Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ The Golden Dance ❯ 1: Time is a River ( Chapter 1 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: tsutsuji 
Jou stumbles upon an Egyptian Priest and a Tombrobber in the middle of a duel... and they're as surprised to see him as he is to see them!
Anime/Manga: Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Hentai / Drama / Adventure / Romance | Type: Yaoi | Uploaded On: 11.14.2004 | Updated On: 10.27.2006 | Pages: 2 | Words: 2.7K | Visits: 968 | Status: Work In Progress
Jou stumbles upon an Egyptian Priest and a Tombrobber in the middle of a duel... and they're as surprised to see him as he is to see them!
Anime/Manga: Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Hentai / Drama / Adventure / Romance | Type: Yaoi | Uploaded On: 11.14.2004 | Updated On: 10.27.2006 | Pages: 2 | Words: 2.7K | Visits: 968 | Status: Work In Progress
Title: The Golden Dance
Author: Tsutsuji
Fandom: Yugioh!
Type: Slash/yaoi romance
Pairings: not certain yet, but probably Seto/Jou, Bakura/Ryou, Priest Seth/Jou, possibly Priest Seth/Thief King Bakura.
Rating: PG13 for a little bit of language n' stuff. Rating will probably go up eventually.
Warnings: WIP. AU version of Ancient Egypt story.
Spoilers: Major spoilers for Ancient Egypt Arc, even though this will be an AU version of it.
Authors Notes: The idea for this comes from A_Dragon's_Lair's plot bunny adoption files... the one where Priest Seth gets dragged from the past to the present and lands pretty much on top of Jou. Except that I had to drag Thief Bakura along with him. Naturally, coming from A_Dragon's_Lair, it's meant to be Seto/Jou. But after I started it, I got hooked on Corruptshipping: Priest Seth/Thief Bakura, so this story might swing that way as well. In other words, I don't know where this is going yet, but decided to share what I've got so far anyway!
Takes place sometime after Battle City, before the Ancient Egypt memory Game, and ignores the Doom arc completely.
***
So time is a river rolling into nowhere
I will live while I can
I will have my ever after
-- Steve Winwood, "The Finer Things"
***
Chapter 1
Jounouchi was in no hurry as he strolled along on his way to the Kame Game Shop, taking his usual shortcut through deserted alleys behind a row of office buildings. As anxious as he was to pick up some new Duel Monster cards, it was too hot to be in a hurry for anything. A lot of people were grumbling about the sudden, unusual hot spell. He glanced up at the sky, hoping for signs of a coming storm to cool things off, but there were no clouds at all. He noticed that the neighborhood was unusually quiet, almost tense, as if it was waiting for something to happen. The air was still and the sky seemed unnaturally bright. It felt as if a storm should be coming, even though there was no sign of one. Jou shrugged it off and went back to his thoughts of dragon cards and dueling strategies.
A minute later he was brought out of his thoughts again by a loud bang that shook the ground, like a clap of thunder very close by. The air quivered for a moment. He glanced up; the sky was just as clear as it had been a minute ago. He looked around at brick walls and blank windows. Was that an explosion? Gunshot? There was no sign of life anywhere in sight.
Then he heard voices. Shouts of surprise or confusion, and then a roar as if from an animal. The ground shook again, this time as if something very heavy had fallen nearby. He followed the sounds to the end of thealley.
"What the hell?" he wondered aloud. He came around the corner to find the last thing he expected to see: a Duel in progress.
Two young men faced each other across a vacant lot. Over each of them hovered a huge monster. One of them was like a giant serpent, as thick as a truck, with half of its body coiled on the ground behind one of the players not far from where Jou stood. The other was more of a dragon-type beast, a slim serpent with iridescent bat-like wings. Graceful and sinuous, it swam in the air above the other player.
But they were both larger and more solid-looking than most of the holographic monsters he'd seen, even more than the best he'd seen at Battle City, aside from the all-too-real God Monsters. The air throbbed as the dragon beat its wings, and the huge, heavy coils of the other tore up the ground leaving bare earth when it passed.
"Must be new Kaiba-corp technology... yeah, that's it, I bet this is a secret test of a new Duel Disc or something." He edged closer, checking out the contestants. There was no one else in the vacant lot, no other observers, just the two duelists and their gigantic beasts.
The duelists wore something on their arms, similar to the Duel Discs he was familiar with but not like the one he'd worn at Battle City. And, Jou noticed for the first time, they both wore some kind of costumes. The one nearest him, who's face he couldn't see, wore a hooded red robe and sandals. The other had on a white robe trimmed with blue and gold, and some kind of tall hat or headgear. Suddenly Jou realized they looked like Egyptian costumes.
"That's weird. Kaiba's said a million times he doesn't buy the whole ancient-Egypt routine, so how come he's dressed his players like this? Wait a sec... isn't that Kaiba himself?"
In the few seconds that he'd been watching and thinking this, the players had been looking around wildly while their monsters hesitated above them. Neither of them had noticed him standing there near the corner of the alley. As he watched, wondering at the man who looked like Kaiba, the other man seemed to recollect himself and returned his attention to his adversary. The guy who looked like Kaiba - although he had a better tan than than he'd had last time Jou saw him - glared back at him.
"What have you done, tombrobber? What hell have you brought us to?"
The red-robed player just laughed, and his laughter sounded disturbingly familiar to Jou. But that wasn't what made shivers run down his spine. The white-robed player had spoken in a language Jou had never heard before - but he'd understood every word.
"I gotta bad Shadow-Game-feeling about this all of a sudden," he muttered. He looked up warily at the sky. It was still bright and clear as it had been.
Then a shadow fell over him, but it wasn't the murky cloud of a Shadow Game. It was thehead of the huge serpent-beast blocking the sun as it rose up and swayed in the air over its master. It's head was as large as a car, and its cavernous mouth opened with a roar. It was the same sound Jou had heard a moment before, but it was much louder this time. A gust of putrid breath almost knocked him backwards as the thing swung its long neck around. It passed almost over Jou's head, as solid and real as the wall behind him. But it paid no attention to him; its yellow eyes were locked on the other player.
"Yiy, that's no hologram! Look out!" Jou yelped, as the serpent's head shot forward to attack. Its huge fangs gleamed like broadswords.
The white-robed player didn't need his warning, if he even heard it. He raised the staff he carried in a gesture of command. Jou suddenly realized it looked like the Millennium Rod, but that was in Yugi's possession now after the end of the Battle City tournament, so how could Kaiba have it?
The dragon swooped low, sliding through the air just in front of its master with its gleaming back to the serpent. The serpent's head crashed into it and sprang back with a roar. But one of the fangs pierced the dragon just behind the wing. The dragon screamed and crashed to the ground. It tumbled halfway across the lot to land at last in a heap of smoking scales and tangled wings, and didn't move again.
"That doesn't look good," Jou said.
The white-robed Kaiba-look-alike was hunched over in pain. When he managed to raise his eyes, he looked first at his fallen beast, with anguish in his eyes. Then slowly he dragged his gaze up to look into the face of the giant serpent that swayed above him, waiting.
"You're finished, Priest," the other player cried. Again the voice sounded familiar, speaking words Jou understood in a language he didn't know.
The other stood up tall, staring his opponent in the eye. He held the rod up in front of him defiantly.
"My curse upon you, tombrobber!" he answered. "May your soul be doomed to remain in the Shadows, never resting in life or in death!"
"You're far too late to curse me, oh wise Priest Seth," the other said mockingly. "My soul became joined to the Shadows long ago! Now the darkness at my command will devour you, body and soul!"
Jou stared. Priest? Seth? He tried to remember what Yugi had mentioned about Kaiba's supposed connection with the ancient past, but he'd never caught the details. But he was sure of one thing, Kaiba hadn't bought into it at all, so if this was him playing a role, he was doing a damn good job of it. Jou stared harder at him. The fierce blue eyes looked exactly like Kaiba's, except for one thing: he'd never seen Kaiba look defeat in the face and accept it. This guy knew he was beat, and he was just waiting for the inevitable finish.
Then Jou knew in a flash that this guy wasn't just looking at defeat. He was staring straight at his own death.
The red-robed player raised his hand. Jou knew he was about to command his beast to attack to kill, and he knew he had to stop it.
"Screw Battle City rules!" he said as he dashed forward. He took a flying leap and tackled the man from behind just as he started to speak. Out of the corner of his eye, as they went down in the dirt, Jou caught the shocked look on the other player's face.
The attacking player tried to twist out from under Jou as they landed, but he was ready for that trick. He got his knee in the small of the guy's back and grabbed one arm with both hands, and yanked upward while throwing his weight down at the same time. The man gave way with a grunt of pain and frustration. Keeping a tight grip on one wrist, Jou sat forward and grabbed him by the back of the head with his other hand.
"Call off your monster," he snarled. "Or I leave your brains here in the dust. Got it?"
He didn't know if the man understood his words, but he got the message anyway.
"Hold!" he yelled, his voice muffled against the dirt. But the beast halted and withdrew a short distance, though it still eyed the other player hungrily.
The Priest-player, however, paid themonster no heed. He was staring at Jou with a look so shocked it almost made Jou laugh. Then he said something, a word that Jou didn't understand, in a tone of breathless awe.
"Yeah. Impressive, huh?" Jou said, assuming the guy was knocked speechless by his moves. "Comes of playing tackle with Tristan, and I never let him the get better of me either. Now, mind telling me who you guys are and what's going on here?"
The white-robed player came forward slowly, gazing at Jou without speaking. Getting no answer from him, Jou decided to try the guy he was sitting on for answers. He pulled the hood back off his head and leaned over to get a look at his face. To his surprise, it looked like Bakura... sort of. At least, the eyes reminded him sharply of the way Bakura's eyes looked when he was possessed by that evil spirit in the Millennium Ring. But the face was harder and older, not really the face of his classmate at all.
"Bakura? Y'know, I thought that evil laugh sounded familiar. But it can't be you. So what's the deal, is this a Shadow Game or what?"
He turned back to the other player, who was standing close by now, staring down at him. There was such a mix of emotions on his face that Jou couldn't name all of them: disbelief, hope, fear, joy, confusion, and a few other things he couldn't even pinpoint.
He said the strange word again that Jou couldn't understand. It sounded like a question this time.
"What's that you keep saying? I can understand the rest, but what's this... whatever it is you keep mentioning? I can't even say it."
A flash of pure joy on the man's face was quickly replaced by a very Kaiba-like expression of annoyance.
"You often played the fool, Jumoke, but it is not amusing now. Or have you truly forgotten your own name?"
Jou blinked. "Huh? My name? I know my name, it's Jounouchi. Pleased to meet you. I'd shake hands but I'm a little bit occupied at the moment. If you're not Seto Kaiba, and I'm guessing you're not because Kaiba wouldn't get a tan like that from sitting in front of a computer all day, plus he probably wouldn't be caught dead in a getup like that, so if you're not him, who the heck are you? If you don't mind my asking, that is."
The man with Bakura's eyes gave a growl and tried to throw him off, apparently thinking he was distracted, but Jou pushed his head down and yanked his arm up a little higher.
"We'll get back to you in a minute," he said. "Just keep that snake quiet while we finish introducing ourselves, okay?"
He looked back at the other, the one who he was beginning to be more and more certain was not Seto Kaiba after all. The man was now looking at Jou sadly. He knelt down next to Jou, searching his face in a way that was beginning to make him uncomfortable. Kaiba's usual disdainful glances looking right through him were bad enough. The same blue eyes looking into his as if searching his soul, that was even worse.
"You know the name of the evil tombrobber Bakura? The one whose evil magic brought us here... yet his evil has turned back on him, for whatever he intended, it certainly was not to bring me to the land beyond death, where I would find you again..."
Jou caught that look of hope in his eyes again, a flash of joy in that soul-searching gaze. But then sadness and doubt returned.
"But you are changed. You know me, I can see it in your eyes, but you don't remember me." He reached out tentatively toward Jou's face. Jou looked at his hand suspiciously and he paused. "Could you forget me, even in death? I am Seth, your priest and master, your friend, and once your lover..."
Jou's mouth hung open. The words alone were bizarre enough. Having them come from a guy who looked like Seto Kaiba with a tropical tan and a wacky hat, in a foreign language that he understood perfectly, put it off the weirdness scale. For a second he thought it must be a joke his friends were playing on him. But the look on the face of the guy, that was no act. And even Yugi, Honda, Mai, and his mischievous sister together couldn't come up with a joke this wacked.
So it had to be real.
"Oh man. I need Yugi for this. He's the only one who can make it all make sense."
Beneath him, the tombrobber Bakura started to laugh.
***
To be continued!
Author: Tsutsuji
Fandom: Yugioh!
Type: Slash/yaoi romance
Pairings: not certain yet, but probably Seto/Jou, Bakura/Ryou, Priest Seth/Jou, possibly Priest Seth/Thief King Bakura.
Rating: PG13 for a little bit of language n' stuff. Rating will probably go up eventually.
Warnings: WIP. AU version of Ancient Egypt story.
Spoilers: Major spoilers for Ancient Egypt Arc, even though this will be an AU version of it.
Authors Notes: The idea for this comes from A_Dragon's_Lair's plot bunny adoption files... the one where Priest Seth gets dragged from the past to the present and lands pretty much on top of Jou. Except that I had to drag Thief Bakura along with him. Naturally, coming from A_Dragon's_Lair, it's meant to be Seto/Jou. But after I started it, I got hooked on Corruptshipping: Priest Seth/Thief Bakura, so this story might swing that way as well. In other words, I don't know where this is going yet, but decided to share what I've got so far anyway!
Takes place sometime after Battle City, before the Ancient Egypt memory Game, and ignores the Doom arc completely.
***
So time is a river rolling into nowhere
I will live while I can
I will have my ever after
-- Steve Winwood, "The Finer Things"
***
Chapter 1
Jounouchi was in no hurry as he strolled along on his way to the Kame Game Shop, taking his usual shortcut through deserted alleys behind a row of office buildings. As anxious as he was to pick up some new Duel Monster cards, it was too hot to be in a hurry for anything. A lot of people were grumbling about the sudden, unusual hot spell. He glanced up at the sky, hoping for signs of a coming storm to cool things off, but there were no clouds at all. He noticed that the neighborhood was unusually quiet, almost tense, as if it was waiting for something to happen. The air was still and the sky seemed unnaturally bright. It felt as if a storm should be coming, even though there was no sign of one. Jou shrugged it off and went back to his thoughts of dragon cards and dueling strategies.
A minute later he was brought out of his thoughts again by a loud bang that shook the ground, like a clap of thunder very close by. The air quivered for a moment. He glanced up; the sky was just as clear as it had been a minute ago. He looked around at brick walls and blank windows. Was that an explosion? Gunshot? There was no sign of life anywhere in sight.
Then he heard voices. Shouts of surprise or confusion, and then a roar as if from an animal. The ground shook again, this time as if something very heavy had fallen nearby. He followed the sounds to the end of thealley.
"What the hell?" he wondered aloud. He came around the corner to find the last thing he expected to see: a Duel in progress.
Two young men faced each other across a vacant lot. Over each of them hovered a huge monster. One of them was like a giant serpent, as thick as a truck, with half of its body coiled on the ground behind one of the players not far from where Jou stood. The other was more of a dragon-type beast, a slim serpent with iridescent bat-like wings. Graceful and sinuous, it swam in the air above the other player.
But they were both larger and more solid-looking than most of the holographic monsters he'd seen, even more than the best he'd seen at Battle City, aside from the all-too-real God Monsters. The air throbbed as the dragon beat its wings, and the huge, heavy coils of the other tore up the ground leaving bare earth when it passed.
"Must be new Kaiba-corp technology... yeah, that's it, I bet this is a secret test of a new Duel Disc or something." He edged closer, checking out the contestants. There was no one else in the vacant lot, no other observers, just the two duelists and their gigantic beasts.
The duelists wore something on their arms, similar to the Duel Discs he was familiar with but not like the one he'd worn at Battle City. And, Jou noticed for the first time, they both wore some kind of costumes. The one nearest him, who's face he couldn't see, wore a hooded red robe and sandals. The other had on a white robe trimmed with blue and gold, and some kind of tall hat or headgear. Suddenly Jou realized they looked like Egyptian costumes.
"That's weird. Kaiba's said a million times he doesn't buy the whole ancient-Egypt routine, so how come he's dressed his players like this? Wait a sec... isn't that Kaiba himself?"
In the few seconds that he'd been watching and thinking this, the players had been looking around wildly while their monsters hesitated above them. Neither of them had noticed him standing there near the corner of the alley. As he watched, wondering at the man who looked like Kaiba, the other man seemed to recollect himself and returned his attention to his adversary. The guy who looked like Kaiba - although he had a better tan than than he'd had last time Jou saw him - glared back at him.
"What have you done, tombrobber? What hell have you brought us to?"
The red-robed player just laughed, and his laughter sounded disturbingly familiar to Jou. But that wasn't what made shivers run down his spine. The white-robed player had spoken in a language Jou had never heard before - but he'd understood every word.
"I gotta bad Shadow-Game-feeling about this all of a sudden," he muttered. He looked up warily at the sky. It was still bright and clear as it had been.
Then a shadow fell over him, but it wasn't the murky cloud of a Shadow Game. It was thehead of the huge serpent-beast blocking the sun as it rose up and swayed in the air over its master. It's head was as large as a car, and its cavernous mouth opened with a roar. It was the same sound Jou had heard a moment before, but it was much louder this time. A gust of putrid breath almost knocked him backwards as the thing swung its long neck around. It passed almost over Jou's head, as solid and real as the wall behind him. But it paid no attention to him; its yellow eyes were locked on the other player.
"Yiy, that's no hologram! Look out!" Jou yelped, as the serpent's head shot forward to attack. Its huge fangs gleamed like broadswords.
The white-robed player didn't need his warning, if he even heard it. He raised the staff he carried in a gesture of command. Jou suddenly realized it looked like the Millennium Rod, but that was in Yugi's possession now after the end of the Battle City tournament, so how could Kaiba have it?
The dragon swooped low, sliding through the air just in front of its master with its gleaming back to the serpent. The serpent's head crashed into it and sprang back with a roar. But one of the fangs pierced the dragon just behind the wing. The dragon screamed and crashed to the ground. It tumbled halfway across the lot to land at last in a heap of smoking scales and tangled wings, and didn't move again.
"That doesn't look good," Jou said.
The white-robed Kaiba-look-alike was hunched over in pain. When he managed to raise his eyes, he looked first at his fallen beast, with anguish in his eyes. Then slowly he dragged his gaze up to look into the face of the giant serpent that swayed above him, waiting.
"You're finished, Priest," the other player cried. Again the voice sounded familiar, speaking words Jou understood in a language he didn't know.
The other stood up tall, staring his opponent in the eye. He held the rod up in front of him defiantly.
"My curse upon you, tombrobber!" he answered. "May your soul be doomed to remain in the Shadows, never resting in life or in death!"
"You're far too late to curse me, oh wise Priest Seth," the other said mockingly. "My soul became joined to the Shadows long ago! Now the darkness at my command will devour you, body and soul!"
Jou stared. Priest? Seth? He tried to remember what Yugi had mentioned about Kaiba's supposed connection with the ancient past, but he'd never caught the details. But he was sure of one thing, Kaiba hadn't bought into it at all, so if this was him playing a role, he was doing a damn good job of it. Jou stared harder at him. The fierce blue eyes looked exactly like Kaiba's, except for one thing: he'd never seen Kaiba look defeat in the face and accept it. This guy knew he was beat, and he was just waiting for the inevitable finish.
Then Jou knew in a flash that this guy wasn't just looking at defeat. He was staring straight at his own death.
The red-robed player raised his hand. Jou knew he was about to command his beast to attack to kill, and he knew he had to stop it.
"Screw Battle City rules!" he said as he dashed forward. He took a flying leap and tackled the man from behind just as he started to speak. Out of the corner of his eye, as they went down in the dirt, Jou caught the shocked look on the other player's face.
The attacking player tried to twist out from under Jou as they landed, but he was ready for that trick. He got his knee in the small of the guy's back and grabbed one arm with both hands, and yanked upward while throwing his weight down at the same time. The man gave way with a grunt of pain and frustration. Keeping a tight grip on one wrist, Jou sat forward and grabbed him by the back of the head with his other hand.
"Call off your monster," he snarled. "Or I leave your brains here in the dust. Got it?"
He didn't know if the man understood his words, but he got the message anyway.
"Hold!" he yelled, his voice muffled against the dirt. But the beast halted and withdrew a short distance, though it still eyed the other player hungrily.
The Priest-player, however, paid themonster no heed. He was staring at Jou with a look so shocked it almost made Jou laugh. Then he said something, a word that Jou didn't understand, in a tone of breathless awe.
"Yeah. Impressive, huh?" Jou said, assuming the guy was knocked speechless by his moves. "Comes of playing tackle with Tristan, and I never let him the get better of me either. Now, mind telling me who you guys are and what's going on here?"
The white-robed player came forward slowly, gazing at Jou without speaking. Getting no answer from him, Jou decided to try the guy he was sitting on for answers. He pulled the hood back off his head and leaned over to get a look at his face. To his surprise, it looked like Bakura... sort of. At least, the eyes reminded him sharply of the way Bakura's eyes looked when he was possessed by that evil spirit in the Millennium Ring. But the face was harder and older, not really the face of his classmate at all.
"Bakura? Y'know, I thought that evil laugh sounded familiar. But it can't be you. So what's the deal, is this a Shadow Game or what?"
He turned back to the other player, who was standing close by now, staring down at him. There was such a mix of emotions on his face that Jou couldn't name all of them: disbelief, hope, fear, joy, confusion, and a few other things he couldn't even pinpoint.
He said the strange word again that Jou couldn't understand. It sounded like a question this time.
"What's that you keep saying? I can understand the rest, but what's this... whatever it is you keep mentioning? I can't even say it."
A flash of pure joy on the man's face was quickly replaced by a very Kaiba-like expression of annoyance.
"You often played the fool, Jumoke, but it is not amusing now. Or have you truly forgotten your own name?"
Jou blinked. "Huh? My name? I know my name, it's Jounouchi. Pleased to meet you. I'd shake hands but I'm a little bit occupied at the moment. If you're not Seto Kaiba, and I'm guessing you're not because Kaiba wouldn't get a tan like that from sitting in front of a computer all day, plus he probably wouldn't be caught dead in a getup like that, so if you're not him, who the heck are you? If you don't mind my asking, that is."
The man with Bakura's eyes gave a growl and tried to throw him off, apparently thinking he was distracted, but Jou pushed his head down and yanked his arm up a little higher.
"We'll get back to you in a minute," he said. "Just keep that snake quiet while we finish introducing ourselves, okay?"
He looked back at the other, the one who he was beginning to be more and more certain was not Seto Kaiba after all. The man was now looking at Jou sadly. He knelt down next to Jou, searching his face in a way that was beginning to make him uncomfortable. Kaiba's usual disdainful glances looking right through him were bad enough. The same blue eyes looking into his as if searching his soul, that was even worse.
"You know the name of the evil tombrobber Bakura? The one whose evil magic brought us here... yet his evil has turned back on him, for whatever he intended, it certainly was not to bring me to the land beyond death, where I would find you again..."
Jou caught that look of hope in his eyes again, a flash of joy in that soul-searching gaze. But then sadness and doubt returned.
"But you are changed. You know me, I can see it in your eyes, but you don't remember me." He reached out tentatively toward Jou's face. Jou looked at his hand suspiciously and he paused. "Could you forget me, even in death? I am Seth, your priest and master, your friend, and once your lover..."
Jou's mouth hung open. The words alone were bizarre enough. Having them come from a guy who looked like Seto Kaiba with a tropical tan and a wacky hat, in a foreign language that he understood perfectly, put it off the weirdness scale. For a second he thought it must be a joke his friends were playing on him. But the look on the face of the guy, that was no act. And even Yugi, Honda, Mai, and his mischievous sister together couldn't come up with a joke this wacked.
So it had to be real.
"Oh man. I need Yugi for this. He's the only one who can make it all make sense."
Beneath him, the tombrobber Bakura started to laugh.
***
To be continued!