Okay, originally this was supposed to be the epilogue to TPC. As it happened, I was told it worked better as a prologue to the sequel. That means that once I get the actual story back from my beta, it'll go here. In the meantime, have some prologue.

Title: Enchantment Passing Through
Author: Nina/TechnicolorNina
Pairing/Characters: Uh . . . in the prologue, only Yuugi/Atem (puzzleshipping/blindshipping). There will be a couple of incidental relationships later.
Word Count: Approximately 2000.
Page Count: 5 pages in Microsoft Word.
Rating: This fic is rated T for language, implied yaoi, and violence.
Genre: Light but fairly constant angst, with romance and just a bit of fluff.
Disclaimer: The author hereby apologizes for playing with things/places/characters/books/movies/manga/musicals that do not (and probably never will) belong to her. Please do not take the money she does not have to begin with. Tony, however, belongs to ME. Got it? (If you want to use him in a story, by all means feel free to ask for his backstory and I'll give it to you. But please credit me, 'kay?)
Spoilers: Post-YGO. That means if you don't know what happens to Yugi's "other me" ("Yami" for American dub-watchers), don't know his real name, or don't know how his storyline is resolved, you don't want to read this unless you don't mind being spoilered. 'Kay? Also, it's a sequel. That means you should probably read A Thousand Paper Cranes first.
Warnings: None for the prologue, but you might as well know that you'll run into some pretty scary stuff later.
Feedback: There may be something out there that's better than a review containing concrit, but if there is, I haven't found it yet. So if you have two minutes and you wouldn't mind? Please? Arigatou. (And concrit is cool. Flames are not.)
Notes: This sequel? Totally not necessary. That doesn't mean it's not good, though, and if you're up for a bit of post-TPC adventure, here it is.
Special Thanks/Dedications: To my first reader, Miss Dawn. You're wonderful, darling.

Yugi laughed quietly as Anzu and Atem held a side-glance staring match.

"Game starts when the music begins!"

Yuugi watched the pair attack his dance mats with almost unhealthy fervor. Sometimes he wondered which Anzu liked more: him, or his beta-test versions of DDR games.

Yuugi saw Jounouchi stomp in and kick off his shoes.

"Hey, guys!"

Anzu squealed as she nearly slipped on the mat. Yuugi felt grateful he'd put velcro on the bottoms. "Damn it, Jounouchi! Whose side are you on?"

Jounouchi assessed the match. Atem was doing fairly well considering he'd only ever played against Yuugi, and then only rarely. "Atem's."

Anzu huffed. Had Atem not been busy following the plethora of multicolored arrows on the screen, he probably would have smiled. Yuugi laughed into his hand. Jounouchi plunked down next to him on the sofa.

"What's up, man?"

Yuugi shrugged. "Not much."

Jounouchi leaned over and lowered his voice. "Enjoying the view?"

Yuugi elbowed him in the ribs. "I'm not that perverted. And you can't see anything anyway." It was true; Atem had taken to stealing Yuugi's pajama bottoms for DDR matches.

Jounouchi snorted. Anzu sat down just behind the dance mat as the scores scrolled up. Atem joined her.

"See, I told you I'd beat you."

Atem shrugged. "Forgive me for playing my first video game four months ago."

Anzu got back onto her mat. "Yuugi, it's your turn."

Yuugi hauled himself off the sofa, then paused. "Jounouchi? You want a go?"

"Think I'll check out the competition first."

Atem slid out of the way so Yuugi could take his place.

"Pick a song."

Yuugi scrolled the list. "Midnight Special?"

"Sure."

"Ready?"

"Always."

Yuugi pressed the corner button. It wasn't until they were moving that he realized he'd let Anzu have the smaller mat. Oh, well . . .

Two minutes later found Anzu pushing her hair off her face. She and Yuugi exchanged a glance and started laughing. Atem raised an eyebrow.

"I don't suppose this joke is available to everyone."

Yuugi shrugged. "Well, I don't know about Anzu, but I was just thinking: if she beat me, does that mean she's the king of games now?"

Jounouchi started laughing. Atem just rolled his eyes as their scores scrolled up. Yuugi exchanged another look with Anzu. His laughter redoubled.

"Um . . . I guess I'll let Jounouchi play." Anzu sat down.

"Why? You got a double- oh."

Their scores were tied.

Yuugi folded the DDR mats carefully. "Okay, guys, obligatory question time. What'd you think?"

"That one girl keeps freezing. The one in the blue miniskirt." Jounouchi waved his hand at the blank screen. "But the music's good."

"And there's a time lag on Midnight Special. I noticed it both times the song played," Anzu supplied. Yuugi scribbled their comments in a notebook before sliding the pads carefully into the cupboard.

"Okay."

Anzu leaned forward to rub her legs. "I can't believe you actually get paid for this."

Yuugi looked up at her and grinned. "Neither can I, actually." He heard the mail truck pull up outside. "Be right back."

Five minutes found him back in the living room, a few envelopes and a small box in hand. He flicked quickly through the envelopes before setting them on the bookshelf.

"No shipping today, huh?" Jounouchi took a drink from a soda pop Atem had provided. Yuugi shook his head.

"We had a couple of things going out. That's it." He held up the box. "And I got this."

"Ooh, what is it?"

Yuugi shrugged. "It says it's from Tony."

Anzu leaned forward, interested. "Oh, wow."

Yuugi grinned widely and pulled out his cell phone. "I think I might have an idea, though . . . "

The space of twenty seconds found him with Tony's phone ringing in his ear.

"Diga."

"Hi, Tony."

"Hey, Fish. What's up?"

Yuugi put the cell on speakerphone, then turned the box over in his hands. Jounouchi pulled out a pocket knife and handed it to him. Yuugi slit the tape across the flaps, but didn't open it.

"So I just got the mail today, and I got a box from you. I thought you said you didn't celebrate Christmas."

Tony snorted. "I can tell you didn't open it yet. We got into the burial chamber about three weeks ago. You want to take a guess what we found when we opened it?"

"The sarcophagus was empty?" He went to work on the tape on the sides.

"Not quite. There was no body, but there was something in there, all right. Go ahead and open it."

Yuugi opened the box and was confronted with a sea of styrofoam packing peanuts. He plunged his hands into them. Anzu squealed as a small wave of packing peanuts landed in her lap.

"Who's that?"

"Umm . . . Anzu." Yuugi's fingers trawled the bottom of the box.

"That girl from the picture you had on the nightstand?"

"That's the one." His fingers encountered something small and hard, and he pulled out a plain cardboard box no more than an inch square on all sides. It was heavy. He shook it.

"Didn't know you had friends over."

"Everyone's here but Honda and Bakura. They're - well, Bakura's got classes. Honda's working." Yuugi slit the tape on the smaller box.

"Yo," Jounouchi greeted. Anzu rolled her eyes at him.

"Hola." Jounouchi stared at the phone as Anzu giggled. Yuugi just smiled and shook his head as he slid one finger under the flap.

"Okay, I'm pretty sure this has to be what I'm looking for . . . "

His finger caught on a strip of cotton batting. He tugged it out, and something fell into his lap with a flash of gold. He scooped it out of his lap and held it up, speechless. Jounouchi was the first to speak.

"Man, that's - !"

Yuugi wound his fingers through the thin leather cord and held it up, well away from his face. The gold piece attached to it glittered in the lamplight.

"Okay, how did you get this?"

"That's what we found when we opened the sarcophagus, Fish. One Millennium Puzzle, in pieces."

"But how did it get there? I didn't put it there."

"I was actually hoping you could tell me. I got the rest of it sitting in my trunk at home."

Anzu carefully unwound the cord from Yuugi's fingers and examined the piece she'd first seen as the central piece in the Millennium Puzzle. The eye engraved on it winked back at her.

"It'll never be put together again, will it?" she asked.

"Actually, I put the rest of it together in three and a half minutes."

Yuugi's mouth fell open. "But – how? I mean, I spent eight years trying to put that thing together."

"The curse is broken," Atem murmured. "It doesn't need to be difficult to put together anymore. It's just a puzzle now."

"That's what I figured," Tony said. "Except I'm not so sure it's just a puzzle. I turned the whole damn thing on its head to try and make that piece go in, and it still fell out."

"Tony, if you had the front side of the puzzle facing up, it couldn't fall out."

"I got it on video, if you want to see it. I'm not gonna try to explain it, because I don't think I could. But it did. And I just figured maybe it wanted to go home."

Yuugi poked cautiously at the piece of puzzle now dangling from Anzu's fingers. "Go home, right. Tony, it's an Egyptian artifact. In case you haven't noticed, I live in Japan."

Anzu passed the piece to Jounouchi. Atem followed it with his eyes.

"If it's true that home is where your heart is, then it's home. Trust me, there's such a thing as a native at heart, Fish. I should know."

Yuugi watched the piece sparkle between Jounouchi's fingers, then turned his eyes on Atem. "What do you think?"

Atem reached out for the gold piece hesitantly. Yuugi wondered if he was afraid of being zapped back inside of it.

"One of the properties of the Millennium items is that they'll always find their way into the hands of those best equipped to take care of them. Whether for good or for ill, they'll always make their way to the people who would guard them, no matter what." He sighed and let his finger trail down the side of the piece. "I sincerely hope it's the only one that made its way free, though. I'm not going to lie about that."

"It's the only one we found," Tony said. Yuugi saw a look of grim satisfaction settle on Atem's face, and reached for his hand. "I'm pretty sure I know where the rest are, but getting to them is pretty much out of the question. It's too dangerous. Hold on a minute." There were a few muffled shouts, and then he came back on the line.

"Sorry about that. We just got to the site."

"That's fine. Take care of yourself."

"Take care of that puzzle piece," Tony answered. "I get the feeling it's not called the Heart of the King for nothing." His voice faded out slightly. "Ay! Darla! You don't go into the fucking site alone!" He came back on the line. "I gotta let you go, Fish."

"Okay. Bye."

"Adios."

The screen of Yuugi's cell flashed and went dark as Tony hung up. Yuugi stared at it, and then at the gold piece Atem was turning over in his fingers. Tony had wrapped the two posts at the top in pieces of leather cord, then wound the cord around the piece through the grooves on the sides. Yuugi wondered if it were the kind of thing Tony did often; not only did it look good, he could probably wear the entire thing anywhere he wanted and never have to worry about losing it. On which note . . .

"Atem, when he called that piece the Heart of the King, what did he mean?" Anzu beat him to the question. Atem took several seconds before answering.

"I'm not entirely sure," he admitted. "But if I had to identify any piece of the puzzle separate from the others, that's probably the only piece I could recognize right away." He held it up by the cords Tony had secured it with.

"Do you want to wear it?"

Yuugi considered, then nodded. "That way I know it's not just going to mysteriously go somewhere."

Atem actually chuckled. "That's probably a good idea." He leaned forward to tie the cord around Yuugi's neck.

"It suits you, aibou."

Yuugi smiled and displayed the piece to Anzu and Jounouchi. "What do you guys think?"

"If you wake up soulless tomorrow, you better not have a problem with me using your beta-test money to take that stupid thing to Egypt so I can get you back, man," Jounouchi answered. Anzu giggled. Yuugi stood up on the sofa to examine it in the mirror.

"Just send the piece back to Tony and let him do it." He ran his thumb over the eye. The piece had been sitting in a box for hours, and Yuugi could see snow on the ground. All the same it was warm, as though someone had set it in a shaft of warm sunlight for an hour or two.

"Anyway, I don't think it wants to hurt anybody now." The eye glittered back at him. In the right light, Yuugi thought, it might even look like it was winking. "Tony was right."

"Right about what?" Anzu tilted her head to look up at him.

"It's home."