Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh, and all people, places, and events from the original Yu-Gi-Oh! were written and are the rightful property of Kazuki Takahashi (as it should be; if any of us fanfiction writers get our little hands on it... well, then it wouldn't be Yu-Gi-Oh!).
Author's Note: Hey readers of mine! Guess what! Today, February 15, is my B-day! Yes, it is! Now I am 15 years old, so isn't that weird? Being 15 on the 15th? … Well, that's all that's on my mind today, so… let's get on with this, shall we? No point in having a birthday and not updating on your favorite fanfiction (because it's yours) right?
…. As you can tell, I have no life beyond this computer….
#2 Author's Note: All thoughts are in italics.
Revival of the Heart
By: Angel's Nocturne
Chapter 29: Wings over a golden ocean….
It wasn't long before they had reached the airport; like Ryou had said earlier, they were there shortly after Anzu awoke from her long rest on the plane, and ready to head out into the mysterious world that was Egypt. Though that didn't happen too quickly, since they still needed to land and get off the plane.
Kaiba took the jet over to the private hanger that the Ishtar family had clearance to; Ishizu patiently guided Kaiba to the airport before the two of them got so frustrated that they killed each other on the spot. Anzu merely watched them come onto the runway, wheeling in smoothly under Kaiba's sure hand. The sun from above was already a bit bright for Anzu's taste, blinding her with the few rays that poured in through the small windows in the passenger area. She was going to have to get used to it, though, if she was going to travel out here in the desert.
No one bothered them when they exited the plane, no one seemed to want their IDs or any other form of identification- at least not once Ishizu and Kaiba showed their passports and authorization; after that all the others backed off quickly. Kaiba also had a menacing glare of ice that kept any of the guys in the hanger from bothering Anzu or Ryou, so his cold steel eyes were for once a bonus for Anzu, unlike most other times.
They had no luggage, and they had nothing with them on the plane, so they left p without a hitch and spent no time browsing at whatever there was to see. As soon as they walked outside the airport they saw Odion standing next to a white jeep, just like Ishizu's had been in Japan but looked more capable of rugged terrain. Odion looked the same as he always did- tan skin, green eyes, a bald head save the ponytail that he wore up in the back, hieroglyphic markings covering the left side of his face…he didn't appear much different. He still wore the formal amethyst robe that he had worn during Malik's hunt for the power of the Pharaoh, and he still had that traditionally look of seriousness and formality that he always held so highly. He smiled as they approached.
"I received your call, Miss Ishizu" he said to them.
"Thank Ra you did, Odion" Ishizu replied as she went over to speak to him. Anzu wondered when Ishizu had made this call, since she did not remember it, but then again she was asleep for most of the flight so maybe Ishizu did call Odion while she had slept. "I only got the answering machine before- why weren't you there to answer?"
"I was studying one of the ancient tombs for a few hours- you must have called me then."
"Must have." Ishizu looked over at Odion, then back at the rest of the group. Anzu watched the other two guys' expressions: Kaiba was scowling and shifting around comfortably, and Ryou simply looked curious, like the entire world was new to him and he had his eyes open for the first time. Anzu thought about if Bakura was out instead of Ryou, and how both he and Kaiba would have been wearing the same faces.
"And why isn't Master Malik with you, Miss Ishizu?" The Egyptologist turned back to her step-brother, a grave look in her pale blue eyes. She had her head bowed, and at the sight of that stance Odion's face tensed up. "Has something happened to Master Malik?"
There was silence for a small while; Anzu looked down at her boots, Ryou's eyes grew large and sad, while Kaiba just stood there uncaring and oblivious. Odion appeared to be a bit panicky when he saw them all look so filled with grief. "Tell me, Miss Ishizu! Where is Master Malik?"
"I'm… I'm sorry for not saying this over the phone, Odion." Ishizu whispered, and Odion seemed to be ready to shake the life out of something from the fear. "Malik… he has been taken… as a mind slave to the newest threat to mankind, Princess Samira, along with Yugi and a few others." It didn't matter what else Ishizu had said, because at the mention of Malik being a mind slave Odion's eyes went wide with shock and Anzu was sure that he had stopped breathing; his face, despite how tan it was, looked awfully pale and he seemed sick. Ishizu looked back up at him, and placed a hand on her shoulder as he closed his eyes in remorse.
"Not Master Malik…" Odion whispered, in a voice so quiet Anzu wasn't even sure she heard it; his voice also quivered as he spoke, like he was trying not to cry. Anzu would never believe her eyes if she saw Odion cry, since he was just the type of person who just, didn't seem to have the capability to shed tears outwardly. The two were silent for another moment as they stood next to each other, as if exchanging thoughts to each other in ways that Anzu couldn't understand, and then Ishizu took her hand off of Odion's shoulder and he nodded to her, his emerald eyes open.
"Then we have no time to lose, if Master Malik is being held captive" Odion announced to everyone, his hand gesturing to the jeep behind him. He opened up the door to the driver's seat, allowing Ishizu to get in to drive, and he closed it behind him and looked at the other three. "Get in, quickly. If this threat that you are talking about comes here then we shall need every advantage we can get- we must move swiftly before it gets here." Anzu obeyed, hopping into the back seat and moving herself inside until she was on the passenger's side of the back seat. Ryou followed in behind her, and when Odion gestured to Kaiba to get in as well, the CEO simply ignored him and majestically sat down on the driver's side of the back seat, refusing to look at any of them. Anzu thought she heard him mumble under his breath, but she decided not to be bothered with it; Kaiba would be Kaiba, no matter what the situation.
Odion shut the door for Kaiba and proceeded to walk around the back of the jeep and get in through the passenger's side door, sitting beside Ishizu and in front of Anzu. Ishizu then started up the jeep with a roar of the engine, and soon they were off, the jeep moving moderately quick along the semi-paved road. That was how they traveled for a short period of time, but eventually Ishizu began to move the jeep off the road, and it wasn't long before Anzu felt them fly over sand dunes like they were on some kind of thrill ride- or Kaiba's plane during take-off again.
She looked over at Ryou, who seemed as sick as his yami was during Kaiba's flight from Domino; his face was shaded with the lightest tint of green at first, but that faded soon once he got used to the ride. Since Ishizu's white jeep had an open top, the wind from the desert flew past there faces, stinging them with sand every once and a while and always feeling a bit dry; Ryou's hair was a cloak of white that billowed behind him gracefully, and Anzu felt hers whip in the wind as well. Kaiba's stayed plastered to his head, as unmoving and serious as he was at the time; as he preoccupied himself with staring out the window at the endless amount of sand that past them by. Anzu and Ryou, on the other hand, were having more fun talking amongst themselves, as the trip had become boring and they needed something else to do besides look out at the ocean of gold that surrounded them.
"This feels so different from Japan, doesn't it?" Ryou asked, his voice a bit loud since he was trying to get his words over the loud howl of the engine and the wind racing past them. She nodded as she shielded her eyes from the bright noon-day sun to look over at him.
"I bet Bakura would like this!" Anzu shouted to him, and at the mention of his yami Ryou appeared both sad and humored at the same instant. "Something wrong?"
"Nothing really… but, Bakura is worrying me a bit. He seems so to himself, and he won't let me speak to him through our mind link. He's completely closed himself off from me, and I don't know why." Ryou could have seemed disheartened by this, but Anzu knew better than to think that, for she could sense the nervousness in his voice. She was a little uneasy at this as well, because she knew the destruction and evil that Yami Bakura was capable of, and if he was trying to hide something he was doing a good job of keeping it from Ryou and her. What could he possibly have to hide from them? Anzu took that thought back for a second, because she knew that Bakura could have everything to hide, if not more- secrets about his ancient past that perhaps he wanted to conceal, and thoughts that might reveal things that he wanted to remain in the dark.
"So, he hasn't told you anything about why he wants to help me, and why he wants to stop Samira?" Anzu shouted, but Ryou merely shrugged.
"He never tells me anything. Last night was the first time I've ever had a nearly decent conversation with him, and that didn't last long. He hasn't come out of his soul room since we transferred last night, and that's been the only time I've heard from him for a while." That didn't help solve the mystery for Anzu, but instead made it more unclear.
"Isn't Bakura always like that?"
"Yes, but the mind link is usually open anyway and Bakura is, for the most part, always hovering over me so that at any single moment he can take over when he deems it necessary. I don't have any real access to the mind link, but he has full access and will use it to the furthest extent possible to control me. The fact that he's completely ignoring me now and secluding himself into the Ring disturbs me a little, but it's nothing to be worried about, Anzu." He gave her a gentle smile that reassured her just a little, but still not so much. "Bakura has always been a bit stand-offish, so I wouldn't be concerned."
"Oh… okay, then." Anzu let the conversation slide after that, referring back to some quiet contemplation on her part. The sea of sand continued on as they leapt over dunes and hills of the stuff, and Anzu soon began to wonder if they were going around in circles or something. There can't possibly be this much sand, can there be? Anzu knew that, in reality, there was much more sand out there than just what she was seeing now, but she prayed that this trip would have an end so that she wouldn't have to stare out at the gold world of Egypt much longer.
Her wish was finally granted when she saw a large expanse of canyons and rocky hills loom over in the distance; the yellowish disk that was the sun sat over the mountains lazily, indicating that it was sometime in the mid-afternoon and that they had been traveling for a few hours or so. Ishizu was driving straight over to the canyons, making them grow in size and detail as the jeep began to gain speed towards them. They had a lot of curves and edges embedded in the face of the rocky chasms and canyons, and it stood like a giant wall blocking their path to the Pharaoh's tomb. Finally they got close enough that Ishizu slowed her vehicle to a stop, and as she parked it everyone got ready to exit out onto the Egyptian sand.
"Where are we, Ishizu?" Anzu asked as she undid her seatbelt, though she did get the oddest feeling that she knew this place from somewhere before….
"We are near the Valley of the Kings, outside the area where Pharaoh Atemu's tomb is hidden, somewhere in the cavern here. We cannot drive through the openings in there, because the openings are quite narrow in some spots, so we will be going out on foot the rest of the way." At the mention of the Valle of the Kings and of Pharaoh Atemu's tomb, Anzu found some recognition stir within her; yes, she had been there once before, when she and the others traveled on Bobasa's back to find the Pharaoh's name in the Memory World. She knew now where they were, but that didn't help her memory in how to travel through the cavern since she didn't do that while she was in the Memory World since they had ridden on top of Bobasa the whole time. Ishizu seemed confidence though, so Anzu didn't have many worries as she opened the car door and put her feet on the Egyptian soil.
It felt strange to have her boots sink into the thick sand, its plushy texture giving way underneath her feet as she walked gingerly away from the jeep. Her steps were clumsy at first, as she tried desperately to get her footing right since she was in high heels and this was very deep, unstable sand. It reminded her of going to the beach, and struggling to walk to the ocean because the sand was so difficult to travel through, but after a bit of wobbling and near-falling moments she found her balance and walked over to Ishizu and Odion, who were already heading over to the entrance of the wall of rock.
Ryou followed close behind her, also unused to the deep sand but managing to walk alongside of her; Kaiba refused to show any sign of weakness, so as he got out of the jeep he simply walked as though he were on flat ground. Anzu marveled at how easily he walked with the sand under him, but she saw him wobble a little and that helped remind her that he was just as human as she was, despite how often he tried to hide it. He scowled the whole time as he approached them, making sure that they got the message about his state of mind- not that Anzu needed him to tell her that, since he was always a little on the serious side.
"Let's go" Ishizu beckoned, but Kaiba interrupted her.
"Okay, I've had enough of this. This is pathetic, driving over to some ancient tomb of some dead pharaoh to look for, something that I don't know about, and hoping that it will solve this problem- shouldn't we be hunting down this Samira person you said was keeping my brother, or are you all going to go pray to the dead pharaoh that you keep preaching about to help give us strength do to, whatever it is you think we're doing! Be reasonable for once-"
"Kaiba, relax will you?" Anzu heard a deep, hoarse voice say, and she was surprised to realize that it came from Ryou; upon closer inspection she saw that Bakura had taken over once again, his sharp brown eyes glaring over at Kaiba, who had crossed his arms in annoyance. "I don't want to hear you blab about how miserable you are with this, because believe me, I am far more pissed than you will ever be in your entirely wretched lifetime. Now, will you just come along, or do I have to drag you by that fancy trench coat of yours inside, because I will if you insist on being such a pain in my ass." Without another word the tomb robber turned abruptly and started towards the opening of the cavern, never glancing at anyone as he trudged away from them and shoved his way past Odion and Ishizu. Odion made a move like he was going to clobber the King of Thieves for even making such a disrespectful gesture to Ishizu, but the Egyptologist calmed him before he could even raise his fist. Anzu watched him in slight surprise, wondering why he seemed so agitated all of a sudden. She knew that he had his irritable times, but what he did just now was so uncalled for that it took her a little off guard. Still, it did helped in getting Kaiba to stop his complaining, because shortly after the fact he started to walk towards the opening as well- grumbling and completely infuriated, but still Bakura's threats had put him down a notch and they were back to being on their way to resurrecting the Pharaoh.
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Author's Note: Yeah! One B-day chappie for me! Send me your reviews soon, so that I can get them for mi birthday as a gift! Yes, I know, again not very exciting, but at least they are almost at the tomb and will be resurrecting Atemu soon! But remember folks that Samira is still out there and is ready to do all she can to stop our heroes in there, so be ready for anything that she throws out of them (hehe… I am evil, with how long this is taking… but I'm allowed to be evil, because I am special….hehe).
Chu (little sister of mine): Oh yeah, she's special all right… if you mean "special ed"….
Me: GET THE HELL OUT OF THIS AUTHOR'S NOTE! GO WRITE UR OWN STORY!
Well, that's all I have to say… so "Happy Birthday to me…." –blows little horn and shakes Elfbrat18's pom-poms around- "…wheee…"
