She can't do it.
She must.
She's not sure whether it's merely superstition clouding her senses-that obelisk, crouched in waiting slumber in that golden coffer, seems to be warning her. Speaking to her in that ancient tongue, voice deep and forbidding as an airless tomb.
You must do this.
You mustn't.
She can't be sure who's trying to convince her of what anymore. Whether it is Obelisk speaking to her. Her father. Her brother. Merely a part of her own mind trying to ward her back.
It's only at her most cynical that she tires of it all. The monsters unfathomable. The gold around her neck heavy like a chain, each blinding vision leaving her sweating and queasy and even less sure than before. A future locked into a past that has meant everything, suffocatingly so. A shackle to everything from back there. There. Arid. Sealed off. Black as pitch.
Things she never wanted. Never asked for. Things that would frighten anyone. Things that would frighten her. If only they could. She cannot afford to let them.
If she's seen it-then it must be so. It must come to pass. The steps of history tread by an ever-growing number of feet. The dust in their wake coating her lungs as she tries to make sense of it all.
He's the high priest. Was. Is. Surely he must be, even if he doesn't remember it like she does. Any of it. The boy teetering on the edge of becoming a man. So childlike in his anger and pettiness. So very grown-up because he was made to be.
Seto Kaiba isn't hard to find, to be sure.
She will be forgiven for this, won't she? For what she's about to do?
The plastic coils of the telephone cord crunching between her fingers errantly making a not-entirely unpleasant sound as her stomach flips, head too damned light to focus properly.
For what she has done? For her part in all of this-
Her fingers reflexively close into a fist around thick wire.
She must be as foolish as Marik said. As their father said, a familiar menace making his voice hoarse.
Perhaps they are right. Perhaps one can only act in this world as though towards an army of enemies to be defeated or subdued. And she's seen such a future, to be sure. Where it is all lost. Where her brother is gone-truly. Where the transgression she allowed has led to the loss of everything.
Perhaps they are right.
It had been desperately hard-nearly impossible-to prevent Marik from getting Obelisk. Even after Pegasus had told her-
And yet she had.
She's never been one to take undue risks. And what she's about to do cannot be described as anything other than such-even if he is the high priest. Whether he was or isn't, whether he remembers or doesn't, whether he takes the bait or refuses utterly-
Obelisk must pass into the hands of an outsider.
It is the only way she can see out of this tunnel. The sole, tremulous wisp of light in any of this. Placing all her bets on the ultimate wild card-the man making his own destiny by force.
Gods forgive me, Marik must be saved-
"Miss Ishtar, our guest has arrived."
She unwinds the plastic from around her fingers and smiles sadly to herself.
The sweat curling by his brow overshadowed by the strange light in his eyes as he regards the card in his hand. All fears and unsureness brought on by her vision seemingly wiped away by something he can better understand.
"It's not every day a card this rare is handed to me. What if I decided to keep it forever?"
Sitting in his hand.
Power. All that he could ever dream of.
Power to rival that of Exodia.
Power enough to defeat the Pharaoh.
"What makes you think I can be trusted? I could just walk out of here and you'd never see it again."
Voice snide. Teeth gleaming, sharklike. A challenge.
Steel in her spine as she regards him one last time.
Strength responding to strength.
Strength she is not sure she has. Can summon at the moment.
Ever truly had. As if it's all been a bluff, all of it, and he hasn't realized it yet, his own excitement and greed clouding clear judgment and scrutiny.
It is something that makes her wince imperceptibly, the lacking feel of where the card once was making her hand both too light and too heavy, as she lies.
Easily.
"You will return the card to me."
For herself. For her own sake as much as Marik's. For this foolhardy tripping she's done into such an untenable position-having to place every last hope in a vessel riddled with holes.
"I have foreseen it."