Yes for Yuugi (Part 2)

DIMENSION: MANGA (The One That Saves the Day)

Afterlife

Kaiba smirked as he went straight to Atem. Atem was not in the best mood. Sugoroku seemed to be falling into the same listlessness that fell upon others that hadn't led particular happy lives. It was more of a trance. If Kaiba was there to play a duel, it would have made him feel better. Instead, he was bothering him again about the same thing.

"Found some more goodies for you. This time since your 'friendship' wasn't enough? I bet this will make you see things my way." Kaiba's look was intense, like he was laying out the groundwork for a win.

Atem didn't look impressed. "I'm not interested but since you came here, I will hear you out."

"Isis, Marik, and Rishid Ishtar were all killed just days before Sugoroku Mutoh over there bit on his own bullet," Kaiba mentioned, not caring about his use of words.

Atem admitted, that caught his attention. "Oh. That's tragic."

"Mokuba looked into the attack on Jounouchi's sister too, the attacker was from Egypt, not Japan," Kaiba tried again. "I am a hundred percent sure the whole traffic thing was a setup. To hide their real identities and purpose," Seto Kaiba said.

"Why would they?" That thinking made no sense. If they were targets, why would they have a setup to make them all get on guard? "If someone was after them, they wouldn't have gathered them all together." Kaiba was still reaching.

"Oh, please," Kaiba groaned. "How far are you going to make me go? They wouldn't fix it so that a demon would come back out to terrorize the modern world after three thousand years! That was part of the curse. You know that. You're more concerned about how this all affects Yuugi. I can tell you how it affects Yuugi. He's still the boring guy he ever was. Making games, playing games, and still being a softhearted idiot hiding behind locked security doors. The highest security, it's absolute overkill," Kaiba added.

"Hiding behind locked doors?" That wasn't true, Kaiba was just trying to get a rise out of him. "That's not Yuugi. He faced his own peril right in front of himself several times with me."

"I don't know, Pharaoh. You're leaving people suffering because you're too much of a coward to tell Yuugi you were wrong for leaving. I guess he's just taking after you."

"What did you say to me?" Oh, Kaiba. "I was not wrong, I had to leave. I just didn't know about this other stone waiting in the sands."

"For six years. That's a long time to be clueless when your puzzle leads straight to it. It does lead straight to it, doesn't it?"

"I trust Yuugi," Atem finished. "There is nothing else that will make me change my mind."

"Sure, okay. By the way? Do you know the Blue-Eyes white dragon?" Kaiba asked. "Another thing about Jounouchi's sister, she's now got crazy blue eyes, and in my fight at her place, again, someone kept calling her a Dragon."

What?

"After all, Shizuka is Jonouchi's sister and his baby? Is a little girl, named Mana, because momma predicted it in her dreams. Which apparently include two Yugi's, two Anzu's, and a world of nothing but disaster outside."

"Mai is having premonitions?" She's used that trick before but?

"It's not the same thing as her history. She's had the dream for about five years now. She also has no knowledge of Mana, neither does Jounouchi. Don't you get it? Whether you show up or not, big things are beginning to assemble. I don't know why you have the word 'optional' for this quest, but I would change it to 'get down there now, it's about to get real'."

Mai was having Mana, the reborn Dark Magician Girl summoner. Shizuka was supposed to have the Blue-Eyes. Anzu had a spirit trapped within her for years. "Okay. This is useful information." Kaiba was right, why was the word 'optional'? Why did Horakhty not recommend he go?

"For the final cherry on the top? You know, we all like deserts. We all need that little something at the end." One of his eyebrows raised and he looked like he was about to put down a decimating card on a battlefield. "I don't think they cared about putting everyone on guard. I think they wanted Yuugi and Anzu to get together, and they accomplished it. They did get together. There's not many missing from the party now. What do you want to bet Yuugi and Anzu got a little more than they bargained for? Like, Mai did?"

His modern day version. "Mahado could be reborn?"

"When I talked to the enemy, they said the dragon was the second most important. So, I doubt it's Mahado." That grin. "Maybe that's why your 'optional'? If you don't come down in one form. Maybe they'd rather you come down in another?"

Atem felt his whole body seize up. Reborn?! "There's no proof of that."

"There's no proof it's not either," Kaiba countered.

"No. I mean, not that he wouldn't." Yuugi would be a terrific father, but? Well? "I used to think we were the same, we had the same body, shared the same- it'd be like, it's, I-" That did it. ///Atem: I'm not showing up in the modern day world being a defenseless baby if it's in trouble! It would be years before I could do anything./// An image popped in his head of people crying for help, and him crying in a corner as a baby, Anzu trying to quiet him down with a lullabye.

"Well, look at that, I finally got a legit win," Kaiba bragged, seeing the obvious decision in Atem. "If you take too long, I got some custom clothes I made just for you over there. No doubt your new mommy and daddy will think they are too too cute. I'll make sure it's a little Dark Magician too." He kept rubbing it in.

"Quiet, Kaiba!" Atem started to run.

"What's that? Baby Pharoah want a baby shirt of Kuriboh?"

He continued to tease with his laughing fading into obscurity as Atem got further ahead.

---

Atem didn't even bother with his men as he tried to focus on reaching the sands. He grabbed a horse, ignoring the fact he was upsetting the balance. He could be a helpless spark of life by the time it got out of control. Hurry, hurry, hurry!

The forbidden sands. The millennium puzzle wasn't leading him through as easy, as if it was debating letting him go back to the Stone. Atem continued to rush with his horse. No soldiers, no Sugoroku, he had to move and he had to go now. No matter how long it seemed to take, he wasn't going to give up. "Which way?" He whispered to the puzzle. Even the softest of whispers. He saw the puzzle glint and felt the direction now.

He slowed the horse down to a stop and got off as he saw it. He approached the millennium stone. Mahado was there, waiting. "You're right," Atem told him. "I could do nothing, but that won't be good for the world." Did he know of his part to play too? "I don't have all the facts, just like when the millennium items were created. No one has all the facts, but I know that this must be, one way or the other."

There was no time for second thoughts, regrets, or even thinking about what he would do when he joined Yuugi again. He just had to work as fast as possible, breaking the connection to the millennium items once and for all. "It's spirit Atem now, or baby Atem soon." Atem moved forward to the stone and placed in the millennium puzzle.