Prologue The Satiah Card Part 3

DIMENSION: MANGA (Saves the Day)

Kaiba Corporation's Experimental Dueling Arena.

Mokuba strode through the security with Yuugi and his friends easily. Confident, proud and almost running. It was clear whatever Mokuba had been hiding, he was glad to finally get it off his chest. It was a good thing the spirit talked to him. "This way guys. This is going to blow your mind." Mokuba went to the dueling arena and turned it on. "Jounouchi, get on the other side, but don't make any moves against me. This is delicate. Okay?"

"You bet." Jounouchi went over to the opponent's side. "So, does the soul gotta be set free using a dueling arena? Weird."

"No, it's not what you think." Mokuba gestured to the middle by the side. "Stand there, Yuugi. Straight in the center. I can't tell you, but I'm sure you'll figure it out."

If there was any kind of soul magic at work, it would be best to let his other self be in charge. "I'm here." He watched as Mokuba held up the card they once saw at Pegasus'. A picture of Cyndia, Pegasus' deceased love.

"It doesn't have an official name," Mokuba said, "but I call it the Satiah card. I think you'll learn why." He looked hesitant. "I haven't shown her to anyone but Kaiba. I mean, she hasn't been seen by anyone except Kaiba Corp. So." He looked toward Jounouchi. "I will play a monster card. Don't attack it, okay?"

"I promise, Mokuba," Jounouchi said. "I won't hurt anybody."

"He never would," Anzu agreed. "You can trust in Jounouchi. He won't attack."

"Okay." Mokuba laid the card down. "I play the Satiah card."

The spirit watched as the card came to life. It looked just like it's painted counterpart. ///Atem: What is it Mokuba wants us to see?/// He concentrated on the card, but it looked toward Mokuba. She was speaking in a foreign language toward Mokuba. Mokuba chatted back to her in the language.

"She just asked who you were and I told her you were Yuugi and that you brought the card for her," Mokuba said.

"He's um? Uh?" Jounouchi looked toward Yuugi. "Yo, Yuugi? Is he translating to that card?"

///Atem: And the card is interacting back with him. Is it some type of soul card that we've never seen?/// "Can you come out of the dueling arena?" Mokuba translated for him. She looked scared by his request. She spoke and bowed low to the ground.

Mokuba translated for her. "I would . . . ohh . . . no she changed her mind?" He shrugged and talked back to her in the foreign language again. "Okay. She says she can't perform that feat."

"She's a trapped card." The spirit looked toward Mokuba. "There is a spirit trapped within a card still?"

"If that's what you see," Mokuba said. However, he was smiling. "Jounouchi, play a real gentle card, but no attacking."

"Yeah, no kidding." Jounouchi said. "Scapegoat."

"Good. Now." Mokuba looked at the card. "Let's hope this all works." He laid the card down.

The Satiah card stopped bowing, turned around and looked. No longer bothered by anyone's presence, she raced toward it. The card didn't respond. She comforted it with words that weren't Japanese or English. They were nothing he knew, yet at the same time he . . . "It's Ancient Egyptian? I am sorry, the card isn't real!" He just realized his terrible mistake. She wasn't a modern soul trapped in a card, she was an Ancient Egyptian soul somehow trapped, and her daughter was also trapped in a card somewhere. ///Atem: I did not mean such cruelty. "Mokuba, translate that it's not real! Pegasus never handed out anything that looked like a little girl. I'm sorry, Mokuba. I just needed to find out what was going on."

Mokuba looked saddened. He translated it to her. He glanced back toward him. "Can you help her at least?"

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A few minutes later . . .

"What is Yuugi and his friends doing here, Mokuba?" Kaiba demanded as he strutted into the room.

The spirit met his match with each strut. "You knew of this, and you never told me? There was an innocent soul, trapped within a card still, Seto Kaiba!"

"Yeah, you creep," Jounouchi added. "You've got a mom trapped in a game set."

"Oh? You found the card." Kaiba stared at the dueling arena where Satiah had been. "Hm. So they do interact, I knew it. Did you find out what it did, Mokuba?"

"What it did?" The spirit was livid. "It's not a monster card designed for a game, it's a soul trapped in a game. A soul. Trapped. In a game."

"Mokuba?" Kaiba questioned his brother again.

"They don't appear to do much," Mokuba said, not wanting to tell what he thought of as truth to his brother. He also didn't tell him about the other card being fake.

"What a waste," Kaiba said. "Does the other card have interactive features?"

"You mean can it talk, like a human being?" Anzu mocked Kaiba.

"You all get too crazy in your delusions of these cards," Kaiba said. "Keep your head on straight. They are just cards. If they weren't, they'd walk right off the dueling platform."

///Yuugi: Her poor soul./// He heard the empathy in Yuugi's voice inside of him. ///Yuugi: Trapped. Only to exist in battle now./// ///Atem: We'll end this for her, I promise, Other Me./// He looked toward Mokuba. "I need that card."

"What do you need it for?" Kaiba addressed him. "If their interactive feature doesn't work, then I don't need your card. However? The Satiah card is mine ."

"Nobody owns her!" Mokuba's voice penetrated the air. It was the strongest sound he ever used against his brother. "Nobody owns anybody, ever." Mokuba jumped down and ran onto the dueling arena.

"Mokuba, get off of there," Kaiba warned him.

The spirit watched as Mokuba went straight toward the woman. He assumed her name was Satiah considering the name he called the card.

"Interactivity that close is too dangerous," Kaiba declared. "Get down, Mokuba!"

"Please do not make your brother mad," she said. "Knowing her fate is all I needed."

She was speaking Japanese now? If she's really embedded in the system, maybe she got some kind of language translator to start.

"Go down. It's dangerous when games are in session with more than me." Then it was like that personality split and she became rougher. "I said get down you brat before you hurt yourself, move it! It's fine!"

Mokuba moved away.

///Yuugi: No, it isn't! It isn't freedom. She has no way to leave the dueling system. Can't we do something?///

The spirit came closer to the arena. ///Atem: I don't know. We could try the puzzle, but it may be a terrible idea. The situation is different. Her soul is trapped inside a card, there is no body like your grandpa, Kaiba, or Mokuba had. If she indeed was an Ancient Egyptian, then her body passed on thousands of years ago./// "Kaiba. I want to know about Satiah. I demand to know."

"Demand? Well, that's gentlemanly of you, Yuugi," Kaiba said as he helped his brother down from the arena. "She has an interactive past story that doesn't match her image."

"Kaiba," Mokuba practically whined. "Please, Brother?"

"Fine, you tell them the bogus story the card gives," Kaiba said. "It doesn't matter though. When I learn the features, we'll get it sorted. An Egyptian past does not go with a card that looks like that."

"Don't you dare touch her memories, Kaiba," The spirit warned him. He turned to Mokuba. "Please. If she will not tell me, then I need your help, Mokuba. Who is this spirit, Satiah?"

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" . . . and that's all I know," Mokuba finished. "The end of the world. I guess. Things get missed."

"It is a sad story," Kaiba agreed with Mokuba. "Quite fitting for the card, and the situation. It may be easier to paint over the card instead once I learn how this bootleg technology works with my system."

The spirit stood there. Contemplating. "She held her child, raised The Dark Magician, and then this?" He barely spoke everything he felt out loud. ///Atem: A Pharaoh did this. Does that mean? Did I do this? I sentenced a woman and a two year old to death. No, I summoned thousands to their deaths, to play a game?!///

///Yuugi: Spirit. I don't know, I'm sorry.///

///Atem: Saving the world. I didn't even realize or see it. Or maybe I did, and I'd just played for too long./// It wouldn't be the first time he lost what was important in the middle of a game.

"Sounds like that husband of hers was a complete coward," Jounouchi said, having to add his two cents to Mokuba's story. "I can't believe a guy would just let his wife and child do that to save his own skin. Now she's a trapped soul, caught in a dueling system in order to live." Jounouchi still didn't relax, slugging the duel area with his fist. "It's not fair. Nobody can always have a dueling system running and if Pegasus had this card? Did he really think it was his lover again?"

A question out of the blue. A question that made some sense. Pegasus did want Kaiba Corp. What if he had interacted with Satiah, and he wanted to create an environment where she could move as she pleased? ///Atem: He wanted Kaiba's Solid Vision. Yuugi, she may not be what she seems. She could have pretended to be Cyndia.///

///Yuugi: Who could blame her? Anything to have more room and feeling to move around.///

"Even so," Jounouchi said. "Still not real, still trapped to live as a card. How is that any kind of a life? At least death would be final."

"Jounouchi!" Anzu scolded him now. "Don't say that."

"But she's caught, in a system. She'll never go anywhere. Her mind is trapped forever." Jounouchi left the area and ran toward Yuugi. "Can't you break them free?"

"If I use the millennium puzzle to set her free, it would be the end of her." He looked back toward the dueling arena, where she refused to look in his direction. Then again. Death may be the only way out.