The Ultimate Bluff (Part 2)

DIMENSION: MANGA (The One That Saves the Day)

"Rushed?" Yuugi asked looking toward Hikaru.

"Oh, yeah. I get it." Jounouchi smirked too. "Nice one, Yuugi Mutoh!" He winked. "No gods help needed for you two, eh?"

"You mean she was already-?" Yuugi looked back toward Anzu. "Oops. Oh. Um."

"Hikaru was already conceived?" Anzu held him tighter. "I just lost the nine month wait. Well, I lost all the pain too. Can't be picky. Oh wait. Yes I can!" Frustration. "Horakhty had said she would impregnate us if we win with part gods, right? To give humanity a chance back?"

"Did Satiah's belly become large, like she was pregnant?" Atem asked.

"Well, no. Mine just blew up real big," Anzu said. "I thought maybe we were taking turns."

"But she said that whole thing about the belly?" Yuugi questioned.

"Yeah. She was talking about mine," Anzu said. "She was right by my side, being supportive, but she's not really a modern kind of girl."

"More tricks by the gods. Man, I had it up to here with tricks! Why would they do that?" Jounouchi asked. "Everybody would find out right after the birth. What was it all about?"

"I? I think I might know. Set. Set, he uh." Anzu sort of glanced toward Yuugi, then back at Hikaru. "He was real protective and it was scary. Unlike Mai, he didn't really want that to happen to us." Small cough. Trying to be delicate for Jounouchi.. "The gods around us kept urging him to use their help. They tried to convince him that I would die. Even Satiah didn't have the greatest confidence in what was happening."

Ah ha. "The ultimate bluff," Atem said, like he figured it all out. "This whole thing was nothing but a bluff." Set couldn't let gods help, or he'd forfeit the game. "They were counting on his feelings to save you." Ah. Clever! Extremely clever Isis, he would forfeit before the rules were even explained. Hikaru was Yuugi and Anzu's child they would have had anyway. The lighting around it was probably from being born so close to the God's Realm.

Thank goodness. Saving the world didn't include brats with Atem.

However? How did she survive then, and where had Masika gone? She wouldn't just vanish. This child could only have been conceived recently, there's no way Anzu should have survived without any help. Even with the goddesses help with her child, it was too much for Mai and she was much further along. Hmm. Masika has disappeared too. Set cannot just take her. Then.

"So then . . . if Atem's new queen wasn't actually pregnant, and it was just Anzu and Yuugi's playing around that made Hikaru?" Jounouchi wondered out loud.

"Hey!" Yuugi warned him. "You don't have to phrase it that way."

"Nah, no worries. I played too, remember?" Jounouchi reminded him as he gestured to Mana. "Anyhow, what was I saying? Oh yeah. If Masika never did nothin' with Atem and it was all a big farce that way, then where is she?"

"I don't know." Set clearly found some way to win Anzu's life, but not use the gods. Sacrifice? ///Atem: He would not! No, he wouldn't, of course he wouldn't. They were both the women he was infatuated with, he wouldn't!/// Then again. "To save a part of Masika, he had to lose the other part." Once again, Masika's life was over, having been made a sacrifice.

"Are you positive?" Anzu asked. "Maybe he's just hiding her."

"The gods would still know," Yuugi agreed with Atem. "You had to survive in some way without gods. If Masika was used as a sacrifice though, and it wasn't to the gods, then who was it to?"

"What else?" Atem's voice was huffy, unlike him, except for one thing. "To Zorc! She held the millennium power!"

"Zorc?!" Yuugi, Anzu and Jounouchi yelled at once. Even Isis, Rashid, and Malik's voice came from the background.

"The legendary demon that Pharoah had finally taken down," Malik answered. "Oh no. If she was sacrificed to him, then he could return. Pharoah? Do you believe he will return?"

Atem didn't answer. He just crossed his arms and glared out into the night sky.

Yuugi touched Hikaru's little hand, wondering himself.

"To exist with a demon for eternity," Atem finally spoke. "I would not have wished that upon anyone."

Especially her, Yuugi knew that. Atem finally met someone that was like him that wasn't . . . evil. Someone who went through all the same terrible things, and now that ending. Oh. Atem didn't look so good at all. ///Yuugi: Atem?///

///Atem: She exists in a land of demons with Zorc now! For eternity. That was no fate for her!///

///Yuugi: I'm sorry, Atem, that your friend is there. After we win though, we can get her back.///

///Atem: No we can't, Yuugi! The gods will restore what they can. She was taken without the gods help. She belongs to Zorc.///

Oh. Yuugi was starting to understand. It was a fate worse than spending thousands of years in the millennium puzzle. Eternity with Zorc. ///Yuugi: She was once a wife of ours. She was part of Anzu. I didn't know her as well as I should have, but . . ./// it did hurt. Masika was a good person! An excellent person and the bestest of friend to sacrifice herself for Bakura. She did what she could.

Anzu was cuddling up strongly with Hikaru now, more like she was using him for strength as she started to cry. She couldn't even hear the conversation Yuugi had with Atem, but she seemed to understand it as well. A part of Satiah was trapped in a hell for eternity with no escape.

///Yuugi: Maybe he just took the power and released her? Maybe he just killed her and she's waiting in a better afterlife?///

Atem didn't answer to Yuugi anymore.

"So now we have a Zorc and a Set to deal with," Jounouchi broke the silence. "Which one do we worry more about? Zorc still needs a body. If we can just keep the goddesses protecting Bakura, then he won't get the chance."

"I'm not involved in the game, that's true, but The Bandit King is," Ryou Bakura reminded Jounouchi. "Gods can't interfere with him, so I doubt they can interfere with me." He didn't look at all comforted with it. "Can I drop it without losing the game for everyone? I don't really want to be possessed again. I mean, not by Zorc. I can deal with the Bandit King, but not Zorc."

"Stay away from all millennium items," Malik warned Ryou Bakura. "If you can keep them away, then you can stay safe."

"You don't know how hard that is to do sometimes," Ryou Bakura answered back.

"Well, you're going to have to try," Jounouchi warned Ryou Bakura. "Because Set is bad enough, we don't need a Zorc."

"But . . ." Anzu was still coming to terms with it, searching for another answer on what happened to one of her best friends. "Horakhty wasn't on Isis' side like the others, they were on the side of Set, and Horakhty was the one that said it! It doesn't make sense. It can't be a sacrifice to Zorc."

" Did Horakhty? The exact words were what?" Yuugi thought back to it. It wasn't easy to figure out. They had to ask the 'lighted ones'. It wasn't simply spelled out. "I grant Sekhmet and Bastet's wish for humanity's sake for the win." It sounded easy to understand.

"That was the part human part god thing," Jounouchi said. "Yeah, Horakhty said that. Could Horakhty have meant something else somehow?"

Atem was also trying to figure it out. "Sekhmet and Bastet's wish."

"That was the part humanly god," Jounouchi said. "Right?"

"Or was it not? What if Horakhty was indicating their true wish, and not what they wanted to get their true wish? To be freed of ever becoming one?"

"Their ultimate wish. Yeah, makes sense. Then Horakhty made them happy so they'd just help now?" Jounouchi reckoned. "They can't help though, it's against the rules."

"For those involved," Yuugi said. "Maybe Horakhty was trying to save Mai. Or maybe."

"Bakura!" Yeah, Jounouchi reached his decision. "Maybe they can seal off Bakura until the games, and make sure Ryou Bakura stays safe? It's pretty dicey. Ooh. Zorc."

"I don't know." Anzu didn't seem any happier with the reveal. "Horakhty said we would know. Bastet told Satiah and I something else. Slight of hand I guess."

"Being truthful, while being deceptive." Horakhty could accomplish that. None of them knew Anzu was pregnant, but Horakhty could have known. Even Isis might have known.

Perhaps the gods had not just used them after all.