A/N: I originally intended this for The Song of Hathor, a flash fic collection of unusual Ishizu pairings. But then it just grew and grew until it was almost three times as long as the next longest entry, and could no longer be considered a flash fic by any stretch of the imagination.
He was coming.
She watched him in her Necklace's eye: tall, muscular, angry. Anger washed off him in waves, smoldered in every line of his hulking form. Unbidden, she thought of her brother, and immediately the felt the truth of the resemblance. What secret bitterness festered in this man's heart, she wondered. What septic wound had the world delivered to his soul? Even as the question formed, her eyes slid open and the golden glow of the Necklace faded into an almost imperceptible gleam.
He was here.
She took a deep breath and bowed her head in the slightest of courtesies as she turned toward the stranger. "Welcome," she said. "I've been expecting you."
She was gratified to see the tremor of shock run through his face for just an instant. The next moment, there was no trace of it, or of any other emotion, except for that brooding anger. "What are you talking about?" he demanded.
She smiled. "You must know. You do your research before your battles." With her eyes half-closed, she could see him frowning over a computer screen, her own name standing out amid the swimming text. How odd that computer looked in that place, perched on a polished mahogany table, surrounded by crumbling books and scrolls, in a long, dim room covered with archaic designs. An ancient library, full of secrets, she thought.
Her eyes opened fully to rest on the man standing in front of her, powerful eyes crossed over his broad chest. He met her eyes with a scowl. "Perhaps," he said. "And perhaps I don't like your mind games, lady."
"Games?" She nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, they are games. But you know as well as I do just how serious a game can be."
The tiniest twitch in his jaw was all the response she could see. That, and an almost imperceptible gleam from the green stone set on his collar, although no beam of light had hit it. But his eyes looked differently on her, considering. "Then you know what I'm here for." It was not a question.
"Certainly. But what you seek is not here."
He clenched his jaw—half in anger, half in shock. Ishizu would have wagered half the treasures buried in this tomb that no one had ever said such a thing to him before. He shook his head. "You lie to me, woman. "
"No," she said simply.
"Don't try to deceive me." His eyes blazed fierce.
She drew herself up to her full height. "I am a Tombkeeper and a daughter of Tombkeepers. I do not lie."
"If you knew who I am, who I work for, what I can do, you wouldn't dare deceive me. You wouldn't dare to stand before me with your head held proud. You would flee in terror." A dark smile crossed his face and for a second his blue eyes looked red.
"I do know," she said calmly. Her hand went instinctively to her Necklace. Heat surged against her fingertips. "And I am not fleeing."
Frustration rippled from every movement of the intruder's tense body. "Surrender the god card, or face your own destruction."
She closed her eyes. "Destroy me if you must, but the card you seek is not here. It has already been taken from its resting place."
He hesitated. "Do you speak truth?" he growled at last.
Her eyes opened and flashed. "Do not insult me again! For I am not without power of my own." The Necklace burned white-hot against her skin, urging her to unleash the shadows against this man. But she resisted the urge for now. The Necklace had warned her of this confrontation, but some power unknown to her—the power that pulsed behind that green stone—had blocked her visions and hidden the result. If she pitted her power against his, there was no guarantee that she would be the victor.
But that was not the only reason she stayed her hand. There was something about this stranger… He was so different from anyone she had seen before. Odion was as tall, or nearly so, but this man was so much bigger—broad shoulders, huge chest, thick arms and legs that bulged with muscles. His eyes were blue and his skin was pale, things she had only seen in her Necklace's visions, never before in life, and his hair, as golden as morning sun upon the desert sand, stuck up strangely. Physically, she could not have conjured someone more different from the people she had known all her life.
Yet the more she looked on him, the more familiarity she saw. Dark anger that reminded her so much of her brother that it nearly sucked the air out of her lungs. A proud lift of his chin that was reminiscent of her father. A hooded look to his eyes and a flare of his nostrils just like Odion that night at the museum—loyalty fierce enough to block out whatever it had to. But in the depths of those eyes was the emotion she herself knew like the feel of handwoven linen against her skin, like the smell of oil-lamp smoke, like the twisting corridors of the tomb she'd lived in all her life. Grief.
Once she saw it, she read it in every line of his features, in the ever-present scowl entrenched on his face, in the tight veins of his neck, in the shadows under his eyes. He used anger as a cloak the same way that she used her preternatural calm. But in the end, they were the same.
As she looked up, she was surprised to find his eyes on her. He seemed to be making his own assement. At last, he gave the slightest of nods. "Let us assume, for the moment, that I believe you," he said Her eyes flashed momentarily, but she said nothing. "Where is the god card now?"
"That I do not know," she said.
"And if you did…"
"I would not tell you."
"That's what I thought." He shook his head. "I suppose you won't tell me who took the card either?"
She hadn't intended to, but the words slipped out all on their own. "My brother."
He blinked. Whatever he had been expecting, it wasn't that. "Your brother," he echoed to himself. "And you don't know where he is?" His voice was skeptical.
"Not even the faintest idea." Like everything else she had told him, this was perfectly true. If she had been able to find Marik and his Rare Hunters, maybe she could have found a way to prevent what her Necklace told her was going to happen, but he had eluded every attempt she had made to locate him.
"And if I don't believe you?" The green stone on his collar glinted menacingly and there was a hint of red in his blue eyes.
She spread her hands. "Then we must pit our powers, and let Destiny decide the outcome."
Despite her outward calm, her stomach clenched. She had to win this fight. It must be written so. The other visions—of the Pharaoh's return, of herself handing Obelisk to the blue-eyed man, of battles in the sky—surely the necklace would not have shown them to her if she would not endure to see them.
But even as the thought formed, she knew it was a feeble hope. She was but a tool of Fate and Fate could easily find another. Her fingers clenched. It was up to her, then. She would not fail. There was far too much at stake, so much more than just her soul.
The man shrugged, removing his heavy trenchcoat in the same movement. "Have it your way," he said. "More souls to feed the Great Beast." The words were a deliberate goad, but she ignored it.
Her knuckles whitened. She had no taste for the battle ahead. But that had not stopped her before, when those she called brothers had come for what she protected, and it would not stop her now.
She looked up at her opponent and was startled at the look in his eyes. "Why are you doing this?" he asked. His voice was almost angry, except for one odd note.
She tilted her head. "It is my duty." The words, spoken quietly, echoed in the hush of the tomb, resounding with a weight Ishizu had not felt until they left her mouth. The words encapsulated her entire existence, her reason for being, her destiny. And the one time she had strayed from that destiny… disaster had struck.
The set of the stranger's jaw hardened a little. He understood duty. She could see it in his eyes. The Necklace grew warm against her skin and she was caught by a sudden urge to read his past…and his future. But she was not a child to indulge every passing whim, and she would need all her strength for the battle ahead.
"I must obtain this card for my master," he said. His voice was rough, but not angry. It was almost like he was trying to convince himself of the truth of it.
"I do not possess it, nor do I know where it is found," she replied simply.
His eyes narrowed. "How can I trust you? You said you wouldn't tell me even if you knew."
"I am its guardian," she said. "How could I do otherwise?"
He did not speak. He stared at her, icy blue eyes penetrating deep into hers, for an interminable moment. At last, he dropped his gaze and turned away. "I will find what I seek one day, I promise you that."
This time, she did not resist the impulse. The golden light rose and died under her fingertips as the vision flashed before her eyes. "Yes," she said heavily, and her voice was full of both sorrow and hope. "Yes, you will."