19 The Imbalance of Afterlife (Part 1)

Afterlife

Sugoroku Mutoh waited beside Pharaoh Atem. This was his future. This was everyone's future. Some people loved being able to live in the afterlife in the same way as they lived. With their same family, same foods, same culture, and same daily lives. If they were happy and healthy when they died, if they had a good life when they died? They were great.

But everyone else?

Sugoroku never imagined this was his afterlife. He was his same elderly age and his wife was not there. He always imagined he would see his wife. He did when Pegasus was messing with his soul, he swore he did. But she had no spot in the kingdom. Or more like, she wasn't forced to be in the kingdom.

He was not the only one feeling it either, though he could not say a word. ///Grandpa: Oh Yuugi, if you could only see him now.///

Atem sat in his seat. He always sat in his seat. All day long he had spent sitting in his chair with his hands folded. Silent. Staring ahead. The only time he seemed to move was when someone came in that needed judged for court, or when Seto Kaiba came for a duel. Seto Kaiba, from the living world. Technology knew no bounds with that man.

When Seto Kaiba came, it was the only time Atem stood up and smiled, like he felt happy again. It didn't happen very often, but when he came, all of the shackles seemed to fall away from the King.

Sugoroku watched as someone was brought in to be judged. It was what Atem had done, it was the Pharaoh's responsibility.

Atem paused as he listened to the crime. "Why did you steal food. Hm." He listened to the excuse, but the light that used to radiate from his eyes were dull. "Fine. A day wandering the sands." Then, they were gone.

Some of the others had tried to get him to cheer up, but Atem couldn't seem to budge. He also would never change the punishment, no matter how small or big the crime. Atem had not changed any of the structure. However, Sugoroku did notice two things.

For one? When Sugoroku arrived, Atem hadn't stayed himself. He had been older, not sixteen like when he first died. His complexion was darker, but he looked about the age of Yuugi. Mid twenties. He was aging in the afterlife. How was that possible and why?

For two? Atem was a Pharaoh of power, without power. When Atem judged differently, or thought about changing something, he couldn't. The situation just seemed to get worse, like the afterlife was already balanced and he wasn't needed for a big part of it.

There were no meetings. No talks of what needed to be done. Everything stayed the same. Everyone was satisfied. No one raised in power or in pay or needed a ceremony. Pharaoh's should be busy people, but Atem never had been.

Atem looked cross and miserable. He was even starting to slump in the throne. As Atem pulled himself back up, he addressed Sugoroku. With his name. In modern tongue instead of Egyptian. "Grandpa."

Sugoroku looked back at him. "Yes?"

"I thought so. They can't speak our language," he declared. "Feel free to speak to me the way you used to. Please ."

Please. Atem said please. "Of course. What is it you want then?"

"To be . . . moving." Atem moved in the chair slightly. "You can feel how wrong this is, can't you?"

"It's not what I pictured," Sugoroku admitted. "I don't know what I pictured, but it wasn't this."

"I've tried to break it free," Atem admitted. "All it did was make things worse. For the afterlife's prosperity, I can only change what is put in front of me in court, and not by much. If I try to free anyone, change anything big, stop an event in place that I don't agree with, things get terrible. People fight, and the harmony is lost." He never stopped looking forward. "The riches of the royalty or the draggard clothes of the poor. Everything I try to change, only leads to anarchy. It only leads to everyone summoning monsters. Without Ba, everything is terrifying."

"Yes, I think I understand. I'm sorry," he said to the Pharaoh.

"Nothing new, no new inventions, just an endless repeat of the same. I feel blessed Kaiba visits. I long for the days that I am allowed to simply . . . duel with him, without consequence." Atem was being honest. "I wish for nothing more than the kingdom to get out of this loop. For 3,000 years, people led their afterlife this way. Right here. Whether they enjoy what they do, or whether they didn't."

"Yes, I get that," Sugoroku said. "Can anything be done at all?"

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"I can't even free myself," Atem admitted. "Even when I went to help Yuugi. The power of my old self and the power of the afterlife. It's too much for the living world. Power, yet . . ."

He never would have seen this. When he arrived, so many were there and smiling. Waiting to see him. Now it made sense why. It was the only time they moved or did anything different. The only time they moved from their kingdom or their spot, to greet someone.

Take the cards for example. Atem still had the majority of them, but some were gone. He wanted to imagine Mahado had simply gone onward, and that is why The Dark Magician was no longer there.

But even needing cards in the afterlife. Still continuing to have not only monsters, but every commoner could now see and control monsters. Every commoner could use them as long as they wanted, no ba for limit control. The afterlife was anarchy when it wasn't allowed to balance. Any upset brought upon only hell to it.

Poor Grandpa next to him. He should not have even been there. "I'm afraid that just wanting to see you after you passed is the reason you ended up here," Atem confessed. "My wishes trumped your afterlife and I'm sorry. I doubt this is where you wanted your eternity. I have been ignoring you, hoping that if I did, you would one day be freed. I would never intend to drag you into this."

Sugoroku didn't seem like he could blame him. "Have you tried dividing up property equally? Small inventions? Small things?"

Atem called for someone to fetch him a random civilian near the castle. "Watch what happens, Grandpa." As the man that was fetched came in, he immediately started to bow to Atem. "I am going to give you extra goods to help your family out, along with upper class linens for your comfort."

"No, I beseech thee my King!" The man wailed for mercy, like the giving was actually a curse.

Sugoroku understood. "No one wants to tempt fate."

"Please, I simply want my wife returned to me," the man said. "I don't wish to exchange anymore, I simply want her back. I have but no children and no family. Feeble in life, I am feeble in death. I need my wife back to give me the afterlife pleasures all others are afforded. I lived a great life, and I continue to obey now. However, I wish for nothing but what is owed to me."

Atem blinked. Well, that didn't sound typical. ///Atem: That is new. Nothing is ever new./// "No children?"

"They all moved on, quite quickly," he said. "I am still waiting for my wife, and I do not wish to exchange her for a luxurious destiny that may be cursed. The afterlife is as I lived. As foretold, I continue as I am. Please Pharaoh, do not curse me!"

"No, wait." Atem stopped him. This was curious. "Everyone passed on thousands of years ago in our kingdom. Your wife, wherever she is, she has left of her own accord."

"To where could she go, my King? How do I retrieve her back?" he begged.

"Perhaps she went to another far away in the kingdom. It is her right."

"No, but she's mine. She's mine!" Then, he remembered his station again. "My first one died."

"Then seek the first." Atem was not pleased with that interruption.

"She died at the father of the Pharaoh's time," he said. "Trapped from me, forever. All I have is my second. It is fitting that she be brought back to me."

Atem spoke the modern language Yuugi used sarcastically. "No, sure, I'll get right on forcing a poor woman to come back to you. If she ran away, she had reason." He went back to his ancient dialect. "If she is not here and not with another than she must have died in another Pharaoh's reign. Either way, this token is but a small upgrade from your King, not an exchange for your wife."

"Please, such luxuries due to me when I did not earn them in life only harm your citizens," he insisted. "Please. All I wish is for my wife and nothing more."

"Why won't he budge?" Sugoroku asked the King. "It makes no sense why you can't even change one tiny thing."

"For the same reason I knew he would not," Pharaoh responded in the modern language again. "Anything extra I gave him would be taken from somewhere else, thus the struggle of have and have-nots would remember themselves. A hell of monsters between those who feel wronged in their rewards floods the sand. Those that lose themselves here, I don't know where they go to next. A hell? Did they move onto freedom? A limbo? Without that knowledge, I can't risk it, Grandpa."

"All I ask is for my Earthly pleasure back," the man said again. "She wouldn't interrupt the harmony of the afterlife. It is due to her too. Have mercy and grant Satiah back to me."

"Satiah?" Pharaoh stood up. "If she is not here, then the same as your children, she has found peace elsewhere." The spirit in the card. It must be, to not be there. She had certainly moved on then. "I gave her peace," he answered. He started to walk away from the throne toward outside the palace.

"If the King wishes to leave the palace-"

Atem held his hand toward him. "Stop." Of course, if he wanted to leave, there was always the same way to leave. Therefore, he wouldn't go far. Just some light. As he exited, he had fleets of guards protecting his sides. When he was out, everyone bowed before him. Someone had commanded a ride in a sudan for him. As nice as it would be, it would include people using their bare strength to carry him around.

And if he tried to do anything else to prevent them from doing that, like choosing to walk or ride a horse, they could feel cursed or unworthy. Monsters would start to surface between, small for a time, and then growing bigger until he restored the balance. From the biggest things, to the smallest things. "No ride. I just want to be here for a little while, then I will safely return to the-." A brat cried. Someone called their parent out for interrupting Pharaoh. A smack. Another smack. Someone being dragged away. " . . . I will return to the castle."

Atem came back to his throne. He noticed Satiah's former husband on the ground, bowing. ///Atem: I forgot to dismiss him./// He was about to dismiss him, when Sugoroku spoke up.

"I didn't hear most of that, but I caught what you said to him in our language. Um? His wife left him."

"Yes."

"Well, how did she leave the afterlife then?" Sugoroku asked Atem.

"Hm? She was never here, she was trapped in a card on Earth," Atem answered him. He spoke in the foreign dialect to the man again. "You can't have your wife because she was never here. She moved onto a different destiny. If you will not accept anything, you're dismissed."

"But?" The man started to speak again. "But, no. I know your Majesty is never wrong, but no. She was here. That's how I know she is due to me. She was here for thousands of years, and then she disappeared. She is part of the balance."

"What?" Impossible. "Satiah and Heba were here?"

"You know my youngest's name without me telling you?" The man bowed down again. "Please, return my family. It's mine, it's my half."

Satiah was there? Satiah had been in the afterlife? She was stuck on Earth, inside the card of Cyndia. A restless spirit of a mother. But, if this is true? She left the afterlife. "Perhaps I will help," Atem said. "Where do you think Satiah went?"

"She tried to escape a couple of times out to the sands," he said. "The afterlife just affected her mind. She never would have dared escape in the living world. She never came back though. She's out there in the sands somewhere."

"Ready a horse," Atem shouted. He wasn't going to deal with have and have-not's, he would outright dictate his command. He would deal with the actions later, right now he needed to move faster than a walk. "In which way did she walk?"