[fic] Coming Forth by Sundown, Chapter 03 - Yugioh, drama/romance, PG-13
Title: Coming Forth by Sundown
Author: Chey (duelist_gurl163)
Chapter: 3/13
Overall rating: PG-13
Genre: Drama/romance
Parings: YamixYugi, JouxMai, and references to YugixAnzu and YamixAnzu
Archive: You're lookin' at it
Warnings: None
Spoilers: Post-series, so many spoilers, including Yami's real name.
Summary: His was a story that ended in light. At the time, nobody realized that ending one story would only cause the beginning of another.
Disclaimer: Yugioh's still not mine.
01 - 02
---
The jet touched down at the airport in Luxor near seven o’clock in the evening. By the time the taxi reached Marik’s house, it was growing dark.
Standing in a cluster on the sidewalk, all five seemed to hesitate.
“So are we going in?” Honda asked, though he made no move toward the door.
“Is this the right address?”
“It’s the one Marik gave me, if it worked for Atemu it should work for us.”
“Okay.”
“So…are we going in?”
The front door flew open at that moment, startling them all. Marik peered out. “Yugi? Is that you?”
“Yeah, it’s us.” Yugi nodded, walking forward as the other four followed along sheepishly. Marik looked confused.
“I wasn’t expecting all of you. Oh well, never mind, get inside.” He stood aside as they filed in.
Yugi glanced around, almost nervously. He tried to distract himself (and his pounding heart) with mundane thoughts: for instance, he had never seen Marik’s house before. It seemed comfortable, although he had to resist the impulse to stop and take his shoes off as he entered. Then he saw a man walk in from another room.
Spying the group, Atemu’s eyes lit up. He beamed, looking happier than any of them could ever recall him looking before. “Aibou…!”
“Atemu!” Mind blank, forgetting all thoughts of distraction, he found himself rushing forward, throwing his arms around him. He nestled happily against his shoulder as Atemu brought his arms up to hug him back, smiling.
“Hi Aibou.”
Yugi smiled at the words, eyes closed and thoughts blissfully drifting as Atemu’s embrace warmed him, quieting at last the storm inside himself that had been born four months before. It wasn’t until he heard Jounouchi saying, somewhat awkwardly, “Er…guys…?” that he realized where he was.
“Oh!” Shrugging away Atemu’s grasp he backed up quickly, meeting nobody’s eyes. “I…I’m sorry…I was just happy to see you, I forgot myself for a moment.”
He heard Atemu start to say “It’s okay-” until he was interrupted as the rest of the group mobbed him. Only when Yugi was sure that he was engrossed in conversation with Jounouchi did he look up.
Atemu’s skin was no longer the ghostly pale it had been. It was now the bronze shade he’d had as a pharaoh. His eyes hadn’t changed, however, nor had his figure or hair. He looked the same, sounded the same…even smelled the same, that clean warm scent, although Yugi wasn’t about to admit to anyone that he noticed that.
That was when Yugi noticed that one member of the group didn’t seem as excited to see Atemu. Anzu was hanging back, her eyes trained on the floor. Yugi frowned slightly to himself. He’d always known she had feelings for Atemu…so why wasn’t she happy to see him? She’d had an oddly uncomfortable look on her face when he told her about the phone call, too, but he’d assumed that was caused by shock. Surely the shock would have worn off by now.
The phone rang, interrupting his thoughts. Marik hurried toward it. “I’ve been waiting on a call. You guys get comfortable, I’ll be back in a few minutes.” He picked up the receiver and took it into another room, closing the door.
“What’s that all about?” Honda asked, sitting down on the couch.
“He called someone earlier,” Atemu replied, sitting down too. “He told you about the chamber, right? Apparently there was some Heliopolitan text in it that he couldn’t read. He’s been waiting on a translation.”
“You’d think he could share that with us,” Mai contended hotly. “If it applies to you, it applies to everyone.”
“So what’s the big deal with this chamber, anyway?” Jounouchi asked.
Atemu shrugged. “I don’t even know. But I’m happy to see you…how did you all get here? I thought the airlines would be too full for all of you to get seats during a holiday.”
“We talked Kaiba into letting us use his jet.”
The disbelief in Atemu’s eyes was obvious.
“We’re serious!”
“What about your families?” He finally asked.
“Well Jounouchi and I don’t have anyone to answer to,” Mai explained.
“I told my mom I was going to stay with a school friend who would be spending the holiday alone,” said Anzu.
“I told my parents I was going to visit my sister,” Honda said.
“And I told Grandpa the truth about what was happening. I don’t know what explanation he’ll give my parents, but he was okay with it,” Yugi finished. “We called Otogi, but he and his father had already left on a trip to Hokkaido, and Bakura’s out of town on vacation too. But they both say hi.”
Atemu nodded. “I’m glad…that you all came. It feels better to have my friends here…what with things being so strange.”
“So you don’t know why you’re back here?” Anzu asked.
“I don’t know. Like I told Aibou, this is all a mystery to me, too. One minute I was in the underworld, the next I just appeared in the ruins of Kul Elna. As we all know, the actual room with the memory tablet and Millennium Items was destroyed.”
“Appeared in rather odd clothes, too,” Jounouchi observed.
“I didn’t choose these, they were given to me by the man that rescued me and gave me directions here.”
“You mean you reappeared naked?”
“Er…” Atemu blushed slightly.
“So is everyone in the underworld naked?” Honda inquired.
“Specifically the girls?” Jounouchi added, only to yelp “OW!” a second later as Mai smacked him over the head.
Atemu looked as if he’d prefer any other subject, so Yugi rescued him. “I have a few changes of clothes, Atemu, you can borrow something.”
“Thank you, Aibou.”
Something warm settled inside Yugi’s chest at the nickname, making him smile down at his feet. Marik opened the door at that moment, a dark expression on his face.
“Did you get the translation?” Atemu asked.
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“Unfortunately?”
Marik sighed. “You guys aren’t going to like this. It was a prophesy of some sort. Rishid took pictures and found someone to get a rough translation. It says, in ordinary terms, that a lost God-King will return to the afterlife, still ignorant of his duty. A rift will be created, the underworld will open, and the spirits of the underworld will emerge to seek new bodies.”
Jounouchi, who hated all things occult, shrunk back into the chair he was perched on.
“That’s all it says?” Yugi asked.
“That’s all.”
“A God-King…that’s a pharaoh, right?” Mai asked. “Weren’t pharaohs considered Gods?”
“And a lost God-King…must refer to Atemu,” Honda nodded. “He was the lost pharaoh. And it’s in his tomb.”
“Wait…” Yugi said slowly, realizing something. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Huh?” Everyone looked over at him. Yugi stared back. “It’s Heliopolitan text. Atemu was part of the eighteenth dynasty, the Heliopolitans were way before him. Right Marik?”
Marik nodded.
“So how did someone from an era before Atemu was even born build this into his tomb?”
“I don’t know, it’s possible there was a sect that still used that text-”
“Um, don’t you guys think that right now finding out what the message means is a little more important than who put it there?” Mai interrupted. “Spirits and the underworld opening both sound like bad things.”
“That’s it!” Jounouchi suddenly sat up and everyone jumped.
“What’s it, Jounouchi?”
“Mai…that man…I told you he was acting possessed, I bet he was! By one of those spirits! It’s happening right now, the spirits are emerging to seek new host bodies.”
Marik’s eyebrows furrowed. “What man?”
An explanation of what had happened to Jounouchi and Mai was repeated, and Marik nodded. “That’s too much of a coincidence.”
“But why right now?” Anzu finally asked. “Atemu…returned to the other world months ago. Why would the spirits only emerge now?”
“Maybe because you tapped into that chamber?”
“But Atemu said he appeared during the night. We didn’t open the chamber till the morning.” Marik paused. “Isn’t there some kind of festival going on over where you guys live right now? Something having to do with spirits?”
“Obon.” Anzu nodded. “In Buddhist legend, the night of the fifteenth is when the afterlife is opened up and spirits are allowed to return to the real world. That’s the basis for this holiday, it was eventually extended to three days, but that’s the basic gist.”
“That sounds an awful lot like this.”
“Perhaps the Bon Festival helped cause the underworld to open?”
“I suppose it’s possible. There would be an abundance of spiritual energy in the world at the moment, it may have been the final piece.”
“Atemu, what do you think of this?” Yugi finally asked, glancing at the former pharaoh. “…Atemu?” He stood, taking a step closer in concern. “Are you okay?”
Everyone turned to see Atemu sitting with his face in his hands. Slowly he lifted it. “What duty?”
“What?”
“It says…still ignorant of his duty…what duty is that?”
Nobody answered, though they all glanced at Marik. Marik shook his head. “I don’t know what it means, either.”
“Well if it is talking about me…the spirits won’t go back unless I fulfill that duty, right?” Atemu continued, rather aggressively. “It sounds as if not filling it is what caused the underworld to open. So it might be good to know what it is.”
“But what about yourself? Honda wondered. “You’re a spirit from the underworld too. But you didn’t have to possess anybody. Why did you return with a body while none of the other spirits did?”
“Well, we don’t know that any of the other spirits didn’t return with bodies,” Mai pointed out. “That man might have been one of them, and not someone who was possessed after all.”
“Yes, but it says that the spirits will seek new bodies, so if they could just make their own, why would they seek them?”
“God knows how old this text is, you’re going to argue grammar?”
Watching the others deep in discussion, Atemu lowered his eyes.
Ignorant of his duty.
He frowned to himself, anxious guilt in the pit of his stomach. What was he ignorant of? All of the loose ends were tied up before he left, they’d made sure of that. Had he forgotten something? Unless the prophesy wasn’t about him, but that seemed little more than a childish wish at this point.
He didn’t notice Yugi watching him, concern in his amethyst eyes.
x-x-x
Notes: The return of Atemu~ and the introduction of a plot. Took me long enough. xD I'm starting to worry this is sounding stereotypical. Hopefully, if it seems like it is, it won't be in later chapters. >.> My lack of reading fanfiction is coming back to bite me, I have no idea what's stereotypical and what isn't. ^^;
According to the manga Atemu was part of the 18th dynasty.
Happy birthday Ryou...sorry you didn't get a fic to yourself. Maybe next year.
Author: Chey (duelist_gurl163)
Chapter: 3/13
Overall rating: PG-13
Genre: Drama/romance
Parings: YamixYugi, JouxMai, and references to YugixAnzu and YamixAnzu
Archive: You're lookin' at it
Warnings: None
Spoilers: Post-series, so many spoilers, including Yami's real name.
Summary: His was a story that ended in light. At the time, nobody realized that ending one story would only cause the beginning of another.
Disclaimer: Yugioh's still not mine.
01 - 02
---
The jet touched down at the airport in Luxor near seven o’clock in the evening. By the time the taxi reached Marik’s house, it was growing dark.
Standing in a cluster on the sidewalk, all five seemed to hesitate.
“So are we going in?” Honda asked, though he made no move toward the door.
“Is this the right address?”
“It’s the one Marik gave me, if it worked for Atemu it should work for us.”
“Okay.”
“So…are we going in?”
The front door flew open at that moment, startling them all. Marik peered out. “Yugi? Is that you?”
“Yeah, it’s us.” Yugi nodded, walking forward as the other four followed along sheepishly. Marik looked confused.
“I wasn’t expecting all of you. Oh well, never mind, get inside.” He stood aside as they filed in.
Yugi glanced around, almost nervously. He tried to distract himself (and his pounding heart) with mundane thoughts: for instance, he had never seen Marik’s house before. It seemed comfortable, although he had to resist the impulse to stop and take his shoes off as he entered. Then he saw a man walk in from another room.
Spying the group, Atemu’s eyes lit up. He beamed, looking happier than any of them could ever recall him looking before. “Aibou…!”
“Atemu!” Mind blank, forgetting all thoughts of distraction, he found himself rushing forward, throwing his arms around him. He nestled happily against his shoulder as Atemu brought his arms up to hug him back, smiling.
“Hi Aibou.”
Yugi smiled at the words, eyes closed and thoughts blissfully drifting as Atemu’s embrace warmed him, quieting at last the storm inside himself that had been born four months before. It wasn’t until he heard Jounouchi saying, somewhat awkwardly, “Er…guys…?” that he realized where he was.
“Oh!” Shrugging away Atemu’s grasp he backed up quickly, meeting nobody’s eyes. “I…I’m sorry…I was just happy to see you, I forgot myself for a moment.”
He heard Atemu start to say “It’s okay-” until he was interrupted as the rest of the group mobbed him. Only when Yugi was sure that he was engrossed in conversation with Jounouchi did he look up.
Atemu’s skin was no longer the ghostly pale it had been. It was now the bronze shade he’d had as a pharaoh. His eyes hadn’t changed, however, nor had his figure or hair. He looked the same, sounded the same…even smelled the same, that clean warm scent, although Yugi wasn’t about to admit to anyone that he noticed that.
That was when Yugi noticed that one member of the group didn’t seem as excited to see Atemu. Anzu was hanging back, her eyes trained on the floor. Yugi frowned slightly to himself. He’d always known she had feelings for Atemu…so why wasn’t she happy to see him? She’d had an oddly uncomfortable look on her face when he told her about the phone call, too, but he’d assumed that was caused by shock. Surely the shock would have worn off by now.
The phone rang, interrupting his thoughts. Marik hurried toward it. “I’ve been waiting on a call. You guys get comfortable, I’ll be back in a few minutes.” He picked up the receiver and took it into another room, closing the door.
“What’s that all about?” Honda asked, sitting down on the couch.
“He called someone earlier,” Atemu replied, sitting down too. “He told you about the chamber, right? Apparently there was some Heliopolitan text in it that he couldn’t read. He’s been waiting on a translation.”
“You’d think he could share that with us,” Mai contended hotly. “If it applies to you, it applies to everyone.”
“So what’s the big deal with this chamber, anyway?” Jounouchi asked.
Atemu shrugged. “I don’t even know. But I’m happy to see you…how did you all get here? I thought the airlines would be too full for all of you to get seats during a holiday.”
“We talked Kaiba into letting us use his jet.”
The disbelief in Atemu’s eyes was obvious.
“We’re serious!”
“What about your families?” He finally asked.
“Well Jounouchi and I don’t have anyone to answer to,” Mai explained.
“I told my mom I was going to stay with a school friend who would be spending the holiday alone,” said Anzu.
“I told my parents I was going to visit my sister,” Honda said.
“And I told Grandpa the truth about what was happening. I don’t know what explanation he’ll give my parents, but he was okay with it,” Yugi finished. “We called Otogi, but he and his father had already left on a trip to Hokkaido, and Bakura’s out of town on vacation too. But they both say hi.”
Atemu nodded. “I’m glad…that you all came. It feels better to have my friends here…what with things being so strange.”
“So you don’t know why you’re back here?” Anzu asked.
“I don’t know. Like I told Aibou, this is all a mystery to me, too. One minute I was in the underworld, the next I just appeared in the ruins of Kul Elna. As we all know, the actual room with the memory tablet and Millennium Items was destroyed.”
“Appeared in rather odd clothes, too,” Jounouchi observed.
“I didn’t choose these, they were given to me by the man that rescued me and gave me directions here.”
“You mean you reappeared naked?”
“Er…” Atemu blushed slightly.
“So is everyone in the underworld naked?” Honda inquired.
“Specifically the girls?” Jounouchi added, only to yelp “OW!” a second later as Mai smacked him over the head.
Atemu looked as if he’d prefer any other subject, so Yugi rescued him. “I have a few changes of clothes, Atemu, you can borrow something.”
“Thank you, Aibou.”
Something warm settled inside Yugi’s chest at the nickname, making him smile down at his feet. Marik opened the door at that moment, a dark expression on his face.
“Did you get the translation?” Atemu asked.
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“Unfortunately?”
Marik sighed. “You guys aren’t going to like this. It was a prophesy of some sort. Rishid took pictures and found someone to get a rough translation. It says, in ordinary terms, that a lost God-King will return to the afterlife, still ignorant of his duty. A rift will be created, the underworld will open, and the spirits of the underworld will emerge to seek new bodies.”
Jounouchi, who hated all things occult, shrunk back into the chair he was perched on.
“That’s all it says?” Yugi asked.
“That’s all.”
“A God-King…that’s a pharaoh, right?” Mai asked. “Weren’t pharaohs considered Gods?”
“And a lost God-King…must refer to Atemu,” Honda nodded. “He was the lost pharaoh. And it’s in his tomb.”
“Wait…” Yugi said slowly, realizing something. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Huh?” Everyone looked over at him. Yugi stared back. “It’s Heliopolitan text. Atemu was part of the eighteenth dynasty, the Heliopolitans were way before him. Right Marik?”
Marik nodded.
“So how did someone from an era before Atemu was even born build this into his tomb?”
“I don’t know, it’s possible there was a sect that still used that text-”
“Um, don’t you guys think that right now finding out what the message means is a little more important than who put it there?” Mai interrupted. “Spirits and the underworld opening both sound like bad things.”
“That’s it!” Jounouchi suddenly sat up and everyone jumped.
“What’s it, Jounouchi?”
“Mai…that man…I told you he was acting possessed, I bet he was! By one of those spirits! It’s happening right now, the spirits are emerging to seek new host bodies.”
Marik’s eyebrows furrowed. “What man?”
An explanation of what had happened to Jounouchi and Mai was repeated, and Marik nodded. “That’s too much of a coincidence.”
“But why right now?” Anzu finally asked. “Atemu…returned to the other world months ago. Why would the spirits only emerge now?”
“Maybe because you tapped into that chamber?”
“But Atemu said he appeared during the night. We didn’t open the chamber till the morning.” Marik paused. “Isn’t there some kind of festival going on over where you guys live right now? Something having to do with spirits?”
“Obon.” Anzu nodded. “In Buddhist legend, the night of the fifteenth is when the afterlife is opened up and spirits are allowed to return to the real world. That’s the basis for this holiday, it was eventually extended to three days, but that’s the basic gist.”
“That sounds an awful lot like this.”
“Perhaps the Bon Festival helped cause the underworld to open?”
“I suppose it’s possible. There would be an abundance of spiritual energy in the world at the moment, it may have been the final piece.”
“Atemu, what do you think of this?” Yugi finally asked, glancing at the former pharaoh. “…Atemu?” He stood, taking a step closer in concern. “Are you okay?”
Everyone turned to see Atemu sitting with his face in his hands. Slowly he lifted it. “What duty?”
“What?”
“It says…still ignorant of his duty…what duty is that?”
Nobody answered, though they all glanced at Marik. Marik shook his head. “I don’t know what it means, either.”
“Well if it is talking about me…the spirits won’t go back unless I fulfill that duty, right?” Atemu continued, rather aggressively. “It sounds as if not filling it is what caused the underworld to open. So it might be good to know what it is.”
“But what about yourself? Honda wondered. “You’re a spirit from the underworld too. But you didn’t have to possess anybody. Why did you return with a body while none of the other spirits did?”
“Well, we don’t know that any of the other spirits didn’t return with bodies,” Mai pointed out. “That man might have been one of them, and not someone who was possessed after all.”
“Yes, but it says that the spirits will seek new bodies, so if they could just make their own, why would they seek them?”
“God knows how old this text is, you’re going to argue grammar?”
Watching the others deep in discussion, Atemu lowered his eyes.
Ignorant of his duty.
He frowned to himself, anxious guilt in the pit of his stomach. What was he ignorant of? All of the loose ends were tied up before he left, they’d made sure of that. Had he forgotten something? Unless the prophesy wasn’t about him, but that seemed little more than a childish wish at this point.
He didn’t notice Yugi watching him, concern in his amethyst eyes.
x-x-x
Notes: The return of Atemu~ and the introduction of a plot. Took me long enough. xD I'm starting to worry this is sounding stereotypical. Hopefully, if it seems like it is, it won't be in later chapters. >.> My lack of reading fanfiction is coming back to bite me, I have no idea what's stereotypical and what isn't. ^^;
According to the manga Atemu was part of the 18th dynasty.
Happy birthday Ryou...sorry you didn't get a fic to yourself. Maybe next year.