Pairing: Seto/Jou, Yami+Yugi
Beta: JennieB - The best
Notes: Lyrics in italic and between quotes belong to Dream Theater.
Chapter one“Uhn… answer the phone…”
Yami blinked as he heard his aibou whisper against his neck, the loud ring echoing through the bedroom. He disentangled himself from the little body, his eyes glaring at the mobile, cursing it for waking them at such unholy hour. His feet padded across the carpet and then he reached for the phone and picked it up. “Who is this?” he demanded in a sleepy voice.
“Yami…”
The desperate tone in Jou’s voice woke the wild-haired male up immediately. He rubbed his eyes, cradling the phone on his shoulder. “Jou, what’s wrong?” asked the former pharaoh, frowning a little.
“Seto…he’s…oh God.” He heard the blond take a deep breath. “He’s missing. Something awful has happened to him!”
“How can you tell? Maybe he went to the kitchen or something…”
“There’s a note.”
“What? What is does it say?” asked Yami, growing more worried by the second.
“It has some strange words and…” There was the sound of sobbing from across the line “It says…I will never see him alive…again. I know they’re talking about him, I just know!”
“They?” asked Yami in confusion.
“I don’t know who! But I know that someone took Seto! You and Yugi have to help me!” exclaimed the blond, seemingly on the verge of a panic attack.
The former pharaoh frowned even more as he processed this information. Strange words? A threat? Seto missing? This was odd, even for them. He sighed and decided he had no alternative. “We’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
Without waiting for an answer, Yami hung up the phone, padding back to the bed and waking his aibou. Soon they were on their way to Kaiba’s mansion. They found Jou dressed in a dark robe, and seated on the stairs to the porch of the mansion, waiting for them. As soon as they had parked, the blond youth got up and walked over to them, his golden eyes wide with fear.
“Thank God you two arrived! I just don’t know what to think anymore, and I’m going crazy here; I had almost called Mokuba in the States, but I realized he must be in his classes right now, so I stopped myself and…”
“Breathe, Katsuya,” Yami said, using the other’s first name in an effort to reassure him. He was now really worried. “Let’s get inside and then you tell us what happened, okay?”
The blond nodded numbly and followed them inside the mansion, where they sat on the leather couch in the living room. Yugi sat next to his friend, combing his fingers through the blond locks gently.
“So…what happened exactly?” the short youth asked softly.
Jou took a deep breath and handed Yami a piece of white paper he had clutched in his hands. The former pharaoh arched one eyebrow, picking up the paper and reading the words, his eyes widening more with each one he read. “I can’t believe this…”
“Yami? Do you know something about this?” Yugi asked seriously, hearing something in his lover’s tone of voice that he didn’t like at all.
The other didn’t respond. Instead, he got up and went to the large window, opening the curtains and looking up at the sky, his frown becoming deeper. “The moon is red around the edges.”
“You noticed too?” commented Jou, now a little calmer than before.
“Yes…and that is not good. The moon…this note…” Yami sighed. “I had really hoped that this would never happen, but it seems that my wish was not granted.”
“What are you talking about love?” asked Yugi.
“Seto’s past has returned, and is seeking revenge.”
“What are you talking about?!” exclaimed Jou as he got to his feet.
“Back in Egypt,” began Yami, turning his expressive eyes to them, “Seto had many enemies because of his position and his powers as a high priest, even inside the palace. When he confronted me because of the shadow games, these enemies saw that as an opportunity to seek revenge. They caught him and trapped him.”
“In this Octavarium thing?” asked the blond.
“Kind of. You see, Octavarium comes from octave, a note played in music that resounds like a never ending sound. Back then, there was a mausoleum that had this myth surrounding it called ‘the octavarium curse’. Every three hours, you could hear a sound echoing from inside, along with these awful screams and shouts. It was an old, sacred temple, where legend says that a fire had killed the priest inside. The story went on to say that if a person entered that place, they would never come out again.”
“But Yami…” interjected Yugi, “This mausoleum is in Egypt, right? Why are these people, whoever they are, citing this myth?”
“The thing is that Seto, he was the first person to ever come out of the mausoleum alive. But afterwards, he was never the same again. The people that had put him there…they were killed by Seto himself.”
“God,” whispered Jou as he wrapped his arms around himself, the hair on the back of his neck standing up. That was not a good sign. “Do you think that they were reincarnated in this time, like Seto and the rest of us?”
“Maybe yes, maybe not. They could even be spirits like I was.”
“But if they want revenge, then why they are telling me about this?” Jou asked suddenly, looking over at the former pharaoh.
Yami approached the sofa, sitting down on his other side and putting a hand on the blonde’s shoulder. He looked at him sympathetically. “It’s because you helped Seto to kill them.”
“WHAT?!” exclaimed the blond as he leapt up from the sofa, his heart hammering in his chest.
“You don’t remember anything about your life in Egypt, right?” After seeing the other nod, Yami sighed. “I was waiting for you to remember, and for Seto to start believing, but unfortunately, this happened first. If they are after you, too, then you have to know about everything, to be prepared.”
The blond sat back down on the sofa again and crossed his arms, looking very much like Kaiba. “So, start talking.”
-----
“You won’t believe this shit!” exclaimed Honda, which made Jou hold the phone away from his ear.
“What is it Honda? And don’t talk so loud!”
“Turn on the television. It’s on all channels!”
The blond did just that, his eyes widening at what he saw. The entire city of Domino was stunned, to say the least, at seeing a very weird construction that seemed to have been built overnight…right on top of Kaiba Corp. The famous building was gone, seemingly crushed by an angular-shaped temple, one that looked very much like an…octagon. He could hear his friend talking, but all his attention was focused on last night…on that note.
“Fuck,” he cursed as he hung up the phone and ran to the doorway, putting his jacket quickly. He refused the chauffer and took his bike instead, arriving downtown in half an hour.
A huge crowd was already gathered around the mausoleum when he stopped his bike, and he tried to pass through unnoticed. He was doing pretty well, until a hand caught his shoulder and pulled him into an alley. “Get off me!” said the blond as he tried to free himself from the grasp.
“We don’t have much time.”
Hearing that voice, he stopped struggling and turned around.
What he saw was a strange girl. She reminded him of Ishizu, because of the Egyptian clothes and the long, dark hair. Her eyes were the deepest blue he had ever seen, and she had a weird tattoo covering one of them. It startled him. Only Seto had eyes like that.
“Who are you?”
“It's not important right now. You have to help Seto,” said the girl in a heavily accented Japanese. The blond's eyes widened.
“Your voice…I heard it in my sleep last night!”
The girl smiled and extended her hand, holding a piece of paper out to him. “Glad you could hear me. Listen; they caught Seto, but it’s not too late. You will have to enter the mausoleum and save him.”
“What, me? How? And who the fuck are you?!” demanded the blond, getting more and more pissed off by the minute.
“For now, you can call me Hika,” said the girl. “Here, take this. It’s the first riddle you will need to solve to pass through the first gate of the temple. But, it will only work at midnight. After that…”
“After that…?” echoed the blond, taking the paper from her tiny hands. She looked to be around ten years old.
“You will have only twenty four hours to complete your task. Every three hours, you will hear a sound echoing through the whole temple. You have to be through the next gate every time the sound echoes. That is the only way you will receive the keys to open the gates. Once you reach the center of the mausoleum, you can save him.”
The blond looked at the paper, reading the mysterious words printed upon it:
“First…Our deadly sins feel his mortal wrath
Remove all obstacles from our path.”
“What is this all about?” asked the blond, looking up to face the girl.
But she was gone.
TBC
