Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh or anything you recognize from the anime/manga.
A/N: New story time! Ok, so, I'm pretty sure by now everyone knows that I adore stories where the yamis return. It's either that or pretend they never left in the first place. Since I haven't done a canon-based story for a while, I figured it might be nice to gather a couple of other clichés up and have some fun. I came up with an idea for a villain and decided to wing it. I hope you all like it!

The night that everything changed, Yuugi fell asleep thinking about the pharaoh. This was notable only because he rarely allowed himself to think about Yami, since he knew that if he dwelled on what he'd lost for too long he would never stop. But in this case Yuugi had a new teacher at school, one that took an excessive amount of delight in creating the hardest tests that he could think of and then grading them with the sole goal of taking as many points away as possible, and he couldn't help thinking about what it would be like if Yami had been there to teach his teacher a lesson about playing fair.

As it turned out he didn't sleep very well that night, and he woke up the next morning with the feeling that he'd dreamt of important things he couldn't remember. That bothered him, and he went through his morning routine of getting ready much more slowly than usual. The harder he tried to remember, the further away the images of his dreams slipped. He thought he might have dreamt of Yami - he did that sometimes, because there was no way to control the subconscious - but he also thought that his dreams hadn't been happy ones, and that was troubling.

"Jii-chan," he called out as he went down the stairs. "Did you ever wake up and - oh." Yuugi cut himself off abruptly, surprised to see that both Sugoroku and Jou were waiting at the table for him. It was unusual for Jou to be there that early - normally they met on the way to the school with Jou still half asleep - and Yuugi blinked at him for several seconds before smiling in welcome. "Hey, Jou. I didn't know you were going to be joining us for breakfast. I haven't seen you up this early for a long time."

"I was just around," Jou said with a shrug. The plate in front of him was covered with syrup and the remnants of pancakes, but that didn't stop Sugoroku from putting a few more on his plate as he walked by. Jou beamed and reached for the syrup, pouring on enough that his pancakes pretty much disappeared.

"Sit down, Yuugi," said Sugoroku, piling three pancakes onto another plate and setting them down on the table. "We need to talk."

That sounded a little ominous, but Yuugi kept his smile in place as he obediently sat down. He glanced around the kitchen while he waited for Jou to be done with the syrup. Something about the cheerful little room was off, but he couldn't put his finger on what it was. Nothing seemed to be out of place, and yet something was. "What about, Jii-chan?" he asked finally, accepting the noticeably emptier bottle of syrup from Jou.

"You know what. It needs to stop."

Yuugi paused. He'd gotten a small dollop of syrup on his finger, and he popped it into his mouth while he studied his grandfather's serious expression. He cast his mind back, trying to come up with something that his grandfather might be angry enough to be referring to. He couldn't remember doing anything that Sugoroku might've been opposed to, but that didn't mean he hadn't done something before and Sugoroku was only just finding out about it. He'd broken a lot of rules while Yami was with him.

"Your grandfather's right, Yuugi," Jou said when the silence continued to stretch. "I mean, you're starting to attract a lot of negative attention. I heard some of the kids talking at school yesterday after you left." He shook his head hard and forked several pieces of pancake into his mouth, mumbling, "The things they were saying weren't good, man."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Yuugi said.

Sugoroku and Jou exchanged glances. "We're talking about this fantasy you have of a pharaoh," Sugoroku said gently. "And those - what did you call them? Millennium Items? I know that it's fun to think about what might happen if magic existed, but Yuugi, enough is enough. It's getting to the point where I'm seriously concerned about you and your ability to distinguish flights of fancy from reality. You have to realize that it isn't real. More to the point, you have to stop trying to convince others that it is. One of your teachers called me last night. Apparently you had some kind of breakdown in the middle of class?"

"What." Yuugi stared at his grandfather, stunned. He didn't know what to address first.

"I feel like part of this is my fault, Yuugi. Maybe I shouldn't have told you so many stories about Egypt when you were younger. If I'd known that you were going to take them so seriously..." Sugoroku trailed off and shook his head. He looked disappointed.

"But Jii-chan, the Millennium Items are real." How could his grandfather have forgotten? He'd been the one who'd given Yuugi the Puzzle in the first place! He turned to look at Jou, hoping for support. "And Jou, come on. You know that the pharaoh was real, too. You were there when I fought the final duel with him. We watched him walk into the afterlife together!"

But Jou was shaking his head again, and he wore that little frown he always got when he was genuinely confused about something. "Yuugi, that's not... I don't know where you came up with this. You keep saying all these weird things and I really don't know what they mean or why you're saying them."

"That's funny, because I was going to say the same thing," Yuugi said shakily. He pushed his breakfast away, suddenly not feeling very hungry. "I didn't have a breakdown in class. And the Millennium Items were real. Yami was real." He couldn't help the fact that he was starting to get upset, even though he could see that his reaction was distressing his grandfather. After everything they'd been through, he couldn't believe that two of the (living) people he cared about the most were sitting here having this conversation. "If this is a joke, I want you tell me right now. Because I don't find it very funny."

"Yuugi..." Sugoroku sighed and rubbed his forehead. He glanced over at Jou again, who gave a minute shake of the head, and said, "Just please. From now on, keep your fantasies to yourself. Your mom and I have been talking, and... Please. Okay?"

Yuugi didn't say anything, couldn't say anything, just stood up and walked out of the room. His backpack was lying by the back door, just where it always was, and he leaned down to grab it on his way past. He knew that Jou was following behind him as he walked out the door, but he was just as grateful that Jou didn't say anything else. His heart was beating fast, and he knew that anything that came out of his mouth when he was feeling this way was not going to be polite or friendly.

They were almost to school before it finally struck him what was missing from the kitchen: the picture of Yami, Jou and Anzu that had always hung on the refrigerator.

RMA

The sound of his alarm going off woke Ryou up from a deep sleep. One hand slowly emerged from underneath the covers and traveled across the mattress, slapping randomly at the nightstand until he made contact with the annoying clock. As the blissful silence reigned, Ryou pushed the sheets back and sat up. He rubbed his eyes and sighed, grateful for the fact that it was a Friday. All he had to do was get through one more day, including a huge test, and then he'd be free for the weekend. The thought of spending a day at the arcade with Yuugi and Jou, and maybe Anzu and Honda, was enough to bring a sleepy smile to his face as he dropped his hands into his lap.

At the sight of his room, Ryou paused. He blinked and looked around, then rubbed his eyes again as though that would make what he was seeing change. It didn't. He was still staring at blue walls decorated liberally with Monster World posters and memorabilia, including a custom-made game board set up on a table in the corner of his room. His desk was disorganized, covered with piles of schoolwork and a diorama of the planets that he had no memory of building. In disbelief, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up. The feeling of carpet under his feet instead of smooth, cold floor made him flinch. This was wrong. It was all so wrong. He strode over to the window and seized the curtain, yanking it aside.

"Oh my god," he whispered, leaning against the wall as his knees buckled. The view outside was not the one he had grown accustomed to. Instead of the Domino harbor with the boats leaving for the day, he was looking at an apartment building. Specifically, into a very familiar bedroom that he had not seen for almost two years. Ryou stared dumbly, and, when a familiar face appeared, he jolted backwards and dropped the curtain.

"Ryou-kun! Oi, Ryou-kun, I know you saw me. Did you get your part of the project finished?"

His hand was shaking when he reached out and pulled the curtain back again. "Chouko-chan?" he asked tentatively.

Chouko rolled her eyes. "Of course it's me. God, Ryou-kun, we've been living across from each other for the past three years!" she shouted. "If this is your way of telling me that you don't have the diorama done, I'm going to kill you."

"No, I -" Ryou checked over his shoulder, looking at the diorama on the desk. As far as he could tell, it seemed to be finished. "I'm done."

"Good. Hurry up and get dressed, idiot. We're supposed to be meeting Jirou-kun before school, remember?" Chouko waved her hand at him before she turned and left her room, shutting the door behind her.

Ryou stared at the spot where she'd been for almost a full two minutes before he moved, letting the curtain fall back into place. His lungs felt tight, like he wasn't really getting enough air. He hadn't seen Maki Chouko for a long time, even though she had been one of his best friends before he'd moved to Domino. He had several fond memories of playing Monster World with her and their other friends, of eating dinner at her family's apartment, of walking to school together in the morning. He'd even had a crush on her, and for a while he'd thought that Chouko might have felt the same way. But all that had changed when he got the Millennium Ring as a gift from his father.

Now Ryou knew that Bakura had been the one behind all of the strange disappearances, but at the time it had been both bewildering and frightening. He hadn't made the connection at first, but it hadn't take him long to realize that everyone he associated himself with went missing. The police had picked up on it, too. They'd questioned him several times, but because Ryou literally had nothing to give them in terms of information they'd left him alone in the end - even though several of them believed he was hiding something. Chouko had been one of the first who went missing, and after rumors spread that Ryou had something to do with it he wasn't welcomed back at the Maki apartment anymore. Even after Bakura had the Monster World game that resulted in everyone being set free, Ryou hadn't tried to contact his old friends.

So what was he doing here, in his old apartment with his old friends? Why wasn't he in Domino? "Did I somehow travel through time?" he asked out loud. The idea was enough to make him shudder. He couldn't go through that again: the whispers, the anger, the loneliness. He couldn't. He turned, hurrying over to his desk, and seized a calendar. But much to his surprise, the date was right. It was just the location that was all wrong.

"What the hell...?" He dropped the calendar and sat back down on his bed, trying to make sense of it all. There had to be something he was missing, but what? How could he explain going to sleep in Domino City and waking up back where he used to live, almost a hundred miles away? There was no logical explanation for that.

Which left one possibility. Ryou swore under his breath. Magic. He scrubbed his hands over his face and got up. It was Friday, which meant Yuugi and the others would be in school. But if he took the train he could be there by lunch. He got dressed, ran a brush through his hair, and took his wallet and the diorama. Chouko was waiting downstairs for him. She smiled when he came out, and Ryou stopped short. That smile used to make his stomach itch with butterflies, but it didn't anymore. Too much had happened and he didn't know how to deal with that.

"About time," Chouko said. She stepped closer to him and frowned when he failed to smile back. "Ryou-kun, you alright?"

"Do you remember when you went missing?" Ryou asked abruptly.

"Do I - what?" Chouko stared at him. "I never went missing. What's wrong with you?"

Ryou exhaled and nodded. "Here," he said, thrusting the diorama into her hands. He took off, ignoring her calling after him. He needed to talk to Yuugi in person.

RMA

"Malik. Malik, wake up."

"Oh, go away," Malik mumbled, rolling over onto his stomach. He'd had a late night with his schoolwork and he wanted to get a few more minutes of sleep. He tried to bury his face into his pillow, but it was rudely yanked away a moment later. He huffed and looked up, glaring at his older sister. She just smirked at him and lightly smacked the pillow against the back of his head.

"Get up," she said. "You'll be late." She tossed the pillow down on the end of the bed and walked out. Malik sighed and considered staying right where he was, but he knew Isis well enough to know that she would be back in the next ten minutes if he did. And this time she would probably have a bucket of water with her, ready to be dumped over his head. As much as he wanted to go back to sleep, he wasn't sure the extra ten minutes would be worth having to deal with soggy sheets.

The tantalizing smell of breakfast ultimately made his decision for him, and he rolled out of bed and grabbed for the closest pair of jeans. He yawned widely as he left his room and made his way down the stairs to the kitchen. Isis was standing at the counter, poking at something in the frying pan while she watched some kind of morning show. Malik looked at her for a moment before he glanced around the room, realizing suddenly that it looked nothing like the small apartment they had been staying in last night. For that matter, since when did their apartment have stairs?

"Hey, Nee-san," he said, scratching his head. "Did you and Nii-san decide that we needed to move in the middle of the night? Why didn't you wake me up?"

Isis turned around and stared at him. "What did you call me?"

"Nee-san," Malik repeated slowly, giving her a weird look. Now that they were living in Egypt again, he, Rishid and Isis didn't usually speak much Japanese. Generally it was reserved strictly for those occasions when they needed to discuss something private in a public area. But this was the one habit Malik had never been able to break, if only because it allowed him to regularly acknowledge them both as his siblings. Isis had never minded before.

"Do I even want to know what that means?" Isis asked, rolling her eyes. "Or is it some stupid little nickname that you and your dumb friends came up with?"

"No, it means..." Malik trailed off, realizing that she was no longer listening. She'd gone back to the pan and pointedly turned up the volume on the small television that had been placed on the counter. He stood there for a moment longer, but when it became clear that she wasn't planning to pay any more attention to him he backed out of the room and left her to it.

That... had been weird. Isis had never acted like that towards him before. And why would she pretend that she didn't know what "Nee-san" meant? Malik frowned and went back up the stairs to his bedroom. That was weird, too. The room was much larger than the one he remembered having, and it had been fully decorated in a way that he liked. What's more, it had a lived-in, homey look that indicated someone had been using the room for way more than just a place to sleep. The really strange thing was that everything in the closet fit him perfectly, and it was all to his taste. Even his jewelry was sitting out on the dresser, including several pieces he'd never seen before.

"Malik! Breakfast!" Isis shouted.

"Coming!" he called back, giving the closet one last frown. He turned and hurried back down the stairs, determined to figure out what was going on. But he didn't get the chance to ask.

Never, not once in his life (or at least not that he would be willing to admit to), had Malik wished that his yami would return. He'd told himself multiple times that he was perfectly happy living a peaceful life with his brother and sister, and he was even beginning to get to the point where he could believe it. But as he stood there in the entrance to the dining room and stared, speechless, at the man who was sitting at the head of the table, Malik would have traded anything to have had his yami back.

"Malik," Hafiz Ishtar said impatiently. "Don't just stand there. You heard your sister, breakfast is ready."

The last time Malik had heard the sound of that voice, he'd been splayed over an altar listening to it chant words in Ancient Egyptian while hands painstakingly carved symbols into his back. That had been right before he blacked out from the agony and Mariku had taken control and killed his father, putting an end to it. He lurched backwards, sweat breaking out across his forehead. He wasn't sure if he wanted to throw up or faint, but he was almost positive that at some point both of those options were going to become a reality.

Hafiz glanced up when Malik didn't sit down. Annoyance changed his face into a scarily familiar mask, and he set the newspaper down with a sharp snap that made Malik flinch. "I said sit down."

"Malik, do what your father says." Malik spun around, too fast, and nearly fell over. He'd seen the woman standing behind before, but only in pictures. Adara Ishtar frowned at her son and said, "Enough of your foolishness. I know you're impatient to go have fun with your friends, but I've told you before that breakfast is family time." She smiled sweetly at her husband. "Let's have a nice meal together, okay?"

A/N: Ok, obviously this story takes into consideration some events from season 0/the manga. Ryou liked to play this RPG called Monster World. After he got the Millennium Ring, people around him started to disappear. Bakura was turning them into dolls, twisting Ryou's wish to be able to play games with his friends forever. Those people were set free after Yami Yuugi and the others defeated Bakura at the game. Ryou's friends were never given names (that I know of) so I've taken the liberty of creating some.

Chouko = butterfly child
Jirou = second son

For Malik's mom, very little is known about her. She was never given a name in either the anime or the manga (that I know of) so I picked one out for her.

Adara = exalted, praised

Please review!