swarmed into the room. "Tristan!"

"Hey guys!"

We all hugged, very, very carefully on my part, and then settled in.

"How's Kaiba?" I asked, after we'd gotten all the preliminaries out of the way.

Joey flapped a hand dismissively. "As stuck up and pompous as ever. Ungrateful bastard. I save his life and you take a bullet for him and he can't even unbend enough to smile."

A vague dream drifted across my memory, but it was gone, shredded to mist as I grabbed after it. "Yeah, what a jerk," I said.

"What were you doing over there anyway, Tristan?" Yugi asked, curious.

I opened my mouth to answer, then had to close it again. Why had I gone charging over that direction? I'd had a reason, and a pretty compelling one at that, but for the life of me, I couldn't place it...

I shrugged. "I dunno. A feeling I guess. Like it was life-or-death that I get over there."

Joey laughed. "Hah, well, Kaiba's lucky we were there. He'da been dead meat if it weren't for Team Joey-and-Tristan!"

"Don't you mean Team Tristan and Joey?"

"Nah, doesn't flow right. Besides, I saved him first!"

"I got shot!"

"You shoulda got out of the way!"

A flicker out of the corner of my eye drew my gaze around to the doorway. Kaiba was lounging against the door frame, a smug smile playing about his lips. "Freaks," he commented.

"Oh yeah!" Joey jumped up, but Yugi pulled him down before he could make a fuss and get himself chucked out of the hospital.

"You wanted something, Kaiba?" I asked.

His gaze swept over my various bandages, assessing. "You were an idiot, jumping in the way like that," he said at last.

Joey bristled on my behalf, but I was too tired to fight him. Besides, he was right. I had been an idiot.

"Yep," I agreed.

He turned to leave, and some deep-buried thought surfaced. "Hey, Kaiba?" He didn't turn, but he did stop. "Check out Ryou Industries. I hear their financial pages make for some interesting reading."

He resumed walking, not even looking back. The gang all gave me some weird looks, but I was too tired to return them. Don't ask me why I'd said that; it just felt like the right thing to say.

My recovery didn't take long, and soon I was back at school, though I was forced to keep my arm in a sling until the gunshot wound had healed enough to allow shoulder motion.

Rumor around town reached my ears that Kaiba Corp had narrowly escaped a hostile takeover, mastermind unknown, though most folks were pointing fingers at Ryou Industries. They, of course, stoutly denied it, and no one could squeeze more than a 'no comment' out of Bakura on the matter.

And that was the end of that little adventure, aside from one small little thing.

My mother never got the bill for my medical treatment. When she asked, they told her that it had been taken care of by 'a donor who wishes to remain anonymous.'

Maybe it was Kaiba...?

Ha. Nah.

Shadi watched everything from the shadows. He really shouldn't have left that subliminal message in Tristan Taylor's mind, regarding the financial manipulations of the spirit of the Ring. It was messing with the future in ways that his order wasn't authorized to do. Still. Both boys - both men - had given up a lot, to ensure the continuation of the world. In the grand scheme of things, one small message wasn't too much to repay their sacrifice.

The Egyptian shook his head at himself for his naivety. Who knew what consequences would come of this small mercy? But even so... was it not said, you do what you must to keep your heart pure? He could not have kept a pure heart and still held in trust the memory of that alternate timeline without making some small effort to give back to the participants.

For under the skin, are not all men bound, one to another? By ties of a shared humanity, if by nothing else. Under different circumstances, all enemies may become friends, and all friends become brothers, and brothers become closer than ones own soul. This was the truth that Shadi held deep in his heart. He held out hope that maybe, someday, that other Seto Kaiba would emerge once again and become the man he ought to have been. And perhaps, just perhaps, the friendship that had been sacrificed could be kindled anew.

It was a thing worth hoping for.