Fate by Any Other Name... (Rei no Kaado)

[Firebreath Fishslap]

Abel looked even more concerned as Seth finally stopped chuckling. A moment of uncomfortable silence passed, and the silence was shattered by the reemergence of that maddening chuckling. At this point, Abel put his hands on Seth's shoulders and started shaking him lightly, trying to snap him out of whatever he'd fallen into. Even Uzume appeared to be concerned, even with that fan covering half her face.

"...It looks like the prince snapped," Uzume said. Had the realization that everything was really predestined after all been that damaging to his psyche?

"Keiji! Come on, snap out of it..." Abel said softly. Atsuro was watching the situation carefully, but with the distance he was from Cain and the others, he didn't quite realize what Cain was moving to do. Abel took his hands off Seth's shoulders and took a step away as Cain approached, and immediately regretted it as Cain slapped Seth. Abel was staring at Cain with wide eyes and he seemed to be glancing back and forth between Seth and Cain as Cain spoke.

Atsuro reacted before Abel could. "Why the hell did you tell him to jump off the hotel?! Are you mental!?"

Abel pushed Atsuro out of the way with a bit more force than he intended to, and then he grabbed Cain by his shirt collar.

"There was absolutely no reason for that!" Abel snarled. "And you told him to jump off the top of the hotel!? Whether we like it or not, we're all stuck in this situation together, and Keiji killing himself isn't going to help things any! So don't let me even hear you suggest that again!"

There was a distinct behavioral difference there. Even with it being the New Moon (or not, since the day had switched over), Abel would have still gone straight to the more violent option. But here, he wasn't really injuring Cain (though he had pushed Atsuro rather hard).

[mugenginga]

Really, the height difference made it almost comical. If Abel hadn't had rather human levels of fire in his eyes, it might have been. In fact, it might have been if you just saw Cain's expression. The lunatic was smiling. He reached up with his hands and grabbed Abel's wrists. The position of his hands seemed a bit funny, or at least would until Abel's hands spasmed, the grip on Cain's collar releasing. It was entirely likely Abel was getting ready to retaliate, but it was then that Seth began to push himself up.

"Abel, stop..." Seth said, likely drawing all eyes to him. He drew in a deep breath and managed to get into a kneeling position. He looked up at Abel, "Please. He didn't tell me to kill myself, he just listed the options," And then he looked away and down, "If I can't get things under control, I'll just drag the group down. I'm sorry."

Kaido opened his mouth, but expressed a rare moment of sanity and closed it. Cain had a point, and Seth had seemed to get it. No matter how 'useless' Abel claimed he was, at least he wasn't an emotional basketcase. Definently smart not to say any of that. He looked back towards Abel and waited for the man's response.

[Firebreath Fishslap]

Abel turned as Seth spoke, and again, there was another very human emotion on his face. Regret. He stepped away from Cain and bowed his head so that his hair covered his eyes. "It's okay, Seth..."

Atsuro had been worried for a moment there. Especially once Cain forced Abel to let go. It had looked like Abel was going to start beating the crap out of Cain for a moment there, but Seth's intervention had stopped him. He gave a breath of relief as most of the tension dropped, though Seth's statement had been more than a bit worrying.

Abel continued looking down for a few moments before looking back at Cain. "Nyarlathotep didn't come back here tonight, did he."

[mugenginga]

Cain, for about a quarter of a second, had a rare expression. He seemed... surprised? It was gone just as fast, and really about the only one who could have seen it was Abel. For just half a moment, Cain had almost missed a few key facts. In any case, he crossed his arms and with his thoughts in order managed to make a characteristic leap.

"With desertion, we won't be finished with him. He has always held a suspicous level of interest in Souji and Minato," Cain stopped to think, and smirked, "Worth note. Both of them can summon different types of Persona. I believe they're the only two in that group capable of such a feat."

"That sonuvabitch deserted!? Tch, you don't need cowards like him anyhow."

"I'm concerned if Enjin finds him," Seth said. It was pretty lucid for how broken he'd just been. And of course, neither Atsuro or Kaido would have a single clue who the hell 'Enjin' was.

[Firebreath Fishslap]

Atsuro looked alarmed as Cain made his leap. Nyarlathotep had deserted, which wasn't good at all. As Seth mentioned Enjin, Atsuro looked confused for about a second until he remembered that Cain had said the satori who had attacked them while he was out had been called Hiizumi Enjin.

"That's not the half of it," Abel said. "I think he deserted us for Lucifer." He pulled his COMP out of his pocket and opened it up, taking it out of sleep mode. He pressed a couple buttons, going out of the second mail he had received from Atem and going into the first. He held the COMP out to Cain so that he could see the mail.

"Apparently, Nyarlathotep attacked Minato today in the TV World. After I got this mail, I went to go confront him, but Lucifer interrupted, and told Nyarlathotep to go see him later," Abel said. "I got another mail from Atem later. Apparently, Lucius attacked Adachi, his servant while there. I don't know the specifics."

He looked a little pained as he went on. "The other part of Atem's mail was requesting our aid in rescuing Bakura from the TV World. It's supposed to rain tomorrow, and Teddie's indisposed." He motioned toward Uzume. "I'm going to send Uzume to help them out."

Atsuro blinked. He would have thought Abel would have ignored their request, not honored it...

[mugenginga]

Cain looked at Abel with narrow eyes as he mentioned that Nyarlathotep may not have just deserted, but switched sides altogether. The Lucifer his older little brother had shown ground to was developing a pattern Cain wasn't amused with. One he had seen coming with how Abel had shown weakness on that first meeting, but one he didn't like. He's yet to meet that Lucifer, and while his brother's observational skills were phenomenal for the one (now two) lifetimes he had memories of, he was not one to rely on descriptions. He had to mee the man.

The silver haired man looked down at the mail Abel was showing him, taking the COMP from his brother's hand to read his. His first reaction was almost a darkly amused laugh, with the air escaping just a bit but not quite reaching chuckle. So the former Pharaoh had decided to go diplomatic, had he? He actually did chuckle at the bottom line. He was paying attention to the conversation and filing away every word, but it was clear the mail amused him.

"I have no objections to fostering non-hostile relations with such a well-spoken diplomat," Cain's voice reeked of sarcasm as he closed the COMP. It was back to being level with immense amusement hidden beneath the surface as he spoke, "However, we should keep an advantage. Atsuro. Among us you have the greatest knowledge of Atem and those from his world. Now would be a good time to share those details."

[Firebreath Fishslap]

Abel took the COMP back from Cain once he finished reading the mail. He pocketed the COMP as Cain turned to Atsuro and asked him for all the info he had.

"Uh.... alright, I guess," Atsuro said. "As far as I know, the only people from Yuugi's world here are Yuugi himself, Atem, Kaiba, Bakura, Malik, and... Thief King Bakura. You know him as Anpu. Back in ancient Egypt, Atem was a Pharaoh, which I guess you already knew, but what he ended up doing was sacrificing himself to seal this really powerful demon called Zorc in the Millennium Ring and seal himself in the Millennium Puzzle. Since Yuugi looks kind of like Atem did back then, I think Yuugi's Atem's reincarnation... somehow. I don't really get it either. Kaiba and Bakura both had past lives back during this time, too. Kaiba's was this priest named Set, and Bakura's was this thief. They just called him Thief King Bakura. He was the only survivor of the massacre of this town of thieves. The people in the town were sacrificed and basically their entire bodies were melted in with the gold that made the items."

Abel grimaced at the sound of that scene. That certainly explained why the Millennium Items he'd seen so far felt so demonic. There were people's body parts melted in with them. Once again, Abel had to wonder why Atsuro could say that with a straight face like he always did.

"Anyways, Yuugi got the puzzle from his grandfather, who was the one who found it in the first place, and ended up spending eight years working on it. And after he finally finished it, Atem started taking over his body at times to punish anyone who 'trespassed in his friends' souls...' I'm not really sure what that means, but it was basically anyone who was being a jerk to Yuugi," Atsuro continued.

...Must have been a lot of people, Abel commented to himself. For them to have made a whole anime about it.

[mugenginga]

Seth was remaining rather quiet. He was holding the back of his head now. There was a slight bump there. Whenever Abel seemed to turn attention his way, he'd drop it to the back of his neck. Cain didn't need to get in more trouble than he already had for something that had needed to be done. He grimaced the same way Abel had as Atsuro spoke. He didn't know Yuugi and Atem very well, but... It seemed odd Atem would have such a negative view of Abel with a situation like that.

"....I seem to remember the term Shadow Games. Was it those things?" Seth closed his eyes and held his free hand to his temple, "Uh.. they were these things that sent people to the Shadow Realm if I recall right. I never really watched much, but I think it was some kind of limbo?"

Kaido seemed impressed by the first part of the conversation, but said nothing. He'd looked around after Seth had spoken and finally leaned against the wall. Cain was saying nothing, but it was clear he was listening.

[Firebreath Fishslap]

Atsuro had an odd expression on his face as Seth spoke.

"Shaadou.... Reimiru?" Atsuro asked. He thought about that for a moment before hitting a realization. "Oh! That must be from the English dub! I remember someone using that term on the Abridged Series! From the sound of things it was used as an excuse for a lot of things... like these buzzsaws would just send you to the 'Shadow Realm' or something like that. And I guess those 'Shadow Games' were what the dub called the Dark Games.

"Anyways, so later on, Yuugi meets Kaiba, and Kaiba steals Yuugi's Blue Eyes White Dragon card. Atem ends up taking over and beating Kaiba in a Dark Game Duel Monsters match, and punishes him by sealing him in a Duel Monsters card and making him experience death over and over again at the hands of other Duel Monsters," Atsuro continued. "Because of this, Kaiba gets obsessed with revenge against Yuugi, and eventually forces him into this thing called Death-T. Basically this big theme park dedicated to getting Yuugi killed."

Abel looked rather alarmed at that. "Wait, so Kaiba made a theme park to try to kill Yuugi... because he lost a card game? Are you kidding me?!" And he'd heard Yuugi talk about Kaiba before, too. He still called him "Kaiba-kun." Abel felt like facepalming. He really had to hope Yuugi wasn't really that easily forgiving.

"I'm completely serious. But thanks to the help of Yuugi's friends, he makes it through Death-T. But after the third stage, one of Yuugi's friends, Honda Hiroto, gets trapped and everyone thinks he's been killed, and after Yuugi only barely manages to keep Atem from taking over and most likely killing Kaiba too. After that he tells everyone about how he thinks that there's 'another him' inside of him that takes over his body sometimes," Atsuro continued. "Jounouchi and Anzu, his other two friends, accept him still besides this, and he runs off to fight Kaiba's brother, Mokuba. Well, it was really Atem who fought him, at Capmon Chess."

"Capmon?" Abel asked. He could tell that was short for something, though he wasn't sure what the "cap" part was.

"Capsule Monsters," Atsuro explained.

[mugenginga]

Seth shook his head, a fairly blank look on his face. He hadn't really watched much of it. In general he'd really been more into sports and things. The teenager's eyes did widen as Atsuro began to describe Death-T. Okay, he didn't know anything about that, but it sounded insane. Cain's smirk was unreadable, and Kaido had let out a low whistle over the description of Death-T.

"I only know about the card game. It was too much a pain to collect the cards."

"You teased a lunatic like that? You've either got balls or are a complete idiot," Kaido stated.

"Continue," Cain stated.

[Firebreath Fishslap]

Atsuro didn't visually react to Kaido's comment, though he had to admit he had a point. That had been a pretty stupid move. Of course, he wasn't going to say this out loud. Especially not considering his current company.

"Anyways, so Atem beats Mokuba, but what ends up happening is Kaiba uses this virtual reality box to cause Mokuba to endure the same Penalty Game Atem did to him. Atem saved Mokuba, and Mokuba explained that Kaiba was only like this because he got Gozaburo Kaiba to adopt them by cheating in a chess game, and then Gozaburo pretty much literally whipped him into shape so that he'd be his perfect heir. After that, Atem went to have another duel with Kaiba, while Mokuba went to free Honda from the trap, though the others don't know this until Honda shows up later and beats the crap out of Kaiba's bodyguards," Atsuro continued. "After beating Kaiba, Atem then destroys the dark part of Kaiba's soul, which pretty much sends him into a coma for a few months.

"After that, Bakura showed up for the first time, and it ends up turning out that Bakura had this pendant called the Millennium Ring, and it had a spirit in it too. That spirit, Yami no Bakura, basically what happens is he caused all of Bakura's friends to go into comas when they'd play this tabletop RPG called Monster World with him. So Yuugi and his friends all go over to Bakura's apartment to play Monster World with him, and Yami no Bakura takes over Bakura's body so he could trap their souls into little lead miniatures and then take Yuugi's Puzzle," Atsuro continued.

Atsuro... is definitely an otaku, Abel groaned to himself. "Atsuro, can we speed this up a bit?"

Atsuro groaned. "Oh, alright. Basically, Atem ends up taking over Yuugi's body after everyone else gets sealed in the minatures, and with Bakura's help, they manage to defeat Yami no Bakura, though Bakura sacrificed himself for what wouldn't be the first time to do it. Basically, he sealed his soul in these dice and then made them fall apart on Yami no Bakura's final roll. They manage to bring him back, though."

[mugenginga]

Seth looked pretty stunned by this point. It was an odd feeling, wishing you'd watched more of an anime for a case like this. He looked towards Abel and saw his twin was beginning to nod off. He looked towards Cain. Okay, he could tell Cain was aware of it but more focused on the information at hand. The Prince refocused on Atsuro as he spoke, but turned to Abel as soon as there was another pause.

"Abel, I can stay up and listen if you want. Cain can too, so if you need to go to bed you can. You were up during the Dark Hour, after all..."

Cain smirked, "Of course that means you would have to receive the information second hand, and Seth doesn't seem in much better condition than you."

The implication would be obvious to Abel with how well he knew his older brother. Cain had never been one to run around saying anything but what he felt absolutely needed to be. That would mean Atsuro would have to tell the story again if he wanted a straight answer. Seth frowned and gave a momentary glare at Cain.

[Firebreath Fishslap]

Abel looked up as Seth told him he could go to bed. He smiled and waved it off. "I'm fine, I'm fine... Wouldn't want to receive any second-hand information, after all," he said with a smirk as he looked toward Cain.

Atsuro raised an eyebrow, and then continued on. Abel really looked tired, but there was a bit of boredom mixed in there. Still, he figured he'd better speed things up a bit. Wasn't like it was easy to summarize over 200 episodes of an anime in fifteen minutes. "Alright, so after that, Yuugi gets sent this tape by this guy called Pegasus J. Crawford, who basically made Duel Monsters. Pegasus duels Yuugi through the tape, and it turns out to be a Dark Game, so Atem takes over. Thing is, Atem just barely loses, due to this time limit Pegasus puts up, and Yuugi's grandfather's soul gets stolen. This all turns out to be a plot to get Yuugi to join his Duelist Kingdom tournament on this island out in the middle of the ocean so he could defeat Yuugi and take his puzzle. Jounouchi comes too, because he wants to prize money to help his sister, Shizuka, because she needs an eye operation. Anzu, Bakura, and Honda all sneak into the tournament too, even though they aren't Duelists.

"Once there, Yuugi, well, really Atem, start going around defeating other Duelists, starting with Insector Haga, who threw his trump cards, Exodia, overboard on the trip to Duelist Kingdom. Jounouchi defeated some duelists too, and in the anime, Yuugi and his friends all end up having a nasty experience with Yami no Bakura regarding their favorite cards and becoming them and something like that. And Bakura tries to sacrifice himself again," Atsuro finished up.

"...I have a feeling this might become a common theme," Abel said, putting a hand on his head as he did so. It was almost a facepalm.

"Eventually, Yuugi makes it up to the castle, but Kaiba's there waiting for him. You see, Mokuba had been kidnapped (this happens a lot too) during I2's attempt to take over Kaiba's company, and Kaiba had come to Duelist Kingdom to get him back. What ends up happening is Pegasus takes Mokuba's soul too, and won't put it back until Kaiba can defeat Pegasus in a duel, which Pegasus won't do until Kaiba can defeat Yuugi in a duel," Atsuro continued.

[mugenginga]

Seth had returned Abel's grin with a forced smile, but he seemed to know the coming reaction as he'd turned to Cain. Phoenix had settled down on the floor and tucked her head into her plummage to sleep. Flauros was still standing. The group seemed to be waiting for Atsuro to continue.

"Tch, if he's that eager to go matyr they should just let him."

Overall though, the group seemed to be waiting for things to continue.

[Firebreath Fishslap]

(OOC: Amazing tiem skip tiem because I think we can all agree summarizing a long anime like Yugioh is boring for everyone involved.
So, uh... apologies to anyone who really wanted to read Atsuro summarize the entire YGO series.)

About fifteen minutes later, Atsuro was finally getting to the Battle City arc. Uzume was in a pretty deep sleep, and Abel had actually nodded off for a second there himself before shaking himself awake.

"...So Malik was born into this family of tomb guardians who had guarded Atem's tomb for centuries, but the thing was, he wasn't allowed to leave the tomb at all, and not only that, but as the eldest son, he had to have these hieroglyphs relating to Atem's memories carved into his back and specially treated so that they'd stay pretty much... well, forever," Atsuro said.

"...What do you mean by that?" Abel inquired.

"...Basically, they were carved with a hot knife and kept open so that they'd scar just right," Atsuro said with the same tone as he'd said all of his previous sentences. Abel paled, and couldn't help glancing at Seth. It wasn't the same deal at all, not even close, but he still couldn't help but think of how horribly Seth had been scarred over memories.