Kisara came to consciousness slowly despite the violence of her dreams. If the world of her memories had been dark and slightly blurry with time, then the waking world was all silver and white sharpness, so bright and vivid it made her eyes tear up. She blinked rapidly, glancing to the side to allow her vision some time to adjust. A young boy she did not know sat in a chair next to her bed. Too distracted with his own thoughts to notice she'd woken, the boy chewed lower his lip and stared off at nothing, fiddling with the cuff of his fine suit jacket. Damp lines glittered on his cheeks.
"Are you crying?" Kisara asked him.
The boy didn't jump, exactly, but he stiffened when Kisara spoke, his back and shoulders straightening all at once. He scrubbed at his face with his jacket sleeve self-consciously.
Kisara sat up slowly in the bed. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you. Can you tell me where I am?" The boy frowned at her in confusion. She tried again, "I need to find someone. It's very important..."
"Are you messing with me?" the boy interrupted.
"I don't-I mean, I'm not," she tried to reassure him.
"Do you understand what I'm saying right now?"
Now it was Kisara's turn to look confused. "Why wouldn't I understand you?" she stammered.
The boy furrowed his brow at her, the aggression in his posture faltering. He and Kisara regarded each other with mutual incomprehension for a moment. Then the boy hopped up from his seat and hurried to a nearby door.
"Mutou-jiisan!" he called through it.
Within seconds, Sugoroku Mutou appeared in the hospital room. "Mokuba-kun, what's going on?" he asked.
The boy gestured at Kisara. "She woke up, but she's talking gibberish. Is that a real language? I've never heard it."
Fear slipped coldly down Kisara's spine. "What does he mean? I'm speaking normally," she said, looking from Sugoroku to Mokuba and back again.
Something like recognition lit Sugoroku's eyes. Wariness followed hot on its heels. "Aoi-chan," the old man said.
Hearing that name, the girl realized all at once that she had not, in fact, been speaking normally-or at least, she had not been talking to the boy or Mr. Mutou in the same language they had used to address her. "Aoi"-that's not my name. But wait, no, that is my name! I'm Shirogane Aoi, and I speak...
"Japanese," Aoi whispered, in the correct language this time. "Was I not speaking Japanese just now?"
Mokuba and Mr. Mutou exchanged glances. "You weren't," confirmed Sugoroku gently, "but never mind. How are you feeling, Aoi-chan?"
"I'm...confused." Aoi glanced around the hospital room, taking in its stark walls and strange medical equipment. An egg-shaped helmet bristling with wires rested on a small metal table in one corner. Something about the sight of it made Aoi feel cold. "What happened to me?"
"You fainted all of a sudden back at the game store. Mokuba-kun and his brother brought you to this hospital for treatment. They've been quite generous."
The note of skepticism in Sugoroku's voice wasn't lost on Mokuba.
"Back to mistrusting us, Mutou-jiisan?" the boy asked, smirking. "Don't worry. We'll only stick you with the medical bills if you keep acting ungrateful for our help."
"You sound more and more like your brother every day," sighed Mr. Mutou.
"Gee, thanks."
Movement from Aoi drew both Mokuba and Sugoroku's attention. Partially tangled in electrical cords from the various monitoring devices to which she'd been attached, Aoi rose clumsily from the hospital bed despite Sugoroku's protests. Her hair fell in a curtain over her face as she bowed deeply in Mokuba's direction.
"I'm incredibly thankful for all you've done," she said. "Please understand, though: my debts don't belong to the Mutou family. They've been kind to me, but if any repayment needs to be made, I accept full responsibility. Please don't burden them for my sake."
The girl's dire speech seemed to fluster Mokuba; he blinked a few times before waving one hand in a reassuring gesture. "Uh, hey, don't worry about it. I was just kidding about the money stuff. Mostly," he added under his breath.
Aoi glanced at Mr. Mutou for confirmation. The old man nodded. "Sit down, Aoi-chan. There's no need to worry." He turned to Mokuba. "Though I would like to speak with your brother as soon as possible, Mokuba-kun. The doctors won't tell us anything about Aoi-chan's condition, but Seto-kun has been receiving updates, hasn't he?"
Seto. Aoi's heart flipped over in her chest.
Mokuba gave an unimpressed snort. "Oh, so you're finally willing to talk to him? You're gonna need to wait a little while for that. He's probably busy dueling your grandson on the roof right now."
"He's what?" cried Sugoroku after a disbelieving pause.
"You should have known that your daughter would immediately tell Yugi what happened and send him after you," Mokuba said. "Do you Mutous have some kind of genetic predisposition towards naivety, or is it just a family tradition?"
"No more than conniving is for you Kaibas! Was luring Yugi into a duel the only reason you helped us?!"
"Well, it was certainly an important decision factor," quipped the boy.
Mr. Mutou pinched the bridge of his nose. "And did it ever occur to either of you that simply apologizing to Yugi would be an easier means of getting him to approach you than all this scheming?"
"Maybe not easier." Mokuba's mouth twisted ruefully. "My brother doesn't apologize to anybody for anything."
The boy's unhappy expression reminded Sugoroku of the way Yugi used to look after particularly difficult phone conversations with his father. The old man felt his indignation leech away into pity.
"Mokuba-kun," he began.
"Save it," Mokuba stopped him. "It's none of your business."
Yugi had never wanted to talk about it, either. With a sigh, Mr. Mutou let the matter drop in favor of his original aim: "I don't suppose you could ask a doctor to give us some straight answers, then? Aoi-chan has a right to know about her condition."
Mokuba bit his lip, thinking it over.
"Dr. Dhawan wanted to run some more tests," he said at length, "but she can at least tell you what she's done so far. I don't think oniisama would mind." He turned as if to leave, saying "Stay here and I'll get-"
Mokuba stopped short. Mr. Mutou followed the younger Kaiba's confused gaze to Aoi's bedside. Where the girl had once stood, only empty air and a tangle of loose wires remained.
"Where'd she go?" asked Mokuba.
Aoi regretted her impulsive escape as the door to the roof-access staircase closed behind her. Dashing from her hospital room had left her heart pounding, and her vision spun so badly she needed to shut her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, the poorly lit concrete-and-metal stairway reminded Aoi of the dark passages from her dream, filling her with a dissonant sense of deja vu. She felt as though her mind was a radio stuck between two different stations, neither of which was coming through clearly enough for her to understand. She put one hand to her throbbing head as she climbed slowly up the stairs, her other hand gripping the metal railing to steady herself.
I'm running out of time, she thought without knowing why. Fear, sadness, and a deep, terrible longing battered her heart. Through her confusion and nausea, a single idea persisted: if she could only see Seto Kaiba and speak to him, her mind would clarify and she would know what to do next. The feeling made no rational sense, but she felt more certain about it than about anything she could remember.
She could remember...
"The palace is about to collapse; we need to get out now!"
"Lord Set, why is this happening? Is it because of-"
Aoi doubled over, dry-heaving. Darkness crept in at the corners of her vision as she fought for breath. Distantly, she heard someone rattling the handle of the door she'd come through, but for some reason, the door would not open for them.
"I should have known you would be here as well," intoned a deep, unnatural voice, "woman of the White Dragon."
With effort, Kisara lifted her head towards the speaker. A silver-haired phantom hovered over the shadowed stairs in front of her. Half of its face was covered by a broken mask inlaid with a tarnished golden eye; the other half was a dried mummy's face, lipless and grimacing, its eye a hollow socket.
"Akhnadin," Kisara rasped.
A horrible scraping noise like a tomb door sliding shut filled the staircase chamber; it took Kisara a moment to recognize the sound as Akhnadin's laughter. The phantom pointed a long-nailed finger at her.
"Your human shell is finely made, but fragile," observed Akhnadin. "I can see that body dying all around you. It will expire soon, and you will belong to the Shadow Realm once more."
"Not before I warn Kaiba-sama about you," she vowed.
"Such a harsh tone from one who I greet not as an enemy, but as an ally."
Kisara made no reply.
"We should be allies," continued the dark priest. "We have experienced the same heartache: neither of us can reach Set while his soul dwells in the Pharaoh's afterlife. I stood outside that realm's doors for three thousand years, clawing at the barriers that keep me from my son, to no avail. And because the true form of your soul is inhuman, you cannot join him, either. We must therefore content ourselves with the sliver of his spirit that reincarnated into this time and place. Seto Kaiba is not my son any more than he is your rescuer, but a part of Set lives on in him. For that part's sake, we both devote ourselves to his well-being."
"Well-being," echoed Kisara. "If you mean that, you must help me warn Kaiba-sama not to return to the afterlife."
"I will not dissuade him from fulfilling his destiny."
"Destiny? It could kill him!"
"His body and soul are strong enough to endure travelling between dimensions," said Akhnadin, waving away her concern.
Kisara shook her head. "You only want to use Kaiba-sama the way you tried to use Lord Set, to satisfy your ego and your need for conquest," she accused Akhnadin.
"Stupid girl, can you not see that the need for conquest is his? The Pharaoh's wretched soul has finally departed from this world, and still Seto Kaiba seeks to defeat him. He followed him into Death itself to do so!" Akhnadin laughed again, this time in amazed joy. "All this he did without so much as a whisper from me. I need not impel Seto Kaiba to battle; he strives for that on his own, more than my own son ever did. You are the one who defies his will and seeks to manipulate him."
"I came here to save him!"
"From what? From power and glory? From the dearest wish of his own heart?" Akhnadin pointed at Kisara once more. "If your love for him was truly selfless, you would have remained as his servant and continued to do his bidding. I think you are jealous-jealous because you realize that Seto Kaiba will not throw away his kingly future for you as Set did."
"You're wrong about me, and you don't understand anything about love," said Kisara quietly.
"Perhaps," allowed Akhnadin, surprising her, "but I am not wrong about Seto Kaiba. The moment you reveal your identity to him, you will see that he prefers you as the White Dragon, a tool to bring him victory. He will reject your so-called help."
"If you're so certain of that, why try to stop me from speaking with him?" The phantom hesitated a second too long in answering her question; Kisara continued, answering it herself, "You see the same goodness in him that I do. It's buried deeper in Kaiba-sama than it was in Lord Set, but it's there. There's more to him than the desire for victory. Seto Kaiba could be a good man-"
"'Good' men do not build dynasties or change the world! 'Good' men are weak. They are forgotten. Seto Kaiba has a greater destiny, the same destiny my son once had-to defeat the Pharaoh and live as a king without equal! You will not interfere with his fate again," thundered Akhnadin. It seemed the darkness in the stairs deepened as he spoke.
"Kill me again, then, if you can," Kisara dared him. Ill, alone, and clad only in a thin hospital gown, she nevertheless drew herself up defiantly as she faced down Akhnadin's vengeful ghost. "Only I think you would have stopped me already if you were capable of doing so."
The darkness in the stairs deepened as she spoke, and an eldritch hum indetectible to most living ears began to build around Akhnadin, threatening violence. If Kisara had learned anything about magic during her three thousand years in the Shadow Realm, that knowledge was gone now, sacrificed with other memories in a deal she did not recall making. However, a part of Kisara still remembered how to do battle on the planes of existence between thought and reality, life and death. If necessary, she would shed her corporeal form prematurely to put herself between Seto and the twisted remains of Akhnadin's spirit. She braced herself to meet the specter's first assault, but Akhnadin surprised her again by backing down from the confrontation with another horrible laugh.
"Maybe you understand me better than I first thought. In which case, we could perhaps reach a compromise," he said.
Kisara did not respond. The dark priest continued anyway, as she suspected he would,
"We both want Seto to be happy. I am not short-sighted; I realize that even if he satisfies all of my hopes, there will come a day when he has nothing left to conquer, or when his triumphs are so assured that he will grow bored with them. On that day his heart will likely turn to tenderer desires: he will want companionship, a family, and worthy heirs to cement his power. As a human woman, you could give him all of those things."
Kisara stared at Akhnadin in utter dumbfoundment. She couldn't help it; she hadn't felt this level of surprise since she'd first glimpsed giant monsters doing battle in an underground arena.
"Zorc Necrophades is gone, but even a scrap of his power is more than sufficient to sustain that body of yours. Return willingly to the Shadow Realm to serve Seto Kaiba as the White Dragon. In return, I will keep your human body safe and healthy, and when Seto's conquering days are behind him, I will reunite your soul with it so that you can become Seto's queen."
"Why should I believe that you would go to all that trouble for me?" demanded Kisara.
"Because I know that as misguided as your priorities are, your devotion to Seto has never wavered. A loyal wife is worth almost as much as a loyal dragon," Akhnadin replied. "Do as I suggest and we will not need to fight, because Seto will receive both of the things we want for him: glory and love, hand-in-hand."
"Now you value love?"
The phantom shrugged. "I discounted its allure the first time around. And if I were you, woman of the White Dragon, I would not discount the importance of glory this time around-not if you wish to succeed with Seto Kaiba. Think on my offer as your body breaks down and he refuses to listen to your well-intentioned pleas."
So saying, Akhnadin's ghost vanished, taking much of the stairwell's darkness with him.
Aoi gazed for a long moment at the space the phantom had occupied. Then, still clutching the metal railing, she threw up inelegantly on the stairs.