Inochi wo Ataeta – Holy Elf no Shukufuku
I lost…
This can’t be… this just can’t be. He should never have been able to get past my dragons. They are the strongest, the most powerful monsters. My deck was perfect, my strategy flawless. I had everything planned out; I was prepared for every move he could possibly make.
Except for this one. Exodia…
This should have been my battle. My victory. My triumph over my enemy; the one who had dared to block my road to glory. The only duelist to ever have defeated me.
Twice now.
I knew the stakes, I knew what I was getting myself into. In a duel, you either win and live, or lose and die. It’s as simple as that.
So, Yuugi…
Do you have the courage to take my life?
Or are you just a weak little coward who lets my duel box do the dirty work for him?
Shukumei no Duelist
Duelists of Fate
(Schicksalsduellanten)
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Thanks: A big thanks to Lace Kyoko, Barrie18, Yuki-san, Selena12, and my dear Taichi Chisako for their reviews. And another thanks for my dad, who lent me some books from his study to help me research.
Author’s Note: Researching ancient Egypt feels like diving into a bottomless pit with tons of gods, pharaohs, mystical places, and sacred objects. And all of these have tons of spellings because hieroglyphs are extremely vague on some letters, especially the vowels. Also, some names changed over time due to Greek and Latin influences. I try to stick with one spelling for each to avoid confusion, but there are many more. For example, Ra can also be transcribed as Re, Duat is sometimes written as Dwat or Tuat, and Atum can be spelled Atem (the Japanese transcription being Atemu). However, Atum, Atem, or Atemu are basically all the same name, just as Set, Seto, or Seth.
Something else, I’m not an Egyptologist, so I apologize for any mistakes I might make in the process of this story. Also, be warned that I have no qualms mixing elements from historical Egypt, mythical Egypt and Yu-Gi-Oh fantasy Egypt into a colorful potpourri. Last but not least, though gods roam this story, I don’t wish to offend anyone’s religious beliefs. This is fanfic and it’s for fun, so enjoy.^^
Archive: So far, this story is posted to Animexx, Livejournal, Skyehawke and FFnet.
Arc I: Duat no Juuni no Tobira
(The Twelve Gates of the Underworld)
Chapter 1: Inochi wo Ataeta – Holy Elf no Shukufuku
(The One Who Gave Life – Holy Elf’s Blessing)
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WHEN THE TWO DUELISTS OF FATE ARE RECONCILED THE DOOR TO ETERNITY WILL OPEN
Doors in general did not open by simply staring at them.
This was clearly a riddle and it already made his mind race. Two duelists of fate; these duelists had to be the two animal-headed figures in the picture. And if these duelists were to be reconciled, one of the seven items was a symbol for their reconciliation.
That ruled out the crossed swords. Crossed swords were usually a sign of battle.
Who were these two anyways? A falcon, a head of a falcon… all of a sudden a thought shot through his mind, a word in a strange language, and yet a familiar one.
Heru . Falcon. Horus, the falcon god.
The next instant, everything started to make sense, and images flashed through his mind like the whirling colors of a kaleidoscope. Horus was the god of light, the god of the rising sun. In his triune form Ra-Horakhty-Atum he guided the solar barque through the skies. He was Horus in the morning, Ra at midday, and Atum in the evening when the barque was swallowed by the great snake Apep, god of evil and destruction. The barque then passed into Duat, the underworld, only to be reborn in the morning when Horus defeated Apep in battle. A continuous cycle of life and death.
Apropos, the sun and the moon represented the two eyes of Horus. The moon was the weaker of the two because Horus had injured one of his eyes during a fierce battle with his mortal enemy, Set.
Yes, the pieces came together almost too smoothly. Horus and Set were the two fated enemies on that door, and all of the seven symbols were in one way or other connected to them. The eye and the solar barque were symbols of Horus. The scepter belonged with Set because Set’s traditional weapon was the scepter of power, the so-called Was. He could wield great magic with it.
Hmm… the hippopotamus, that was more difficult. Hippos were usually associated with Taweret, the protectress of birth, and her demonic counterpart Ammut, the eater of hearts. But wait… wasn’t there a story about Set and Horus turning into hippos? It was one of the many episodes of their ongoing battle. They transformed into these animals and stayed at the bottom of the Nile to see which one of them could hold his breath longer. Ergo, like the crossed swords, the hippopotamus was a symbol for battle, not reconciliation.
The sand dune and the ear of wheat were easily deciphered. Set was king over the desert regions of Upper Egypt, while Horus ruled the fruitful land of Lower Egypt. Regarding the battle of the gods in a political sense, it could have been a struggle between these two cultures, perhaps even a military conflict. When Egypt was united, each Pharaoh wore the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt, often depicted in coronation scenes with both gods, Horus and Set, placing the two crowns upon Pharaoh’s head. A double crown would have been a proper symbol to place the card in, but obviously the solution couldn’t be made that easy.
He was almost starting to wonder how he knew so much about these strange things, but since this knowledge had not yet revealed any solution to the riddle, he would only waste his precious time. Set and Horus were enemies, rivals struggling for kingship and maybe they just weren’t meant to reconcile.
Where would that stupid door lead to anyways? Why was he supposed to go through it if he could simply walk around it? How was it supposed to lead to a different place once it had opened? Yet another thing in this unfamiliar place that made no sense whatsoever.
Well, it can’t be helped, so let’s mull this over from the beginning.
The eye, the barque, and the wheat were symbols for Horus, the scepter and the dune were associated with Set, and the swords and the hippopotamus referred to their ongoing battle.
Hmm… that was one symbol too many on Horus’ side. Following things logically, one of those three images had to refer to both of the gods. Most likely, it wasn’t the wheat because Set had the dune instead. They were a pair of opposites. The eye… was the eye opposite to the scepter? They both represented power. Or was it the barque?
When and how had Set and Horus reconciled anyway? They had shared the pillow once, but you couldn’t count this as reconciliation because it had been a tactic of war. Set had seduced Horus in order to demonstrate his power over the other god. And Horus had given in, but in the end had managed to turn the tables with a little plot his mother Isis had cooked up. In fact, if it hadn’t been for Isis’ constant interferences, Set would most likely have defeated Horus, but this wasn’t the time to worry about ancient gods and their power struggles, and not that he cared anyway.
Scheming, treacherous, two-faced viper Isis.
And he still wasn’t one single step closer to opening that door.
Rivals were rivals after all and duelists were duelists. They didn’t simply forget all about their rivalry and became a team. Unless, for some reason, they had to fight a tag-team duel against other duelists. The best way to unite two warriors was a common enemy. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Hadn’t Sun Tzu written that? No, but the fact that he knew about Sun Tzu and tag-team duels was a clear indication that his memory was starting to return. As was all this unexpected knowledge about Egypt.
And that pathetic riddle was child’s play, unworthy of his attention. Without further ado, he removed the card from his breast pocket and placed it into the slot of the golden solar barque. Here we go, Horus. So you want to be the ruler of all gods, but you cannot defeat Apep’s darkness without Set fighting by your side. If it wasn’t for Set’s power, there would be no new morning. Not ever again.
The shimmering glow emanating from the door increased in brightness and a thin line of light appeared, surrounding it like a golden frame. The line spread further through the middle of the door, parting it into two wings that slowly opened and gave way to an entrance.
Before he stepped through, he removed the Duel Monsters card from the slot of the door, slipping it back into his pocket.
* * *
The first impression to tingle his senses was not an image but a sound; a soft rustle that his mind immediately connected to water. A poem came to his mind, some insignificant words about frogs jumping into old ponds, and a woman’s voice recited those words over and over like a charm while a second voice, a child’s, tried to blabber them after her. He quickly discarded these thoughts since they appeared utterly meaningless to his current situation, but the warmth in the woman’s voice seemed to linger on, long after he had forgotten the actual words.
Looking down, he saw that he was standing on a round flat stone in the middle of a giant river. At least, the constant flow of water suggested that this had to be a stream of some sort. Lakes and ponds were usually still. However, there were no other stones to step on, and there was no shore anywhere in sight, only a vast starless night sky spreading over the entire scenery and merging with the water on the horizon.
Behind him, the door had vanished into thin air, or had never been there in the first place. He crouched down and gazed into the water trying to make out any moving shapes below the surface. There were none that he could see, but the river appeared to be quite deep. He removed his belt to use it as a sounding line, but the buckle didn’t hit ground even after he disregarded his original intention to not touch the water, and plunged his arm into the cold liquid up to his shoulder. At least it didn’t seem to be harmful, there was no burning or stinging, and his skin didn’t redden or otherwise change color.
When he pulled his belt back up, there was a metallic object hooked into the buckle. A small golden amulet fell into his hand, an amulet which looked like a combination of a cross and a pointed ellipsis. He narrowed his eyes; where had he seen the likes of this before?
“Ankh, ” he said, frowning, looking at the amulet. “Life.”
For a moment everything was silent, save for the soft rustle of the water. Then, all of sudden, a voice asked from the depth: “What gives life?”
Great. More riddles. Wasn’t that exactly what he needed?
So, what gave life? The sun, nature, the earth, the river, a mother, Atum, the creator, or Khnum, who had formed humans out of clay. How were you supposed to answer a question like that?
“If you expect a well-defined answer, you should first narrow down the parameters of the question,” he shouted angrily. This was undoubtedly not an answer that annoying voices floating in the dark longed to hear, but he was through with talking to annoying voices. Either these people were going to show themselves, or he would… ouch!
Something was hurled out of the water and smacked against the hand he had raised to protect his face. Before he could grasp the little object, it had slipped out of his fingers and tumbled down into his collar. Cursing, he reached for it and pulled it out again. It was a small green lapis lazuli crafted into the shape of a scarab beetle.
Scarabs were a symbol of life as well, but in a more literal sense the word meant to emerge or to become. As it seemed, he had stumbled right into another riddle, but before he could give it any further thought, there was a disturbance in the water and then something emerged from the waves and ripples. Suddenly he found himself eye to eye with a massive reddish-black head ending in a broad snout with bulky nostrils – the head of a hippopotamus.
His hands stopped in mid-movement; it would be best to not attract any unnecessary attention. Hippopotami could be counted among the most aggressive and dangerous animals of the world. If that creature chose to attack him, his chances would be slim indeed.
As the head emerged further, however, he was in for a true surprise. The body below was not the body of an animal at all, it was human.
“It’s the Great River that gives life,” said the hippopotamus woman. She had a deep, rich, gnarly voice. “Every year during the time of akhet, he breaks free from the confinements of his bed, flooding the lands with layers of black slit and rendering them fertile.”
“Your point being?” His interest in agricultural lectures pretty much matched his interest in poems about frogs.
“How do you intend to cross the river if you do not understand his true nature?”
It seemed that this woman took great pleasure in answering questions with counter questions. Still, there was something vaguely familiar in the things she said. They evoked images of peasants standing amidst muddy fields digging canals to collect the water from the Great River. Others used buckets hanging down from long poles to distribute the water evenly over the black soil. Blurry at first, the images seemed to gain in strength until he could even see small details, such as the headdresses the peasants wore to protect themselves from the sun, or the clay stones they had bound to the other end of the poles to balance them out.
Akhet, the time of inundation was followed by peret, the time of emergence. As the water retreated back into the ground, the fields were tilled. Cows pulled light wooden ploughs over the earth and the peasants sowed wheat and barley. Soon, fresh green sprouts emerged, gradually growing into golden crops ready for harvest…
What was happening to him? Why could he see these images so vividly as if it had only been yesterday that he walked by those fields? Was this a part of his memory? And yet, somehow it didn’t fit; something was wrong, although he couldn’t say what it was. Did his mind play tricks on him?
Or was there someone else playing the tricks?
“Let me guess, it has something to do with these, hasn’t it?” He held up the two objects, the ankh, and the scarab. “You’re a kind of mystic guardian and you won’t let me pass, until I solve some riddle or beat you at some silly game. Fine, put your cards on the table and bring it on! I’ve wasted enough of my precious time already.”
“You speak boldly for one with a fragmented soul,” she replied. He couldn’t read her animal face too well, but it seemed that she was regarding him with a mixture of annoyance and curious interest. “But, as you so keenly perceive, I am a guardian indeed. I am Qat-A, handmaiden to the goddess Taweret and the keeper of the first gate of Duat.”
“Whatever. So, why don’t we cut this short and you just open your gate for me. Then I can return to my life, you can return to… whatever it is you’re doing in this pathetic place, and we both get what we want.” Of course, she wasn’t likely to agree to this suggestion, but he had to try anyway.
“Before you ask yourself what you want, you should first ask yourself who you are,” she chided him, raising a hand out of the river. It appeared to be empty at first, but what he had taken for glistening drops of water, was actually a small crystalline puzzle piece resting inside her palm.
“Hmm. Is this what I think it is?” So the blue-eyed girl had been right and the pieces of his heart were scattered all over the place. “In that case you should hand it over because it belongs to me.”
He held out his hand, but she closed hers and pulled it back into the water. “When your ib was broken apart, a piece of it fell into my river. If you want to take back what the river has claimed, you first need to understand his true nature.”
“We’ve been through this,” he sighed, glaring at the two objects. “Let’s cut it short, shall we? I suppose, the ankh stands for the season of inundation because it’s shaped like the Nile river with its delta. The scarab stands for the season of emergence because that’s one of its literal meanings as a hieroglyph. Are we finished yet, or do I need to tell you something about the third season as well?”
“Shemu, the time of harvest.” She opened her hand again, but the piece of his heart was no longer in it. Instead, there was a little sickle about the size of the other two objects. “These three seasons pursue each other in a wheel without end. “Akhet follows shemu, peret follows akhet, shemu follows peret. If this eternal cycle is broken, draught and famine will come over the Black Land and its people.”
She held the sickle out to him and opened her other hand, which contained another one of each of the three objects.
He stared at them in disbelief; the woman couldn’t be serious!
“Are you honestly trying to tell me,” he could barely keep his temper, “that this entire Pandora’s box of silly lectures and pointless visions boils down to an ancient Egyptian version of jan-ken-pon?”
Fuming, he snatched the sickle out of her hand. This really, really wasn’t worth his time. He put both hands behind his back, secretly placing the ankh into the right one. To beat the ankh she would have to use the scarab, and experiments had proven that, for whatever reason, scissors was always the least likely choice in the game.
She opened her hand a split second before he did – it was the sickle.
“Akhet follows shemu,” he said with a smirk as he briefly showed her the ankh and then rearranged the pieces again. “The goddess of victory smiles on me, keeper of the first gate.”
Most people changed after the first round, so he guessed that she would actually use the scarab next turn. He felt the three symbols between his fingers and shoved the sickle into his right hand. This was going to be easy.
She opened her hand – it was the ankh.
He frowned; this turn hadn’t gone as expected. He probably should have sticked with his original hypothesis that people didn’t like to use scissors, but it was too late to worry about it now. He had one more round to go, and in order to get the piece of his heart, he would have to win.
Would she change her symbol or would she stick with the ankh? Most people did not change after the second round, so it was probably safer to switch to the scarab. On the other hand, what if she followed the natural cycle and used the scarab as well? It was the only piece that she hadn’t used yet, and she had been so adamant about not breaking the natural cycle. What if this attitude was also visible in her strategy?
Hmm… would he plan his next move according to stochastic theories, or would he try to follow the twisted reason of an ancient divine being?
He would need to make a decision between the two. No, actually not. Both scenarios predicted that she would not use the sickle next turn. If he used the sickle, and one of his theories was correct, the game would end either in a win or a loss. If he used the scarab, however, the game would end either in a win or a draw. So it was obvious what to choose if he wanted to ensure his victory.
She opened her hand – the scarab.
“Since this game ended in a draw,” she remarked calmly, “we will need to play another one.”
“No, I don’t think we will,” he cut her off. “You’ll use the sickle next turn, then the ankh, and then again the scarab. It is, like you said, a natural cycle that must not be broken.”
“It appears that you finally understand the true nature of the Great River and his everlasting relationship with the Black Land and its people. Open your hand and receive the missing piece of your ib.”
He dropped the three objects into her hands and reached for the small crystalline piece. This time, he half-closed his eyes to be prepared for another burst of bright light…
* * *
…which did not come. Instead, it was darkness that surrounded him, save for the soft shimmer from the puzzle piece which had turned into the warm glow of an oil-lamp standing on a small chest. A young woman sat on a straw mat next to it, one of her elbows resting on a cushion. She wore a dress of white linen tied over her left shoulder. Her head, framed by a mass of black curls was bent over a scroll while the writing reed in her hand moved continually over the papyrus, stopping only once in a while to be dipped into a jar of black ink on her other side.
Little animals, plants, human images, and objects of daily life formed under her writing reed, arranging themselves into words, into sentences. As he tried to make out those sentences, he didn’t know whether it was the writing itself that fascinated him, or the sheer fact that while time passed and thoughts vanished into nothingness, there was still a safe haven where they could be kept. Ideas that only existed inside your mind could be… ouch!
A sharp pain interrupted his train of thought and a wooden crocodile, still unfinished dropped to the floor. As the woman turned her head, he noticed the little boy sitting next to her and holding out his hand. On the child’s forefinger, a small red cut was visible.
“Perhaps you should save your carving for the daytime when there’s more light, Set.” Tenderly, the woman took the boy’s tiny hand into her own and examined the cut. “It’s not deep; it’ll be healed in a few days. Here, let me put some calendula balm on it.”
“Mother, I’m fine.” The little boy withdrew his hand and defiantly tossed back his youth lock over his otherwise clean-shaven head. “And you’re working, too, although the light is bad.”
“I promised Ib-En-Set I would finish the letter to his daughter until tomorrow, so the merchants can take it to the village where she lives with her husband. If I don’t keep my promise, people will think that I am unreliable and they will turn to the scribes at the temple instead,” the woman explained to her son. A frown crossed her face, as if she was worrying about something, but in the very next moment her expression brightened again. “Let me see you write your name,” she demanded cheerfully, turning over a new sheet of papyrus.
“Yes, mother.” Eager to demonstrate his skills, the boy dipped the writing reed into the ink. He didn’t content himself with the small hieroglyphs his mother had used, but covered the entire sheet in writing, which he held up proudly. “My full name spells Meri-Set, which means ‘Beloved of Set’. And if I add this,“ – with a few more strokes he changed the name to Merit-Set – “my name becomes yours!”
“Very good,” she praised him. “I always knew you to be a fast learner.”
“I can do more if you want to!” Set dropped the writing reed, eagerly reaching for the next sheet. “I can also write Master Ib-En-Set’s name. It means ‘heart of Set’. And his daughter, who married the man from another village, is Nefer-Selket, ‘Selket is gracious’ because she got bit by a scorpion when she was little, but Selket spared her life.”
He took up the writing reed again, but his mother shook her head. “It’s enough for now, Set, I know you can write all these names, but I need the papyrus for my work. Don’t worry, once you go to the temple school you’ll have enough writing to do. And if you keep up like this, you are certain to become one of the best students.”
“I’m going to become the best,” he corrected her, in a calm, matter-of-fact voice. “I won’t be second to anyone.”
“It seems you’ve inherited not only your father’s quick mind, but also his ambition.” Merit-Set gazed at her son, apparently lost in thought. “And sometimes I wonder whether this is a good or a bad thing.”
“How can it not be a good thing?” Set shouted, looking utterly bewildered. “My father was a brave man. He gave his life to protect our country. You said so yourself!”
“Yes, he was, and yes, he did.” She said these words in a very firm voice as if she wanted to convince herself as well as her son. “I simply wish sometimes that things were different and that he could still be with us.”
Set nodded. “I wish so, too, but I have no memory of things being different. For me it was always like this.”
No memory of things being different…
No memory of a father…
* * *
There were images of his father fighting bravely in the midst of battle, but he knew them to be fantasy rather than memory. And yet, they felt as real as all his true memories. Memories of his mother teaching him how to write. Memories of the children in the village he had played with. Memories of…
..fire. A blazing fire that burned down all the houses of his village. People screaming and running from the destruction. Bandits who chased them and struck them down with their swords. And then…
Then, the white dragon appeared in the skies.
No, none of this could be true. Someone was trying to play a trick with his mind; he was sure of it. This wasn’t his life. Those were not his memories. His memories were gone. What was happening to him?
One last time the image of his mother appeared before his mind’s eye; then the vision was gone and her shimmering black curls changed back into the ever-flowing water surrounding him. The hippopotamus woman was gone as well, but in the spot were she had been, another door emerged from the waters, a door that seemed to be made of blue ice. Hieroglyphs were carved into it.
And instead of the piece of his heart, he held another card in his hand.
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HOLY ELF NO SHUKUFUKU
(Holy Elf’s Blessing)
Gift of the Mystical Elf
[Trap Card]
Increase your Life Points by
300 points for each monster on
the field, regardless of position.
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A card which gave life-points to a player and prolonged the game? Somehow it didn’t seem like a card he would put into his deck. He preferred an offensive beat-down strategy that finished the opponent quickly, so there really was no need to buy time. It was just unnecessary ballast that took away space for good cards…
This was real. This was part of his life; he could feel it. So, there was another thing the blue-eyed girl had been right about: he was good at this game. And with each card, some of his strength would return.
He put the card into his breast pocket to the Blue-Eyes White Dragon and turned to the writing on the door.
A mouth I have, but never speak
My arms stretch far and wide
A bed I own, yet never sleep,
I travel day and night.
Without legs to carry me,
So, answer now, who may I be?
Tsuzuku (…to be continued)
