Familiarity (Rei no Kaado)

[mugenginga]

It had been about an hour since Yuugi and his friends had gone into the ruins. They weren't so much ruins as an underground storage facility of sorts. There was nothing there aside from the tablet that when combined with the God Cards held the key to the Nameless Pharaoh's memory. At one point others had shown up, but the task Malik bore with his siblings was to simply guide, not interfere. It would be over soon, either way, and that burden would be off their family's shoulders.

Or it should have been. After a long period of silence, Malik heard voices. It sounded like whatever had transpired for the group was over. He let out a sigh of relief. However it had turned out, it was over. And the acoustics of the place let him know that all of Yuugi's friends were alive. At one point he heard the voice of the one who had borne host to the Ring mumbling, and then footsteps... and then the ground began to shake. Malik turned towards his older sister with a surprised look and her expression was enough to let him know something was very wrong.

She hadn't seen this future with the Millenium Torque. But he understood her expression. Something felt unnatural. Before Rishid could stop him, Malik had ran forward. Ishizu shouted out his name with worry as he felt his foot mis a step. He was mid turn towards his siblings when his awareness left him. The spot beneath his feet had closed by the time the rocks tumbled down, sealing off the passage...

----------

When Malik's awareness returned to him, he thought for a moment he was floating. His eyes widened and he jerked his head around, realizing that his belt had just been caught on something sticking from the side of a building. He took in a breath and undid the buckle on his belt, dropping himself to the ground about two feet below him. He had intended on turning around and retrieving it when he heard a dull metal thunk on the ground beside him. He blinked and turned towards the ground... and proceeded to take two steps backwards very quickly.

He was clueless as to what had happened. Right now, he was more concerned with the fact that the Millenium Rod he had given to the Nameless Pharaoh and Yuugi was laying on the ground in front of him. Was the drastic change of scenery a result of that? He took a moment to look at his surroundings. It was a large city, but he doubted it was any place he had ever been. He walked forward again and grabbed his belt, getting it back on. Then he crouched down and picked up the Rod.

If the Items were no longer in the possession of the Nameless Pharaoh, something was more than a bit wrong. Still, the Rod possessed no spirit. It was more than a little dangerous, but it seemed to still accept him. Nothing was happening as he held it, thank the gods. He'd been concerned about that as the person who had first claimed it had been... well, the Nameless Pharaoh had seemed to regard it as his dark side, and it wasn't a bad comparison. He needed to find him and return it to him.

Not because he was happy with his fate or the scars on his back. Far from it. The facts were his family was so close to being fully free of their fate. That and he didn't like the Rod. It brought up bad memories of thinks he could never take back. He tucked it at an angle between his belt and the back of his pants. It was how he'd been known to carry it before. He still felt a bit in shock, but he had to figure out what to do next and standing in this alley wasn't doing any good. He walked towards the street he could see.

[Firebreath Fishslap]

Atsuro had been out. Well, it wasn't like staying at the hotel all day while K1 learned how to control his cravings for magatsuhi from Seth's Garuda was what one called entertaining. It wasn't that Atsuro was bored by it, that was true, but it was horridly depressing. Especially considering that conversation Atsuro had with K1 the previous night. It wasn't just that K1 was freaked by everything he'd done that day. He literally wasn't dreaming. After getting his laptop back from the shop, Atsuro had stopped by a cafe and done some quick research.

The results hadn't made Atsuro feel any better. Apparently people who didn't have the subconscious release of dreams tended to lose it fairly quickly. K1 hadn't been dreaming for over three months now. No wonder Abel was always so quick to anger these days, why his reactions tended to be so violent to everything, and then why they seemed oddly subdued yet no less violent on full moons. Full moons didn't have the conflict of human emotions who were slowly losing it from the lack of dreams brought on by the demonic energies circulating in K1's body.

Atsuro sighed and walked past an alleyway, almost missing the person coming out of it. He stopped and turned when he realized that there was someone coming, and about gaped when he saw who it was. As if it wasn't enough Yuugi and Kaiba and apparently Bakura were there. What he was seeing could only be Malik. He wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't seen those three recently.

This would have incited a more restrained fanboy reaction if it weren't for something that Atsuro saw hanging from the back of Malik's belt. The Millennium Rod. Atsuro remembered very well what Malik had done with the Millennium Rod. Still, Atsuro found himself unable to move.

"Um..." Atsuro started. And now he was nervous. Well, crap. He was only hoping that the Millennium Rod wasn't with Malik because he was being like he was during the Battle City arc.

[mugenginga]

The time of day seemed to be the same by the position of the sun. It was quite clearly not the same location, however. For one, it was downright freezing for summer... especially considering he'd just(?) been in Egypt of all places. The location looked more like a major metropolis area, too.

The sixteen year old Egyptian stopped when he noticed Atsuro was staring at him. He stared back, confused but not showing it. And then the other teenager's eyes had flicked to the Rod hooked through his belt. He tensed up at what appeared to be recognition. Then the boy stumbled over something. Malik stayed tense as he spoke.

"Can I help you with something?" he spoke in Japanese, a guess based on Atsuro's "etto" and apparent nationality.

[Firebreath Fishslap]

"Uh..." Atsuro repeated. He really wasn't sure how to respond to this. This was Malik. The guy responsible for some of the creepier scenes in the series. Okay, so his dark side had apparently been defeated and was long done for thanks to Atem. And he was wearing what he had been toward the end of the series. But then again, he did have the Rod.

"Uh... not really..." Atsuro said. "Er..." He was very visibly nervous. He was smart enough to not joke around with Malik. The guy had done some pretty screwed up stuff before, and Atsuro did not need to piss this guy off of all people.

Atsuro finally mustered up the courage to say something besides stuttering. "Uh... you're Malik Ishtar, right? I'm... er, Kihara Atsuro..."

[mugenginga]

Malik didn't recognize the other teenager. The other teenager seemed to recognize him. The only possible reason Malik could come up with is he was related to someone he'd harmed in the past. There had been quite a few, and there was no way he could how many of the people he'd brought under him (willingly, unwillingly, or both as the case sometimes was) hadn't had family. He'd never bothered to check that.

And then the teenager said his name. The name he only rarely used in his interactions, even with those that had been under him. Still, he wasn't sure where he was supposed to go with this conversation. He hadn't moved so much as an inch. He continued to talk, carefully choosing his words.

"Have we met?"

[Firebreath Fishslap]

Atsuro found himself reminding himself that these people were not just anime characters, they were real people, and thus you knowing every aspect of their lives was a fair bit creepy. He'd figured that out in the past couple days after seeing a few of them wandering around. He scratched the back of his head.

"Uh... no, not really. It's complicated. Um... hey, did you just get here?"

That was a good idea. Try to help out the crazy Egyptian revenge obsessed villain from the second major arc of the show. Might not get himself killed that way. This was just assuming that Malik was acting like he did during that arc. Atsuro still didn't have enough evidence to go either way yet.

"Er, geez this is awkward... What I mean is, did you just appear here the crap out of nowhere?" Atsuro asked. He really needed to stop stuttering.

[mugenginga]

Malik relaxed a little bit. It was possible he was underestimating the teenager, but he didn't think so. Complicated? Like what? Malik glanced around his surroundings again, aware of but not looking at the other teenager. Just get here? And then Atsuro continued.

"This isn't the same world I was just in, is it?" He paused and acted on the evidence at hand. This Kihara person knew him, he knew the Millenium Rod. Of both Malik was certain, "I'm not going to attack you, but I'd like to know how much about my past you're aware of."

[Firebreath Fishslap]

Oh, thank God, he wasn't going to attack him. After making that thought, Atsuro almost smiled at himself. Invoking the name of God like that considering what they were in this war to do... probably not something that would go over too well with the others.

But that still meant Atsuro had to explain how he knew about Malik's past, which meant he'd have to explain the whole "I know you from an anime" thing. Not exactly what most people expected, and it was a fair bit disturbing to think about that, judging by Yuugi's reaction to that before.

"...To be honest, a lot," Atsuro said. "I know that you were supposed to guard the Pharaoh's memory, that you had this pretty bad scar carved into your back when you were young that you were forced to have because you were the firstborn male son or something like that, you killed your father with the Millennium Rod... um, you entered the Battle City tournament to get revenge against the Pharaoh, did some pretty messed up stuff during that time... yeah, I know a lot. Like I said, it's complicated."

[mugenginga]

The teenager seemed relieved. Which meant he had expected to be attacked. If Kihara knew his past, it was to be expected. Especially considering he didn't run around risking people who knew the truth about him. He'd killed before no matter how much the person had insisted they would keep it a secret. Atsuro continued after the expression of relief passed. He still seemed nervous.

And then Atsuro began listing down things only a handful of people in the world knew. The Ghouls hand't known about the scar on his back. They hadn't known about what his tribe had been tasked with. The Battle City tournament entry was public knowledge, but the rest of it...? Malik's gaze had narrowed and he was now glaring. Atsuro would find Malik's gaze focus on his eyes. No, it wasn't that. The eyes were normal. He was tense, and if Atsuro had thought he looked ready to attack before he'd realize now he was mistaken. The fact was that Malik was just now holding himself back.

"Sounds it," Malik said with a flat voice, "I'm waiting for the explanation. If I think you're lying..."

He let Atsuro's imagination finish the threat. It would be more effective than anything he could say. There was no way this teenager had been spying on him his entire life. The scar, that was what bothered him the most. No one but his family and the Pharaoh's friends should have known about that...

(OOC: I decided to edit in a dub vs original thing. Ghouls is the original name of the "Rare Hunters", the group under Malik in that arc.)

[Firebreath Fishslap]

Atsuro's imagination did a pretty good job of finishing the threat on its own. Atsuro had been around demons and Abel in general enough to know what that flat voice was indicating, and then there was his knowledge of Malik thanks to watching the anime, the same knowledge that had very obviously set Malik on edge. In any case, Malik was serious with that threat.

"...Er, okay, don't freak when I say this," Atsuro said. He rubbed the back of his head, which amounted to the back of his hat. "Uh, back in my world, you were this character in an anime that I used to watch. So that's how I know all that stuff."

Atsuro was hoping Malik didn't end up freaking out over that. Yuugi and Atem definitely had seemed a bit uncomfortable with the concept, but they apparently knew about it already. Kaiba hadn't seemed to when Atsuro had seen him, though.

[mugenginga]

It was clear Malik was processing what Atsuro had said. His eyes had narrowed yet again and he looked ready to leap. Anime. Animation. For several tense moments, he looked as if he wasn't going to believe Atsuro. His eyes were locked with the black haired teenager. He saw nothing to indicate a lie. He straightened up, his stance relaxing a bit.

"So this is another world, then?" He looked away for a moment, and Atsuro would probably tense as he grabbed the Rod. However, the Egyptian teenager merely glanced at it, adjusted it, and looked back at Atsuro, "Is there a way back? This shouldn't be with me."

[Firebreath Fishslap]

Atsuro didn't do well with stressful situations. This was why he'd always let K1 negotiate when he'd gotten into these kind of situations back when K1 was still human. He didn't have anything in his eyes to indicate a lie, which was good, because he was pretty dang tense at the moment. He relaxed as Malik did, and then tensed up again as the Egyptian teen reached for the Rod. Atsuro was so glad when Malik decided not to attack him or do something worse with the Rod.

"Yeah, this is another world..." Atsuro said. "And as for your second question, well, me and my friends know how to get back to our own world, 'cause we came here by choice, but everyone else I know has no clue how to get back to their own worlds. It's been a big problem for a lot of people."

[mugenginga]

Malik frowned as Atsuro said that. So there was no way back. All seven of the Items were needed to end the destiny. All seven of the Items and the name of the Pharaoh. So if he had the Rod here... and besides that, the area had collapsed. An odd earthquake, a cave in, a feeling that something was wrong. He couldn't stay here.

"Is it possible for your friends to help me get back? The Nameless Pharaoh you know of needs this Rod."

[Firebreath Fishslap]

"If we knew how to, I'd probably have gotten K1... er, Abel to send Yuugi and all them back to their worlds too... Oh, wait! That's right!" Atsuro smacked himself in the head. And he'd forgotten to mention that of all things. He was really off his game that day. "Yuugi and Kaiba's here too! ...Oh, and Bakura too."

He wouldn't have remembered Bakura if it weren't for the fact that he remembered K1 had said he'd attacked the guy the previous night. Atsuro chose not to bring that part up at the moment. But still, Bakura really was oddly forgetable.

[mugenginga]

Malik's eyes widened at the name Yuugi. He opened his mouth to ask about that when Atsuro had his realization. Yuugi, the teenager who bore host to the spirit of the Nameless Pharaoh. The teenager had accepted him as seperate from his dark side, but he still didn't use an honorific for him. It wasn't a case of Yuugi not using honorifics for foreigners, as his sister received a polite "-san". He understood the hatred. He, not his dark half, had tried to kill the Pharaoh by his "vessel" as a puppet. Still, they had gotten past that. Where Yuugi was, the Pharaoh would be.

And then Atsuro continued. Kaiba, of course Malik remembered him. The man had gotten involved in the quest for the Pharaoh's memories. He had played host to the Battle City tournament and was accepted by at least one of the Millenium Items and the Phantom God Obelisk. Bakura... the one who played host to yet another spirit. Both he and the spirit had used Bakura, but the teenager seemed to have no memory of the event. It was perhaps best for the white haired boy.

"Could you take me to Yuugi? If you know me as much as you claim, you know his connection to the Pharaoh."