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We can't see the picture because we're standing in the frame.
Four: Valley of the Kings
"Ishizuuuuuu, it's my motorcycle!"
The normally placid Egyptian woman folded her arms and glowered, successfully cowing her brother into submission. "Disappearing off to Ra knows where in the middle of the night, coming back at noon to sleep, only for the entire cycle to start over again – I've had enough, Marik Ishtar! You're nineteen. Act your age! If I didn't know any better, I would think you were sneaking across the river every night for dance clubs in the city."
Marik coughed and shuffled his feet.
"Marik Ishtar!"
"You should be happy that I actually came back on time for this tour-the-tomb thing!" Marik retorted.
Ishizu narrowed her eyes and slipped Marik's Totoro-shaped keychain into some invisible pocket of her dress. "Take them to Pharaoh Seto's tomb in the Valley, break for lunch at noon, then go to the temple of the stone tablets at one."
"Ooh, I'm Ishizu, watch me boss poor, little Marik around like the slave-driver that I am," Marik mimicked. Ishizu whacked him with a dish towel. "Ow! Stop it, woman! I'm going, I'm going, I'll take the stupid jeep! Geeze!"
"Hey, Seto?" Mokuba whispered.
"Yeah?"
"I'm glad we don't have a sister." Mokuba received a small smile in reply.
"Ishtar Tours, now departing," Marik muttered mutinously as he stalked out the door.
"Uh…" Taylor rubbed the back of his head. "Marik's not still… possessed, is he?"
"No," said sharply Yugi, Ishizu, and Odion at the same time.
"Oookay, just making sure, heh-heh." Taylor held his hands up in an I-come-in-peace manner, grinning sheepishly as he backtracked outside.
"I still think this is a waste of time," Seto groused as he and Mokuba also exited the villa.
"Who knows, maybe we'll learn something cool!"
Seto shrugged, pulling on his trench coat as he slid into the front seat. Only a second too late did he remember whom he would have to sit next to as Marik hopped into the driver's seat. "Long time no see, Kaiba." Seto didn't bother voicing his displeasure. His death glare ought to communicate it satisfactorily. "Touchy," the Tomb Keeper mumbled, starting the engine.
Wheeler was panting from the heat as he took his seat in the rear. "Jesus, Kaiba, how can you wear a coat in dis weather?"
"That's 'cause he's cold-blooded," Taylor muttered, sniggering at the jibe he'd obviously meant for Seto to hear.
The CEO ignored them. His coats were designed to reflect the weather, so in this case it was keeping the heat out. Besides, he'd have the last laugh when Wheeler and Taylor finished the day with painful sunburns. "Can we get going already?" Seto asked irately just as Yugi and Tea sprinted outside and half-threw themselves into the back seat.
"All aboard? Okay, ready-set-go!" Marik floored it, and everyone's heads slammed into the backs of their seats. Wheeler and Taylor would've tumbled out of the jeep had it not been for their seatbelts.
"Hey! Slow down!" Mokuba wailed, desperately gripping the side of the car as they raced over a series of potholes and ruts. "Y-y-y-your g-g-going w-way too faaaast!"
"Don't worry!" Marik yelled. "There aren't any other cars around for us to crash into!"
"How comforting! Now we can just run into the next camel instead!" Seto snapped.
"Seriously! Can't we slow down just a teensy bit?" Tea begged. Beside her, Yugi was frozen in fear. Wheeler and Taylor were screaming hysterically.
Marik sighed in exasperation. "Fine, fine, you boring people." The speedometer abruptly dropped from eighty to forty.
"Gee, thanks a lot, Marik," Wheeler drawled sarcastically, giving the Tomb Keeper a dirty look. His and Taylor's faces were covered with dust from all the sand that had been disturbed by the speeding vehicle.
"Quit complaining, it's thanks to me that we're almost there." Indeed, as they rounded the bend, it appeared as if the Earth had suddenly opened beneath them.
"Whoa!" Mokuba pressed his face against the window, staring in awe. They were driving right along the edge of a sheer cliff, which loomed high over a vast crater. Ant-sized people were barely visible, bustling around and snapping pictures of the ancient stone mausoleums.
"Welcome to the Valley of the Kings." Marik turned onto a steep, downhill ramp.
Despite himself, Seto leaned forward in curiosity as the hallowed tombs got nearer and nearer, until finally they were amongst them in the crowd – which seemed to be composed of foreign, photo-happy tourists who took their sweet time sauntering out of the jeep's path.
Marik seemed to be cursing the crowd, too, slamming on the horn as a pair of particularly rotund Americans in Hawaiian shirts waddled by. The two tourists cast a wary look at the irritated young man and scurried to the side, and the jeep continued trudging through the hordes.
"Is it going to be this crowded in Pharaoh Seto's tomb?" Yugi asked.
"No. Very few of the tombs are actually open to the public, and Pharaoh Seto's definitely is not one of them," Marik explained. He pulled over to a rather secluded spot and parked the jeep. "We continue on foot from here." The group of seven walked out of sight, disappearing behind the tombs. The Tomb Keeper pointed at a distant stone edifice, resting atop a hill. "That is our destination."
The hard walk had everyone but Marik and Seto gasping for breath; Marik because he was used to it, Seto out of sheer determination not to look as weak as the others. Upon reaching the top of the hill, Wheeler hunched over, resting his hands on his knees as he wheezed. "My God, Kaiba, you're like a robot or somethin'."
"Unlike you, I don't spend my days lying around playing video games. And I am not your God."
Mokuba recovered first and had approached the tomb's entrance, touching the plain gray stone. "It doesn't look like much," he said dubiously. "Are you sure we're at the right place?"
"That's the genius of it." Marik stepped up beside Mokuba. "The tomb was purposely designed to look insignificant so that tomb robbers would pass over it in favor of ransacking the more luxuriously-styled crypts. To an outsider, this tomb would appear to have belonged to an impoverished but respected noble, not a pharaoh who ruled in a time of abundance and riches." Marik glanced at Seto before looking back at Mokuba. "Besides, this tomb's treasure isn't in the form of gold and jewelry."
The Tomb Keeper led the way inside, followed by Mokuba and Seto, and then Yugi and his friends. Marik picked up an oil lantern lying by the entrance and lit it. Taylor let out a low whistle as they journeyed deeper into the depths. "Wow. Even if some robbers didn't get put off by the outside, they would've been scared off once they got in."
"Stay close," Marik warned as they stepped onto a long, creaky wooden bridge. "Whereas the 'Nameless' One's tomb was set with booby-traps, the dangers in this one are in dead ends and dark chasms."
As if on cue, the rotten plank beneath Wheeler's foot splintered and snapped, and the blond yelped as he started to fall into the black pit below.
"JOEY!" his friends screeched.
Fast as lightning, Seto's hand reached out and seized Wheeler's wrist. Taylor helped him pull Wheeler back up onto the dangerously swaying bridge, which Marik was frantically trying to steady.
Wheeler's face was white as a sheet as he gripped the rope railing, staring at the abyss he would've plummeted into had Seto been a second too late. "You saved my life there, Kaiba… Er, thanks."
"Don't mention it, Wheeler."
"I mean, I never –"
"Seriously. Don't mention it. Ever." Seto shoved his hands into his pockets and followed Mokuba off the bridge.
Marik waited for them all to step off before moving on. "You all right, Joey?"
"I think dat fall took a few years off my life, but other than dat, I'm okay."
"Good. No more bridges, but there's a maze ahead, so whatever you do, don't lose sight of each other," Marik cautioned, and they entered a stone labyrinth. Without even batting an eyelash, the Tomb Keeper navigated the treacherous paths, decisively making turns where Seto admitted even he wouldn't know where to go.
"How do you know the way so well?" Yugi wondered as they turned right at an intersection.
"You spend your entire life growing up in these houses of the dead, you learn a thing or two."
Then Taylor nearly tripped over a skeleton, and Tea shrieked at the sight of the dusty bones. "What is that?"
"A trespasser. Wasn't here the last time..." Marik nudged the skeleton with his foot, uprooting its grinning skull, which rolled away into the darkness. "Unfortunately for this poor fellow, we're almost there. Should've held on a bit longer."
After the very next turn was a large, sandstone door, inscribed with hieroglyphs. "Beyond lies the Great Pharaoh Seto and His White Queen," Seto murmured.
Everyone stared at him, even Mokuba. Yugi looked incredulous. "You can read the words, too?"
Seto's eyes widened slightly. He hadn't even realized… "So it seems," he said stiffly.
Marik looked pensive as he moved forward, grazing his hand along the door until he found a hidden lever, and he pulled. The door slowly rolled open, revealing a vast, drafty chamber. In the center lay two sarcophaguses and some urns and other relics were tucked neatly into the corners.
What caught Seto's attention first though were the images on the walls. His hand traced the easily recognizable shape of the Blue Eyes, inlaid in silver. The white dragon was curled around something, as if it were protecting its treasure. He leaned in for a closer look.
"Seto, you should come take a look at this!" Mokuba's excited voice caught his attention, and Seto strode over to where everyone was crowded around the sarcophaguses. "I think that's you."
The larger sarcophagus was, unlike most others that were made of gold, made of silver and depicted a man at his prime. In the clasped hands was a short staff that looked suspiciously like the Millennium Rod. Seto scrutinized the carved face mercilessly, trying to ignore the shivers crawling up his spine as he tried to deny the obvious resemblance. "It could be anyone," he said gruffly. The others started to protest but he'd already turned away to look at the second sarcophagus.
It was much significantly smaller than the pharaoh's and made of pure white marble. Not even a single blemishing vein. But the perfection of the marble wasn't what had captured his attention so wholeheartedly – it was the girl lying on top.
At least, it looked like a girl lying on the sarcophagus. The sculptor had done an incredibly good job. Every crease in the clothing, every strand of her hair. Had it not been for the two sapphires inlaid in the eyes, she could have looked like she was sleeping. Kisara had certainly been pale enough for anyone to be able to mistake the carving for her.
"It's like seein' a ghost," came Wheeler's hushed whisper.
Yugi, though, was looking at Seto, not the sarcophagus. "Kaiba? What are you thinking?"
Any and all doubts he'd had about the vision from three years ago, in ancient Egypt, vanished. Here was proof that Kisara had lived and died. Here was proof that he did have a past life in which he was High Priest – then pharaoh.
If Seto Kaiba were a weaker man, he would've stumbled backward in shock. But he stood still, expression unreadable as he continued gazing down at the carving. "I think," he said at long last, "we're ready to see the stone tablets now."
As the others filed out of the chamber, he tentatively touched the marble cheek of the girl. Cold. She had been warmer in his dreams. He withdrew his hand and exited the room, never looking back.
Everyone was silent on the drive back to the village, mostly because no one wanted to disturb Seto from his thoughts. He had no reaction when they arrived. He had no reaction when Marik distributed Egyptian pounds to everyone to buy lunch. He had no reaction when Mokuba tugged on his sleeve, asking what he wanted to eat. He had no reaction when Yugi's friends gently pulled Mokuba away to browse the food stalls. He had no reaction when they returned almost an hour later and Mokuba placed some kind of pita bread sandwich on his lap.
He did, however, react when Marik sauntered back, asking if they were ready to go to the temple of the stone tablets. "About time we got going," Seto said flatly.
"Ah! He speaks!" Nevertheless, Marik hopped back into the jeep, and soon they were peeling away from the village.
Mokuba tapped Seto's shoulder. "Are you all right, big bro?"
"I'm fine, Mokuba."
"You were out of it for a while. What were you thinking about?"
Damned if he knew. His thoughts had been a chaotic swirl for the past hour, but one thing stood out: Kisara was real. She had existed once. And if the Blue Eyes' stone tablet really did contain her soul, or ka, then there was still a chance for… for something.
Instead of answering Mokuba's question, Seto held up the sandwich. "What is this?"
"Beef. It's really good. I had a few."
"Hm. I'm not really hungry right now." Seto put it on the dashboard. They were driving along the Nile, and Seto gazed at the river, thinking back on the dream. It hadn't felt like a dream, he knew he had definitely touched the water and walked on the sand, and Kisara…
How could she not be real?
He was surprised to find his own heart pounding when he suddenly realized they had arrived at the temple. Surrounded for miles by sand, the frame and support were strong and it still stood, though its great age was obvious. The jeep hadn't even come to a complete stop yet when Seto was already out and quickly walking toward the building, intent on reaching the temple at all costs. The surprised calls of the just-arrived Ishizu and Odion fell on deaf ears as he stepped inside.
The stone tablets nearer to the entrance were crumbling away, but the deeper into the temple, the better-preserved they were. Seto completely ignored them all, eyes set only on the tablet at the very end.
The Blue Eyes looked just as it had five thousand years ago. The dragon had not bowed to the whims of Time. As Seto's eyes traveled up to its head, the dragon seemed to stare back at him, its single visible eye glowing blue.
He threw his arm up to shield his own eyes as a ray of light arced from the top to bottom, seemingly cutting into the stone before dissipating. Then the single orb of light in the eye grew, spreading like liquid through the crevices in the tablet until the entire outline of the dragon was illuminated. A distant, familiar roar, and then he was blinded, engulfed by cyan light.
Seto!
"Kisara!" He squinted, trying to see. "Where are you?" A hazy figure stood before him, and he struggled to reach it. "How do I set you free?"
There is a book, it will show itself to you! She was starting to fade. Just remember – the two worlds, one you live in, one you used to deny, they can work together!
"Wait, come back!"
They are warning me, my time is almost up. I will keep watching over you, we will see each other again! Goodbye, Seto! The light vanished, and he was left standing alone in front of a lifeless slab of stone.
His finger traced one of its grooves, seeking warmth that wasn't there. He could sense the others standing behind him, silent. Probably still in shock over what they had just seen. For once, the spirits hadn't wanted to talk to Yugi. She'd wanted Seto.
What had she said, his two worlds? The one he used to deny was obviously magic. But the one he lived in… Earth? Domino City? No, she said they could work together, which meant at first glance they didn't look like they meshed. Polar opposites.
And the opposite of magic was science. He had plenty of that.
Seto turned around. "Ishizu, I need to transport this tablet back to Domino City immediately."
I'd like to thank Kisara Strife as inspiration for the tomb scene with Pharaoh Seto and Kisara's sarcophaguses. The little "I'm not your God" quip came from one of my old history teachers; he was awesome. :)
Upcoming: Pegasus shows up with an artifact that is key to Seto's pet project.
Review please! (Side note: the preview request still stands, even if I don't mention it. I just want to thank everyone who's kind enough to review - it makes me feel all happy and fuzzy inside. ^^)