We do not own "Yu-Gi-Oh!" nor any of its characters.
"YugiOh A Time to Every Purpose"
Act II: Egypt
Chapter 25
On the surface above, where Kisara's kidnapping had taken place, a pair of strangers whose bodies were best friends, if not their minds, were perched near the perimeter of the Pharaoh's palace looking in at the guards who were doing double shifts. They were waiting for those guards to be relieved and the palace left unguarded for that briefest moment.
"I still can't believe you work for that Thief. Kara, trust me, he's bad news. You shouldn't get involved with his schemes." Whispering, Namu, a.k.a. Marik, pulls off his hood from his dark cloak as he looks to Kara. She was sporting the same outfit, and appeared to be a man, within the large male clothing so much that Marik could only tell she was a woman due to past encounters. And boy did he know! He was still trying to get the vision of her body with the gleaming drops of water reflected on the sunlight off the river burning fire in her red hair...
And maybe in something inside of him as well. For the first time in his life, something was stirring. Marik shakes his head violently, trying to clear it. His averted eyes now looked up to where Kara's were glaring over at him in disbelief.
"I'm working for him?! Namu, you're the one who convinced me to join his group of losers when we had no place to go and nothing to eat. Remember? Good thing all the rest of his swine think I'm just another thieving 'guy', though he himself knows I'm not, for a fact..." Kara's ferocious whisper breaks off rather weakly.
"What do you mean 'for a fact?' Has he done something to you?" Suddenly Marik feels his masculine ire rise. He searched the green eyes before him for any sign that that thieving-
"NO! Namu, I-it's just the way his cold eyes look at me sometimes. I can feel him watching my every move. I can't explain it. Hey! Enough chatting, we've got a job to do here, although I don't claim to like it, especially tonight's mission. Who knows what disgusting thing a man of his calibre is plotting with all this? But Namu, I'd still like to stay alive. We both had better like to." Kara's eyes blazed with determination in his, as she squeezes his hands, conveying so many emotions at once. Underlying every one of them was a fear- a deep, stabbing fear of the king thief who she knew to never cross-or else not expect to see the light of the next day.
Marik looks into her green eyes as the dark, dusky sky casted shadows over both of their hooded bodies as Kara tucks his hood back over his blonde head. She then hands him some sort of archaic grappling hook, with an expectant look in her eye.
"You first, 'lackey.'"
"But...why?"
"Fine. I'll go on this one alone. Though I thought it would always be a team. Kubarin's probably already inside by now. We're wasting time."
Marik watches in awe as the girl's muscular arms appear, bare and toned, from within the folds of her dark clothes. She grunted as she threw the heavy metal prong up until it caught hold of the stone balcony edge. Stealthily, Kara heaves herself up the ropes, scaling the walls with ease, as if her pliable form had quite a bit of experience when it came to this sort of thing.
There was no limit to her, was there? Marik watches Kara go up the rope, considering what to do now.
Why did I have to wake up in this time alone? Ishizu! Odion! My friends, where are you? Well, one thing's for sure-I know where the Pharaoh is-in there. So maybe, if I go in, I'll see him and I'll warn of the Thief's strange new plan. I should be able to find the others and help more on our mission, despite my 'respected' ancestor's antics with the King of Thieves.
"Kara, wait! I'm coming!" Marik scrambles up the rope, double time with a husky whisper upwards. Kara was not surprised that he was coming, but she was surprised to catch the glimpse of her skilled, athletic partner struggling with a task he'd done tens of times before with no problem.
Why are you so strange today? It's as if you're another person... Kara thought to herself, involuntarily slowing down to let her partner catch up on the rope, until Namu is right on her heels. She gazes at him serious as she reaches the top of the balcony and leaps over the edge as graceful as a cat.
She backtracks to help her partner up, since he was acting so strangely today. But it was an unnecessary gesture. Muscular Namu easily flips up over the balcony's edge to land on his feet-as usual, so close to her surprised body that she could have kissed him.
A rise in voices beyond the curtained veranda breaks the moment and returns Kara to her concentration. She, a thief extraordinaire, had quickly learned how to slip into the shadows, hidden from sight. She grabs Namu by his sluggish collar, both of them dropping behind the large stone pillar near the balcony's edge.
"I could've sworn I heard something out here. Guess it was just the wind. Come on, little baby. Let's go back inside to check on Mai."
That was Tea's voice!
A gleeful child's giggle ensues as Marik was about to call out to his fellow time traveler. He was glad to find someone he knew and who would know him at last, so they could get this show on the road. Suddenly, a quick motion from his partner causes him to stop dead in his tracks.
Kara?! What is she doing?!
Marik's eyes widen as the girl beside him begins to move, with a silent knife unsheathing from her hip belt.
"Hey, Mai. I want to introduce you to someone. Why don't you wake up already so you can meet him? Look! Isn't he sweet? Ooooh, you're cuddly, too, baby! He's really the best, most even-tempered loving baby you've ever seen. Just open your eyes and look at him! And do you have any idea who his daddy is? Well, I do! Boy, little did I know that the Pharaoh was so-"
Tea stops her incessant ranting and silly schoolgirl blushing, at just the thought of Pharaoh Atem and his Queen like that. All the while she was cuddling and tickling 'her' new baby. The little boy was cooing at his funny 'mummy's' silly words, and talking to the sleeping lady on the bed, although Mai surely didn't hear her. Tea knew that and, though concerned for her friend, she was too excited to hold it in anymore.
A baby! Just think! When Yugi and I have a baby...Hee hee hee...He'll look just like you, little one! Well, maybe not so dark skinned and I think...I think I'll name him 'Jaden'!' Oooh, isn't that a cool name for such a cool little guy!
Tea giggles as she tickles 'her' equally giggling child with plans for her own future.
"Oooh, I just love you so much already!"
And you're not even mine...really...
"Yes, you are! Today I'm Teana and I'm your mama, my sweet little adorable baby! I'm never gonna let you go! Ever!" Tea felt quite motherly and scoops up 'her' baby, smothering the rosy child, bubbling over with life and energy with her kisses. She starts blowing on his bare tummy to make funny noises, which causes him to laugh even more.
"Oh, you are so precious!"
"Huh?" Teana suddenly looks up from her drooling over and playing with her bouncing baby boy, to notice that eerie feeling of inconspicuous movement-as if someone were there you couldn't see. Someone watching your every move...
"Greetings, Your Majesty."
Tea's gasps and screams are stifled by a sudden quick hand smacking over her mouth from behind. The other hand of her attacker was pointedly drawing a gleaming sharp knife to Tea's neck.
"Just hand over the baby and no one gets hurt." The voice was low and threatening. Tea's arms were still around the little boy, and pulled him closer to her now, in defiance. But her hand begins to shake when she feels the blade of the sharpened knife begin to cut the first layer of skin at her throat.
"Kara! What are you doing?! Kara, stop!" Marik's mouth had fallen open the minute he saw his green-eyed friend pull out the weapon, and his mouth had hung open even wider when, within seconds, she had started to usedit on one of the only friends he had in the world.
Sure, Tea was wearing Queen Teana's clothing-she was in her body, just as Ishizu and Shadi had explained her Millennium Pendant could do, before this long journey even began.
But she was still Tea. Marik was that sure of it, as his body decides it could start moving again from the shock. He rushes over to the bedside of the dark haired woman that he knew instinctively somehow was his fellow duelist, Mai Valentine.
But this girl-Kara-as he has come to know her, was shocking them all by holding a knife to Tea's throat. She turns her red head to meet Marik's questioning eyes, mouthing the words 'Namu, I'm handling this my way!' to him as Tea's eyes glance at Marik's fleetingly, then redirecting them towards 'her son.'
Marik saw her maternal concern instantly from her every feature.
"Yes, Kara, what are you doing? Your instructions were to slay the babe, not kidnap him. It's the child's mother you were to procure only. What part of the word 'slay' don't you understand, my dear?"
His voice! His voice! And it was all too late. Kara turns to Namu with urgent, fearful eyes. She knew what certainly would come next when the cold-blooded thief with no heart beating within his chest was on the move...
"Allow me to illustrate for you and I'll write this particularly lesson out for you-in blood!"
The Thief hops deftly down to the balcony from above. He drops Serenity in Kisara's fainted body to the balcony ground as he rips open his red robes. A pair of deadly daggers suddenly approached the wide eyed baby and his frenzied mother.
All were stunned still as Thief Bakura moves in with wild eyes and a blood curdling cackle as well...
To most normal humans, taking the life of such a small, vulnerable creature as a tiny, toddler old baby in cold blood would be an unthinkable act. It was inconceivable for even the most hardened of criminals.
But it was entirely imaginable for a man whose blackened soul was corrupted enough to cast a shadow of blame for his stolen life upon what most would call the miracle of birth.
"Do you have to marry that old man, Bekah? Just because your father needed the money and sold you off to the highest, richest bidder? Really?"
A young man with long frosty-lavender hair and beautiful brown eyes sprints up to his childhood friend and now, sweetheart. For both souls had pledged themselves to one another alone, a long time ago, it seemed, from that awful day when he escaped his burning city in Kul Elna.
He considered himself fortunate to have found her here in this foreign city. For Bekah was the only one nice enough to look upon his pale haired features and fall in love with him to boot.
But this love was not meant to be.
"Yes, Adonah, I suppose I do." The small framed girl appeared no older than a child herself, despite her fourteen years of age that made her more than the accepted marrying age in that era.
The elderly businessman wanted an heir and he knew he had little time in which to accomplish this. So the younger, more fertile aged, the better. Surely, such a girl could produce him a son, even if he had to take ten brides. The callous man who was to be her husband had already made his intentions loud and clear for all the world to hear.
Sprightly, spirited Bekah was to be just another of his attempts and her desperate father had accepted his terms, for he had more concern of his money than of his daughter's wishes.
"But...he doesn't love you. That old fool can never love you as I can and do! Bekah! Bekah, marry me instead! I'll get the money for your father somehow, even more! I'll become the best thief there ever was!" Adonah grasps Bekah's back that had been turned to him all the while. Her thick shock of dark hair had disguised the fact that this young girl was trembling with tears flowing down her rosy cheeks.
Even as he said it, Adonah, a lowly orphan and street urchin, with neither family, background or trade to his self-assigned name, realized it was impossible for the well-bred daughter of a trader to marry some poor nobody. He was a stranger from a decimated city that was no more. He had nothing but his youthful vigor and deep love to offer her.
"If only I could be your wife, Adonah! Don't think I haven't wished for it so many times. I love you and I'll never, ever love him! But I still must marry him, or he'll do something dreadful to our family. I just have to...I'm so sorry!"
The tears were flowing like a river from Bekah's plump cheeks. Just as her thin arms fervently struggle against his grip to break loose from him, she tries to dash away, too overcome by her own sorrows to face his.
"Bekah...I will not let you go."
It was hissed under his lips in a way he had never felt before. Adonah feels his eyes burning at that moment, blazing with the desire to make Bekah his own.
I'll get so much money in gold and jewels that your father will beg me to take you as my wife! I'll get you away from that dying old man! You'll see-you'll all see! I'll be known as the Master King of Thieves throughout the city. I will be even richer than him! I'll be respected, too! Just wait, Bekah! I'll rescue you from his clutches soon!
Adonah roared to be heard in this world.
One memory merges with nights of many others. The young boy turned man called Adonah found his call to become a thief exhilarating. So much so that it emboldened him to steal away with his ultimate prize-his true love, Bekah.
Although not being able to produce the necessary child as another despised man's wife, she was still in love with her childhood friend to risk it all in a forbidden affair.
And it is with Adonah, she is sure, from all of their stolen nights secreted away, wrapped in a kind of love that the old man could never give her, that Bekah finally conceived a child.
She conspired in her fear to trick her elderly husband into believing the baby within her was his.
But no-the proud master thief that Adonah had become in one short year had different ideas. He had already become far richer than he had ever imagined by this new profitable endeavor and he decided to pay off the old man with every cent of his escalating gold and treasure if it took it, to leave both bride and home to their new owner-him.
Then, Adonah and Bekah could live happily ever after, at long last. The orphan boy who had been longing for what had been stolen from him long ago was now to get his reward.
A new life. But that was never meant to be.
For one fateful day, the businessman had come home early to find his newly pregnant wife in the arms of another. Adonah was taken off guard and was socked on the head as his consciousness faded. He heard the old man's words screaming in his ears.
"You dare to blacken my good family name with this trash's child! You poor excuse for a woman! If you can't have my offspring, you will have no other!"
The sheer anger of her husband's voice was frightening enough to leave Bekah's dying screams ringing out in Adonah's ears as he is dragged away by the Pharaoh's own guards to prison at the man's request.
Adonah soon escapes them, but the stench of fresh blood that greeted his horrified eyes as he returned to her home, all over Bekah's bed and room, was proof enough for him to kill the man who had taken his only goodness, his only light, away from him.
The man drowned in his own blood as Adonah, now crazed, made certain with each dagger slice he left cruelly in the man's body, that it left him alive long enough to writhe in agony.
"You wanted an heir so much, old man? Here it is-your tombstone!"
Adonah could only remember the hatred burning from within, seething as he saw red crazed madness through eyes that could no longer live. He despised the sight of all new life, since it had cruelly stolen away his, in his mind.
Now all he craved for was death...
The seeds of evil were formed and he was no longer himself from that day forward.