Kaiba
I hadn't even known I was about to do it until it'd already happened.
My body moved on its own. That was unacceptable. Even worse than stealing a kiss like a horny high school punk; I'd tried to take it back the moment right after, demanding he forget it like a damn coward.
"Does it become tiring, Kaiba?"
He was speaking, but I couldn't concentrate on anything coming out of his mouth over the pulse my ears. My brain scrambled for some inter-dimensional undo button that could fix this whole moronic situation. I could knock him out and pretend it was all a fever dream but it wouldn't work – not with how intensely focused he was on me right now. Those red eyes felt like they were burning right through me.
There was nothing left to do but face it like a man. I wanted his rejection to be smug and haughty so the rage from him being a trumped-up blowhard could wash away everything else. If he tried to let me down gently like I was some fragile schoolgirl making a bashful confession, or impartially managed my expectations like a business associate I'd lose it. I gritted my teeth and waited for the inevitable.
And rejection was inevitable.
One way or another that was how this was about to go down. I knew it, but felt bitter about it all the same even as my brain worked through all the logical evidence.
I'd never been up to Atem's standards before. Not if his pompous reprimands detailing my every flaw and fault were anything to go by. Why all of a sudden my 'willfulness', 'determination' and 'pride' was something he now claimed he was 'fond' of I couldn't guess, but it had to be bullshit. I wasn't someone that other people were actually 'fond' of. I was someone other people wanted to use, or twist and change to suit their own purposes. I'd known that since I was a kid.
I'd learned it first from interviews with all those prospective parents who'd come shopping around the orphanage for a 'smart kid' so they could reap the prestige from grooming some second hand stray into a boring well-to-do son and brag about their brat and his impressive job to their neighbors. There was a reason every time I'd been marched into the 'greeting room' to sit down and make useless chit chat with a primly dressed husband and wife looking to adopt that my test scores, IQ and preferred academic subjects were the only topics of interest. The other kids got asked about their favorite colors and animals, hobbies and what sort of foods they liked. I didn't. None of those cookie-cutter couples cared who I was, or what I wanted even though they were considering bringing me into their household. I started acting up each time, to make sure they left me the hell alone.
Nothing from back then had changed.
The Pharaoh and his little gang of fools dictated that I needed to change myself to meet their specifications. It was part of every asinine friendship speech Gardner had ever spewed at me, and every post-victory gloat the Pharaoh ever thrown in my face after one of our duels like scraps to a starving dog. Even Yugi had tossed a lecture my way once or twice and he was as soft as they came. Not one of them thought I was acceptable in my current state. They all wanted me to modify myself; switch out my internal components and rewire my circuitry like I was a piece of tech in need of a hardware update.
Gozaburo had taken it a step further.
Instead of being just talk he'd actually put in the hours and done the work and paid off a small army of tutors to make sure I was kept adequately conditioned even when he wasn't around to do it himself. I had no idea if he'd been trying to make me into an heir or a psychopath but I had to hand it to him that he did good work either way.
They could get lost. All of them. Everyone on earth could screw off except one, and even he didn't like the way I was. That cut the deepest.
Mokuba had seen it all, had been there through everything and despite that he wanted me to go back to some earlier version of myself like loading a back-up from a hard drive. He wanted a brother who 'smiled', like he remembered from back when he was barely old enough to tie his own shoe laces. As if I had a reason to smile. As though I could just forget all the things that had happened between now and then.
That had to be why hearing Atem claim to like who I was right the hell now apparently acted like an auditory aphrodisiac.
It was beyond strange to hear all of that from someone who wasn't just another fan or wet simpering sycophant on the Kaiba Corp payroll, and to hear it all from him no less; someone who's opinion actually mattered. The only one who's opinion actually mattered, other than Mokuba's.
What a fucking embarrassment.
"-Being wrong all the time?" He finished.
Wrong?
With just those five words he commanded my attention again. My eyes hadn't ever left his, but they'd been looking through him instead of at him.
There was challenge in his voice as he strode back into my personal space. The closeness brought me back to the present moment and put me on high alert as Atem stopped toe-to-toe with me and reached upward.
I was too confused to properly react as it happened.
He snagged the lapel of my coat and pulled me back to him firmly, steering my head down to his level. He tried to meet me half way by rising up slightly onto his toes, but still fell short. Literally and figuratively.
"What are you d- ?" I didn't get a chance to finish that sentence.
In one motion I felt him nudge his elbow into my hand which seemed weird, the palm of his hand went to my neck as he pressed forward to brush our mouths together. Atem's kiss wasn't frantic and amateur like mine had been. It was quick and assertive like everything else about him. I froze against him, not sure what this was, what sort of game he was playing and knew full well how stupidly ludicrous that was since I'd been the one to start it in the first place.
My thoughts raced and yet somehow not a single one of them was remotely useful.
Was he actually kissing me? Yes, by definition. Why was he kissing me? What was he trying to prove? Was this just to smooth over the humiliating performance I'd put on? To spare me? Or was this genuine? That seemed too coincidental, that he actually returned whatever useless chaotic hormones made up my ridiculous 'feelings', and had realized it right the fucking minute after I'd smashed our mouths together. Usually I didn't believe in coincidences, so I let myself momentarily wonder what if this was real. Every duel started with a first turn; with a duelist making the first move. Was that what this was?
Either way I didn't want to be beaten at it.
It turns out when someone starts making out with you then inaction isn't really an option. Atem's usual self-confidence faltered when I didn't respond to him. His eyebrows pinched together anxiously and he started to pull away as I was still figuring his play out and deciding on my next move, or if I should even make a move. The start of his tentative retreat jump started me into action. There was no way I was going to back down, or let him escape. I went with what he'd been doing and reapplied the pressure of our lips, moving them against his like he'd demonstrated a second ago.
I didn't know if this was the right move or if I'd just wasted my turn until he slightly smirked against my mouth, like he was relieved, then redoubled his original efforts into a kiss that was domineering and demanding. It suited him and I matched it. Atem's lips grinned against mine like he'd scored a point and then the bastard darted his tongue into my mouth and poked me with it.
"Ghn!" A startled grunt came out of my mouth as I jerked backwards and away from him, not expecting him to go that far that fast.
That was too much. Way too much. It figured that no matter what I did he had to take it a step further; to up the ante and claim some new victory over me. Was that what this was? Pure one-upmanship? My gut twisted at that thought. It could have just been hunger, I hadn't eaten anything in almost two days. That was nothing new but somehow this clenching feeling was different; more agonizing that just a biological rush of ghrelin. For once I wanted to be wrong, illogical as that was.
"You can't be serious." I wiped my mouth off on the back of my hand as I said it.
I'd meant it to be accusing, because he was a lot more sadistic than I'd thought if this was all just a head game, but the statement came out more like a blunt question. The confusing tone running as interference worked in my favor. It gave me time to walk of the shock of Atem tongue lashing me in a whole new way than I was acclimatized to.
There was a small gust of breath out of his lips as he leaned back. He lowered himself back onto his feet and one of his lean arms bent to place his hand on his hip.
"You kissed me first." He noted. There was flush of red across his face and for a moment I couldn't tell if it was from his fever or this whole humiliating debacle. Atem seemed pretty calm about this despite how outlandish all of this was; or he was pretending to be anyway. Even though his hand was casually balanced on his side, his biceps were nervously tensed up against the surface of his skin, like he was ready to whip out a card at any second. It made me feel a little better to know he was just as determined to downplay it as I was.
"So what, you're just evening the score?" My delivery was sarcastic even though the question hidden face down beneath it was uncomfortably real.
"What?" His eyebrows furrowing and mouth twisting downwards to look offended and enraged. The glare he fixed me with was scalding.
I sneered back, matching his hot rage with my own cold cynicism. "I kissed you, and now you've kissed me, so we're even. Is that it?" If it was then we could sweep this whole thing under the rug and move on like nothing happened. That's exactly what I thought I'd wanted a minute ago, but the idea of actually getting it tasted sour.
"You're a fool if that's what you think." He declared, full of pomp and irritation like he was at the top of his game chewing me out after a duel. I could almost believe he was a living god or something else not fully human as got all riled up. His eyes shone like garnets and his blonde bangs quivered with indignation.
I grunted at the abruptness as he snatched the wrist that he'd been gripping up to my chest, holding my hand captive by the joint over my heart. I could see it in my peripheral vision as he knitted his lean fingers through my own and held them there like a vice, forcefully pressing down on my knuckles.
He leered at me adamantly, still pissed even while he held my hand.
"I won't allow you to willfully misunderstand my intentions." There was an intensity in the way his digits locked around mine and rueful determination in his tone. "If 'this' is what you want-" His eyes darted pointedly to our joined hands, which was apparently the subject of the mythical 'this' he was talking about "-Then this is what I want too."
What? What the hell sort of thing to say was that? The logic of 'I'll jump if you jump' was a better way to initiate a joint suicide than... whatever the hell it was we were talking about here. Some sort of absurd courtship?
"It would never work." My counter was quick and scathing.
I couldn't tell what 'it' prospectively even was, but I knew that fact for certain. For one thing we were both male, then there was the fact we were rivals, opponents, also one of us happened to be dead and we didn't live in the same damn dimension. There were innumerable other reasons, but those were too big to be discarded. The numbers just didn't add up.
I'd analyzed the key components of rudimentary human attraction while he slept - trying to identify the factors that had created that inane little scene I'd conjured in my mind as Teleia felt me up so I could pick it apart and throw it away.
Length of association was a basic one and it checked out- Atem and I known each other for a few years, even though I'd suspected he was just the end result of a terminally bullied kid's psychotic break in the early days. In our respective worlds we were of the same socioeconomic standing, except Kaiba Corporation spanned the globe and his 'country', if you could call this dreamland that, was only as big as his mind made it. Shared hobbies and interests was a point scored in our favor since we were both elite Duelists. We didn't have compatible beliefs - because his were pure nonsense. On top of that there wasn't a chance in hell anyone would call our personalities complimentary; most of the time he couldn't hold back from running his mouth about all the things he'd decided were wrong with me. Three out of five then. It was a pathetic score.
"I've never known you to be so defeatist, Kaiba." Atem angrily retorted, the furrow in his brow easing up at the end so he could half perk one eyebrow at me in irritated curiosity.
He had some nerve! "It's not defeatist if it's a logical certainty." I hissed back at him. Apparently he'd missed the memo about exactly how unfeasible us potentially trying to have any sort of 'relationship' was, if that was what we were debating. The circumstances alone made it completely unrealistic, not to mention the obvious conflicts in our cultural backgrounds and social circles. The whole thing was laughable. The only real merit the whole ludicrous idea had was that running around with a half-naked, dark-skinned Egyptian guy would make Gozaburo writhe in his grave.
"I've seen you duel countless times in the face of insurmountable odds." He noted arrogantly, his lips puckering like he'd tasted something acidic. "Yet this is what you draw the line at as being impossible?"
"Nothing is impossible!" I hissed back without even thinking about it, and anything that claimed to be just hadn't dueled me yet!
I'd beat destiny itself in Battle City if Ishizu's droning was to be believed, I could call Blue Eye's into my hand every draw I needed it with just a thought and I'd pulled Obelisk the Tormentor out of the fucking ground in Egypt just a week ago despite the card having been removed from existence. I'd suddenly known I could, and so I had.
Nothing was impossible!
Atem smirked at me like I'd blundered into one of his trap cards and only after that did I realize he'd baited me into his verbal snare like a rank amateur.
"Tch!" Damn him.
I gripped his fingers with my own, squeezing his hand so hard it must have been painful but linking them together fully with my own in the process. He returned the gesture. Even though our hands were finally completely bound together and our fingers were threading through each other in a bizarre zigzag of dark and pale skin I couldn't tell if we were trying to hold hands or crush each other.
Both, if I had anything to say about it.
He leaned forward, getting as up in my face as he could while being over a foot shorter than me and not caring at all about the height difference judging by the determination in his face. "Then prove it. I challenge you."
The hair on the back of my neck stood on end as he called me out and I leaned towards him, matching his moves until our mouths were so close I could feel his breath on my lips and see every single shade of red in his eyes.
"Uh-hmm."
There as a muted noise from behind us. Something half way between the clearing of a throat and a false cough.
Atem and I parted like a warhead had detonated between us and my eyes sliced across the camp fire to find Isis, awake and staring right at us.
Oh great.
"My Pharaoh." She calmly greeted.
She hadn't moved after I flushed Teleia out of her with my Crush Card. Not for a few minutes. Itd been long enough for me to start to wonder if my Virus really had killed her and I was holding onto a corpse. Mokuba was the only person in my life that had managed to survive me, so it wouldn't have been a surprised. Even the Pharaoh couldn't claim that.
"Ohhhhhh." Was the first noise she'd made. It had been pained and quiet. I'd recognized it. It was the sound of waking up in a body that hates you, with a mountain in sleep debt and backlog of metabolic bills to pay.
Her fingers had brushed her hair back behind her ear and she'd squinted up at me from the floor.
"S-Seto?"
"Tch." Other than Mokuba no one got to use my given name. 'Seto' was just a precursor to 'Kaiba', like Monday was to Tuesday. Hearing it on its own from her irritated me, but I wasn't going to kid myself. I knew that I wasn't the 'Seto' she was hoping for anyway.
"No." I told her, eager to finally let go of her.
She'd blinked at me in confusion before the honest semi-relaxed expression of discomfort the average person might wear around an acquaintance shuttered into the closed off and steely one any sane person kept on for strangers and potential threats – which were just the same thing in my book. I didn't need anything other than that look to know she'd realized who I was, or who I wasn't to be more precise. Then, just when it seemed like she was going to get it together she'd annoyed me by promptly passing out, leaving me not with one unconscious idiot to look after, but two.
It figured that now – right this damn second – was when she had to come to.
"We're not finished here." I muttered under my breath as we both turned back to Isis, keeping my voice so low that only Atem could hear it. He didn't just get to throw down the gauntlet and then flake as soon as one of his new goon squad needed his attention; not on this. Atem nodded back subtly, the motion setting his earrings swinging.
"I'm aware of that." came his smooth answer, barely loud enough for me to make out before he stepped toward his supposed priestess.
Any chance that Isis hadn't caught on to what was happening was dead on arrival. I had no idea what sort of cultural taboo Atem and I were breaking, if any, but her hollow stare was intense and assessing. If she thought something like that was going to get to me then she had no idea who she was dealing with. I dialed up mine to match, glaring back at her.
"Isis." Atem acknowledged warmly. He'd already flawlessly recomposed himself as best he could while he still had a temperature. I followed suit, but could feel a useless hot blush across my face and didn't have a handy hint of fever to hide it.
She bowed back to Atem and the probing look in her eyes vanished behind the same dutiful indifference I demanded of my employees.
"How do you feel?" Atem inquired, like he was overdue a report on the subject.
I'd noticed the moment he opened his big mouth up in the throne room that the words he chose and the way he said them were more formal here than they'd been back in the real world. It'd eased up a bit while we'd been running around out here like total dolts. It still wasn't back to the way he usually spoke, but it had become less Shakespeare in the Park and more casual. Now that he had one of his lackeys to put on a show for that ye olde theatrical delivery was back at full force.
"As well as is to be expected after such manipulation, my Pharaoh." Isis answered, only encouraging more of his melodramatic pronunciation with her own. "Yet I would return the question upon you, if permitted." She crossed between us to get to him, putting herself between Atem's body and my own in a way that seemed too precise to be accidental.
"It's been taken care of." I announced, snapping my head to the side to hide my disgusting blush.
"I am sure." Isis answered dismissively. She didn't even turn to look at me as she brazenly threw my work back in my face, pretending to be distracted by pressing her hands against the Pharaoh's body and cupping them around his face. Atem didn't have a word to say as she went about her inspection, twisting his head one way and then the other. There really was a first time for everything.
"You are feverish, my Pharaoh." She summarized. I rolled my eyes. I could have told her that without her needing to feel him up.
"What, you're a doctor now?" Irritation crawled in my skin and her impartial facial expressions and utterly nonchalant tone didn't help.
Why the hell did she have to interrupt us right when she did? If she'd been watching, and she clearly had been, then any idiot would have known to keep quiet for just one more minute. I had no idea what I was going to say to Atem's challenge, but I was sure I would have figured it out by then if she hadn't gotten in my way.
"My mother was chief physician to the Pharaoh for many years. Her knowledge dwells within me." Isis replied blandly, ignoring me for the most part as she took a look at the cut on Atem's side. He grimaced as she prodded at it, one eye closing against the pain as the other meanwhile glanced between us. Despite his discomfort he barely suppressed some know-it-all grin, like he was waiting for the punchline to a joke he'd already heard once before. I got what it was he was waiting for a second too late as Isis turned her lousy sense of humor on me and caught me off guard.
"Are you also feeling sickly? Your face is reddened." She asked, deliberately demure about it.
"Tch!"
Atem opened one eye back up to get a good look at my humiliation and smirked wryly as my face only flushed redder at the accusation. Apparently some part of this situation was funny to him.
"Mind your own business." Whatever! I didn't need this right now. I turned on my heel and strode away from them further down the oasis's shoreline. My composure was shot and I didn't need her pointing that out.
The fronds and shrubs lining the water crunched satisfyingly beneath my boots, the snap of each stem and rip of the leaves making me feel more in control and more like myself as I escaped from the range of the camp fire's light so Isis couldn't keep staring at me like I was some sideshow freak.
I felt like one after everything that had just happened.
A lot of things I'd known about myself; been one hundred percent certain of without any doubts suddenly had question marks hanging over them. Me leaving the battle field feeling like that was Atem's calling card, but this time we hadn't even dueled. That made everything worse. Instead of walking away with a whole new painful clarity to work towards I felt confused and I suspected once the adrenaline rush from all of this ran out I'd be exhausted by it all too. Three days was as long as I could go on without real sleep while remaining reliably functional. I'd done eight once, but after the ninety-six hour mark things just became a shit show.
My eyes itched at just the suggestion.
The moon didn't help either. There was just enough light to make out my reflection and I looked flustered and weak. I barely recognized the mess walking along the shore beside me that had my face. My cheeks were bright pink, my clothes were skewed, the bruise on my face from Atem's sucker punch was unsightly and I had a new cut from Teleia that had apparently bled a bit before closing up. Even my hair was a mess. Usually I could rely on that at least to keep itself in order but apparently not today.
I glanced back at Atem from the shadows, hating that he had seen me so disheveled.
"Please rest and regain your strength while I attend you." I could make out Isis saying to him from a way away. His head turned from my direction back to her and there was a strange squirming feeling I couldn't quantify from knowing that he'd been watching after me.
With a sweep of her hand she gestured for him to lie back down on the sheet I'd managed to make out of all the dry parts of his cloak and unlike when I'd said exactly the same damn thing this time he actually went along with it. Atem nodded his head he followed her instructions now that someone he apparently deemed qualified to give him medical advice was ordering him around. They started speaking in hushed tones that were too low for me to hear as he settled down and I didn't care enough to bother lip reading.
When I was satisfied there was no way they'd be able to keep an eye on me anymore I knelt down on the shoreline and splashed some water on my face.
I hadn't realized how quickly I'd gotten used to the feeling of dried sweat and grit on my skin until that rush of water stripped a layer of it off. It didn't matter that the sanitation of it was questionable at best and who knew what was living in it, so long as I didn't pull up a palm-full of water teeming with leeches there was no way I was stopping there. I rolled my sleeves up enough to plunge my hands in to the wrist and repeated the motion over and over until I couldn't feel any warmth on my face at all. It was far from a perfect mirror, but I straightened my clothes based on my reflection and smoothed all the rogue strands of hair down flat. The end result was far from photo shoot ready, but an appreciable improvement, which would have to do.
After another five minutes of tidying I was starting to look like myself again and it wasn't a moment too soon, as Isis's reflection joined my own in the water as she silently crept up behind me.
"What do you want?" I questioned, rising up to my feet and turning around to face her as I crossed my arms.
She clasped her hands in front of her gently, inclining her head to me a fraction. "To thank you, for freeing me from the influence of Sphinx Teleia." Came the serene answer.
I rolled my eyes at her dramatics.
"She did not permit me vision nor knowledge of her actions while she controlled my body, but it is plain to see that the Pharaoh is in no condition to have triumphed over her on this night." Isis added. Her tone revealed absolutely nothing, which was impressive. It also made it hard to judge if she was just paying me obligatory lip service or not.
"Hnh." I grunted, narrowing my eyes at her. "Don't mention it." because I didn't want her thanks even if they were genuine. People were easy to figure out, but something in Ishizu's subdued tone and expressions made her difficult to predict. This version of her was no different. I didn't like it, or her.
Having said her piece we stood there in silence, which was preferable to actually having to make conversation with her. She seemed equally at ease with the arrangement, until her tell gave her away. For just a moment her finger tips went to touch the base of her neck, just like Ishizu had done with her tacky Necklace.
"What?" I growled. Clearly she was here for a reason or else she'd have gone back to the camp fire by now. She should be looking after Atem like she'd said she would, not standing around here with me dawdling. "Here to tell me to keep my hands off your king?" I taunted, smirking at her in the dark. I wasn't sure how I felt about everything, but knowing that someone else possibly disapproved of it made me warm up to the idea at record speed.
"No." Isis answered, denying me an interesting reaction to watch. "The Pharaoh is free to do what he will with whomever pleases him." Her eyes slowly slid across the horizon to look me over.
Supremely slowly she reached toward my jaw, not deterred even as I stared her down. I refused to react beyond that; I wasn't sacred of her. Her thumb traced the bruise on my cheek and then my cut. The motions were almost tender. They were boring so I looked away, only bothering to watch in my peripheral vision as her eyes roamed lower to get a look at all the other chunks of me Atem had carved out of my body during our sword fight.
"These wounds are healing well. The tenderness will fade soon." She settled her hands back in her lap, pretending to smooth down the front of her dress with a sweep of her palm that lingered just a fraction too long over her stomach to be convincing.
She shouldn't stick around out here like that.
She should get lost, go home and get herself checked out by whatever counted as gynecologist in this time period. Probably some sort of moldy geezer who though animal crap warded off evil spirits and sent their patients home with a prescription of horse spit.
A hideous thought occurred to me.
"It better not be 'mine'." Me, and Ishizu? As if. Not in this dimension. Not in any dimension.
Her fake glanced up at me, obviously confused.
"The Other Me's." I elaborated, trying to put it in terms they seemed to understand. She didn't seem to get every word I was saying, like she couldn't fully understand me. I scoffed. How ridiculous. I was fluent in every language I spoke, even if they were only used for programming. Slip ups weren't an option - a fact Gozaburo had made sure I was acutely aware of.
I could tell the moment she figured out the question – her eyes went wide in horror and her hand darted to her gut like she needed to protect her brat from the idea.
"Oh by the gods, no." She confirmed.
I scowled at her blatant disgust, though that was a damn relief. Her face quickly twitched back into its usual grating calmness.
"The babe is Mahad's." She announced softly, like I was supposed to know who that was and all of their names.
"The Pharaoh's champion." She added, catching on that I had no idea which one she was talking about from my point blank stare. Of course 'the Pharaoh's champion' wasn't much help either – so far it seemed like everyone I'd met in this backwards world was either Atem's 'champion', or 'priest' or something else that sounded ripped out of an uninspired RPG.
"The Dark Magician guy?" I guessed. Or more specifically the card's look-a-like that had tried to stop me from getting into Atem's throne room completely ineffectually. That seemed unlikely, given that he was a trading card. It didn't matter. I didn't care about the answer now that I knew my pathetic knock-off had nothing to do with it.
She quietly laughed to herself behind her hand, as if I'd said something funny. "Yes, the very same."
However that worked I didn't want to think about it.
Her amusement faded quickly, which suited me just fine. Her expression slipped back into its usual bland stoicism as she turned slightly to make sure Atem hadn't woken up. Something in the fugitive way she did it made me suspicious.
"He doesn't know?" I narrowed my eyes at her, watching her reaction carefully.
"None do, other than Mahad." She cast her eyes down to her lap. "We would name him Chisisi, for he is our secret alone." Her reply was somber, but I didn't know why.
"He would be our second." She glanced up at me, doleful in a way that made me uncomfortable, "Our first I lost after only a couple of moons". This whole topic made me uncomfortable. "We have told no one, for fear that the Gods see fit to pluck him from me as well." Her words were quiet, like that was some grim confession. In their culture it could have been. If it was I had no idea why she thought it was a great idea to confide in me, of all people, but if it was for one second because I looked like my ridiculous hat-wearing imitation then she had another thing coming.
These people were dead – just fantasy NPC's in this half-baked video game. How could they be running around getting knocked-up and having miscarriages when they weren't even real? How did this place work? I could physically feel her touch and she appeared capable of independent decision making but that had to be an illusion if she was just an old memory from Atem's brain playing out a role.
"How can you know something that he doesn't when you're just a figment of his imagination" I questioned, not expecting any sort of rational answer.
She slowly blinked at me before finally throwing "Is that what you choose to believe?" back in my face.
"Then what are you?" I snapped, other than irritating.
She turned her head upward to take a look at the stars before wistfully replying. "The gods crafted the afterlife for the pleasure of mortals, not their comprehension."
A bullshit omission that she had no idea either then, but if the simulation could dynamically create and change it's characters without any sort of external initiation then it was a lot more complex than I'd previously assumed. More so than any Virtual World to date, enraging as that was to admit. With enough concurrent environmental and character updates it almost would be like living a real life. No wonder Atem hadn't even entertained the idea of escaping. It was perfectly manicured life in a perfect place surrounded by people who literally worshiped him. It sounded boring.
"The Pharaoh's fever will break soon." Isis commented, interrupting that thought.
"Tch. You can't know that." I rejected the idea of her being able to predict something like that, even though it was probably true. I doubted anything could keep the King of Games down for long. That stubbornness and the Medicine had done the trick.
"I have seen it before."
She'd been wrong before too but I hardly could be bothered arguing over the farcical belief in fate this version of Ishizu was still clinging on to - she wasn't worth my effort.
"So you've seen all of this before?" I demanded, tersely. I snapped my head in Atem's direction just thinking about the implications of that. I didn't know what was going to happen next turn. That was business as usual when dueling Atem, but suddenly nothing felt normal anymore. This felt more like leaning out of the door of an aircraft ready to skydive with a faulty parachute, not knowing if I was about to have the best adrenaline rush of my life or break into a thousand pieces as I crashed into the ground. If it was actually possible to see the future then I could examine the possibilities and formulate a strategy to get me to the outcome I wanted. Once I figured that out.
"In part. The Millennium Necklace had once shown me you summoning forth the Eye of Osiris, as so it was." The priestess followed my line of sight over to where Atem was lying and then turned away, pretending to be busy by fussing with her robe.
"So what happens next?" I doused my query in sarcasm. I didn't want Isis thinking for one second I believed in her mystical fortune-telling bullshit, or that she had actual answers to give me. Not like I needed relationship advice for one that hadn't even started yet. Shit. Pretending to suddenly be interested in something across the water I turned my head away from her so she couldn't see it as my embarrassing blush punched back. Stupid thing was going to give me away.
Isis glanced back at me with a strange face. "Only what is meant to."
Typical nonsense.
She paused. "Not long after dawn Mahad will meet us here. I have seen no further after that." Her eyes were pinched at the corners and she was pressing her lips together like she was trying to hide a smile.
What was with that reaction?
Ishizu had a way of pissing me off with just a look – looks like this version of her did too.
"What?" I snapped.
Isis's eyes gleamed with some low-key amusement that she was clearly failing to hide. "I am sure your efforts will not be in vain." She added, slowly. If she was trying to spare me humiliation then she was doing a bad job.
There was another long silence before Isis decided to change the subject.
"Your skin is quite cool to the touch." She noted. No breaking news there. With a smooth arcing of her arm she gestured backwards. "Come and join us by the fire."
I rolled my eyes at her as she invited me back to sit around the camp fire that I'd made in the first place. The raw nerve of these people.
With an inclination of her head she excused herself and floated back over towards the camp to kneel down at Atem's side. I could make out the movements of her body silhouetted against the flames as she smoothed his bangs down away from his face and readjusted the cloth I'd left over his forehead, flipping it over before putting it back.
"Tch." With a grunt I stalked back over to them, not because she told me to, but because I wanted to. I'd lit the stupid fire to use it after all.
Trampling the shrubbery under my boots felt just as satisfying on my way back, until something hard and cylindrical caught on the underside of my foot and threw off my stride. Even though it was half sunk into the sand and covered in a coat of smiley green goo I recognized my genius immediately as the otherwise undamaged shape of Atem's Duel Disk gleamed wetly in the moonlight. With a leaf I wiped off what I assumed to be the left over guts of Bird of Roses and jostled it out of standby mode, the device loading up with a yellow glow.
I smirked.
We had a second Death Counter no thanks to the crash, and Atem and I might be about to start an exhibition match of our very own to complicate things, but ignoring all that our odds of winning the final round against Anubis had just doubled.
AN: Too much angst? Not enough angst? OOC? Let me know! Updates might be a bit slower moving forward; I didn't actually think I'd get this far so I never really planned out the rest of the story and now need to figure it out. Please read and review!