Shadow Game of Connect Four? (Part 1)

DIMENSION: MANGA (The One That Saves the Day)

Domino City

In Kaiba's Car

"You better hope you can get access to some of your old fortune because you owe me a bundle for this," Kaiba complained to him. "Getting you from Domino Museum, dealing with the authorities without telling them you sprang to life from the exhibit, and then getting you access to clothes. I had to call in so many favors for this one. I still can't believe I actually made this one happen."

Atem adjusted the choke collar on himself. No, he and Yuugi weren't the six dice, they were the twelve. He held a phone that Kaiba had lent him to call Yuugi. Held it with his own hands. A part of him wanted to cry out for joy at such a miracle at having his body back. Another part?

To receive such a gift as life, to have his body restored again. That wasn't just a god's magic, that was an ancient god's magic. One of the most revered could do it, if all of the parts were there. Time to use that phone. "Yuugi."

"Atem?!"

He sounded surprised, yet he assumed because of the voice, he knew it was Atem. "I seem to have dropped into my old self in Domino Museum's revisited exhibit."

"Are you okay?"

"Yes. I'm with Kaiba. I needed his connections to get me out safely," Atem said. "Where are you? Are you at the Game Shop?"

"I'm heading back to Anzu. Satiah also came back to life," Yuugi informed him.

Not only him, but Satiah? "The one whom everyone calls the mere commoner now has her life back too? Yuugi. You and all of your friends should be very prepared. I don't believe this is a fight of cards, or something with only one villain. This will not be an easy battle. Very, very few are granted what Satiah and I have been given back. Very few."

"I imagine so," Yuugi said.

"Very few," Atem repeated again. "Legends, mostly."

"Atem?" Yuugi sounded off. "There was something that happened with Anzu. She told me that she believed we cursed her and she ran off with Mai."

"What?!"

"But it was a lie," he said quickly. "To make us back off. I don't know how to explain it right, but Satiah took the extra energy in her that was going to kill her. She was supposed to die, but instead she got her body back."

Oh no. "Corrupted souls." Atem understood. "I must have came back at a tender moment." He didn't know when he arrived back, but if Yuugi had been involved with Anzu, then that meant Satiah was present. "I am so sorry, Yuugi."

"Anzu is okay now," Yuugi said. "Satiah took it away somehow."

Oh. "Still. The pressure grows within. How close had she gone to becoming insane?" He had to ask. "Yuugi, stay very close to Anzu from now on. There could be serious repercussions on her." He'd never even known of a case that survived. "You might consider marrying her and putting her at complete ease."

"Oh, I'd do that in a heartbeat, but I've barely managed to keep her in Japan with me. Even that might not last long."

"Then try your best. I'll meet you at the Game Shop soon."

"What about . . . her? When I went to Bakura's to see Satiah, I found out how she died. She sacrificed herself in Kul Elna to save his eternal soul. So, is she here then to turn Bakura to our side? Because. She looked like Anzu."

"She is Anzu." Atem understood it already. "If there was a corruption of individuals who couldn't separate, there is trouble. There was trouble. That means she is the other side of Anzu, like you are a side of me. However? It does not mean they are the same. We aren't the same."

"Right. They definitely aren't the same. I am almost back to Anzu. She's at Jounouchi's house. I'll get her and get home. See you soon, Atem. Literally."

"See you." Atem hung up. Atem did not wish to confide in Kaiba, but it had to be that way. As much as Kaiba opposed him in Yuugi's time, no matter how cruel he had been, it was because of Kaiba's strength in his beliefs to continue after him that he was there.

"Oh." Kaiba smirked. "So this other ancient spirit took a power source that spun during a quadruple sex session? Ooh, I know who she is now."

He did? "Kaiba, how can you know Satiah? From Ancient Egypt?"

"The afterlife affected me a little." He didn't say anymore about it. "I do remember some things, and I especially remember prophecies with you, that never came true. Tends to stick around on the mind. So? I know who she is in the little drama of life happening right now."

Fine. "Who is she?"

"There was a well-known prophecy about a light goddess who had the power of a new god by the greatest pharaoh." Kaiba actually laughed. "She's got your power. When you came down in the middle of an intense Anzu Yuugi puzzle." He dribbled his fingers against the steering wheel, like he was enjoying himself. "That's why you were able to switch with Yuugi again. Sex is a big thing with Egyptian gods, remember?"

"Wait." Hang on? "That's my power?" Satiah had his power?

"Not just your power, you were switching with Yuugi again. She just started switching with Anzu." Kaiba was enjoying himself way too much. "I get it now."

Oh. "The millennium power." Not all of it, the items were now gone. Energy must have been released when he did it, and taken with him. "Can I summon the gods again with that power?"

"I don't know but you two just got your bodies back after being dead for three thousand years. So, I'm guessing that's a yes," Kaiba said. That look on his face. "Oh, I bet Yuugi's gonna just love you when he sees you messing with the 'Other Anzu'. If you want your energy back."

"I need my energy back." Satiah couldn't keep it, it was his! "The power's been converted somehow if she is okay. The human form can hold it." That means he wanted it back.

"Thanks to sex."

"I should be able to wield it." Atem looked at his hands. "How do I get my energy back?"

"It's nothing hard, I bet you just have to repeat the act to get the power from the light goddess. That power will make you the new god. So just get with some bump and grinding. Or I suppose, Pharaoh." Kaiba continued driving like what he said was nothing. "You could just kill her and it'll come back. Not like you're going to trust anyone at that moment not to stab you in the back, especially a friend of Bakura's."

True. That would return his power, but to kill an innocent?

Atem was quiet. "I never kill the innocent."

"Whatever. Pick your way and just get it done," he insisted. "Because this isn't the time for stupid jitters, this is the time to get the damn gods back! Something big is coming, and you know it! If you don't do it, there's no way you are saving the day."

"Yuugi's. We are almost to Yuugi's. Just drop me off." Atem looked at his hand. "How old do I look?"

Kaiba glanced at him. "You look like you did in the afterlife, an aged Yuugi. At least you got the healthy complexion of Egyptian life back though." Kaiba sighed as he pulled up by the Game Shop. "Don't get too used to the life of luxury in there. Anzu won't be greeting you when she finds out what you really are."

Atem got out and looked. The Game Shop. ///Atem: Seeing it with my own eyes./// "Kaiba." He glanced at him and watched Kaiba throw him the phone he previously borrowed back. Hm?

Kaiba stuck his head out of the car to look back. "Not every action is going to be a 'Yuugi would do it' action now. If the end is coming, it's gonna get brutal. You really need to be Pharaoh. Maybe that's why it was optional?" Kaiba suggested. "Maybe they don't know if you've got the guts to do what's necessary. If she has your powers, you know how to get them back. Don't dawdle." He stuck his head back in his car. "Go and kill her."

Atem felt a small jerk inside. The event, to call everything out like this. Even Kaiba knew something was about to shake the world. He watched Kaiba's blue ferrari take off as he went to the front door.

Killing was not the first option.

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