Sands of Time (Complete)

Chapter 19: Only A Few Hours Left

Hours went by as Aadila and Atem continued to receive attention from the healers to fully recover, but nothing would be able to mend their broken hearts for the loss of their friends. Seto had forgiven her at the request of Atem and really seemed to genuinely feel guilty for the way he treated her even though he didn't know the entire situation. Yugi, Tea, Joey and Tristan decided that it wouldn't really hurt if they stayed the night in this world but Kaiba seemed to not be able to stay here more than a minute longer. Something about it being below his pedigree, but it seemed he changed his mind about that statement soon after they entered the palace. Mana and the other magicians began searching through the Millennium Spell Book to find a way to possibly bring Shada, Mahad, Shimon, Aknadin, Karim and Isis out of the Shadow Realm.

Aadila was finally let go and walked around the palace, appreciating the sights and sounds that it had when she was a child. The servants were moving much more freely, which made Aadila all the more happier. She continued through the hall and saw Atem's friends from his future talking about some card game from their time. She was just going to quietly walk by unnoticed but Kaiba saw her.

"Hey, come here." Aadila walked towards the group, following the order.

"You know you could really use some manners." As she looked at the rest of the group, she noticed they all had jaw dropped faces. "What's wrong? What's with those faces?"

"Umm...it's just..." Yugi began, immediately dropping his gaze to the floor as he felt his face begin to blush.

"What is it?"

"You look so different!" Joey yelled, causing an echo through the hall. Looking down at the attire, she totally forgot that she had to change her linens because they were so torn. She also had a bath, which was so refreshing because it felt like she hadn't had one in days. There were white linens wrapped around her body so that there were no straps around her shoulders. A gold belt kept the linens from unravelling and a sheer navy blue linen bunched at its attachment at the bust and flowed under the belt, almost like a small cape. Attaching the the wrapped linen was an elegant collar wide necklace to keep the linen from falling down. (Like this but imagine the cloth attached at the belt not being there) 

"Thanks...I guess."

"I think what he was trying to say is that we aren't used to seeing you without being attacked by Bakura before hand." Tea interjected. 

Aadila didn't really know if that was any better than what Joey had said but she just smiled and look at their hands. "What are those?"

"Oh, they're Duel Monsters cards." Tristan said.

"Duel Monsters? What's that?"

"Basically, it's a safer and more fun version of the Shadow games you play here." Joey said, showing her a card. "See, each card has these stars, which indicates the level of the monster. The more stars, the better the monster. There are also attack and defence points that determine if your monster will defeat or be defeated by your opponents monsters." 

"I see. Well, what about these cards? They don't have creatures on them." Aadila said, pointing a some purplish-pink cards in Tea's hands and green cards in Tristan's.

"They are magic and trap cards. Think of it a specific spells the spell casters within the palace can perform." Yugi said.

"I don't know why you are wasting your time explaining this. She should already know about it." Kaiba said, calling the four, obviously closer friends, a geek squad.

"How you I know about a card game that doesn't exist yet?" Aadila said calmly, starting to get annoyed by Kaiba's tone.

"You are one the top ranked duelists  in the world."