Chapter Two

The next night

It was seven o'clock at night, and Seto Kaiba was extremely frustrated.

He had come to the Ishtars' home planning to use a software program to analyze their texts. But Malik had disagreed with that plan—strongly disagreed. They had argued for almost a half an hour before Seto reluctantly acquiesced and handed Malik his laptop, planning to use it as soon as he was allowed to.

So he had done as Malik commanded: instead of scanning the original texts into his computer to translate them, he had laboriously copied the hieroglyphs by hand and scanned that in when he was in his room. But when he hit "translate" on the software he was using, all his diligence had meant nothing. The "translation" that had emerged was unintelligible and unhelpful.

Hoping he would have better luck, he tried the next page. It didn't work. He muttered a curse as he read some of it: "Final play game judge gods object 1000 year." Yeah, that was real helpful.

"Are you having any luck, Seto?" Isis's voice asked quietly from behind him. Seto turned around to see that the Egyptian woman was standing in his room, holding a tray with what appeared to be soup and bread. Seeing his eyes settle on the tray, Isis said, "I brought you some dinner."

"Thank you," Seto replied. He took the tray and then turned back to his computer. It was an indication that he wanted Isis to leave. Not at all to Seto's surprise, she didn't.

"Hmm…" she murmured, walking up to take a look at the computer screen. "It doesn't make much sense, does it?"

"No," Seto said irritably.

"Let's see…" Isis closed the translation window.

"I was going to try to interpret some of that!" Seto exclaimed.

Quite ignoring Seto's indignation, Isis asked, "May I see the papers you're using?"

Seto reluctantly handed over a piece of paper from the large stack he had copied. He watched as Isis pursed her lips, obviously holding back a comment on the clumsiness of his imitative hieroglyphs. Then she muttered to herself, "This is probably supposed to be…" She asked Seto if he had a pen; when he lent one to her, she began making what Seto considered to be an inordinate amount of corrections.

After a minute of this, Seto said coldly, "This wouldn't be so difficult if your brother had allowed me to scan in the originals."

Isis didn't even blink before replying, "Nor would it be this hard if you had asked him to help you translate."

Lacking an answer to Isis's statement, Seto returned to his own. "Malik is being unreasonable," he insisted angrily. "Can't you say something to him?"

"No," Isis said serenely, not looking up from the paper. "First of all, I agree with him. Our family has protected these texts for three thousand years—and kept them secret. We don't want them to spread, and computer networks are easy to access and easy to manipulate. Second of all, he is the head of the family, and not I. It is not my place to disagree with his decision, especially one that has to do with the protection of our duty." She finished editing the paper and said, "This should work better. Would you like to scan it in?"

Once again, Seto held the paper up to the scanning sensor on his laptop. As the hieroglyphs appeared on the screen, he found a part himself hoping that Isis's corrections didn't work. Just to spite her.

He was about to hit "Translate" when Isis breathed, "Wait…" Her left hand on the back of the chair for balance, she leaned over Seto's shoulder to reach his computer. She quickly adjusted some of the settings: Dynasty—18th, Direction—Left to Right; then she pressed the enter key.

Seto expected her to straighten as the translation appeared on the screen. But she didn't. Her hand curled above the mousepad hesitantly, she remained in the position she was in, almost curled around Seto in a way. Uncomfortably, Seto coughed. When that didn't get a response, he pushed his chair out.

Isis pulled up immediately, whisking her right hand away from the laptop and removing her left from the back of Seto's chair. "Sorry," she murmured.

Seto didn't reply, because his teeth were gritted in frustration. The program's translation was, of course, perfectly understandable. Obviously, Isis's corrections had improved the text.

Not noticing Seto's irritation, Isis said lightly, "There, that's better, isn't it?" She scanned the screen. "Hmm… See where it says 'chaos' here? That's actually 'Set,' your n… your past self's name."

"Chaos?" Seto questioned. "That's flattering."

"He was named for the god of chaos," Isis explained, "who is also called Seth and a host of other names. He—"

"I don't care," Seto interrupted. "I'm only here to find that girl."

Isis paused, then sighed. "There's nothing about her on this page. We could save time if you'd like me to scan the rest and see if—"

"No," Seto said firmly. "I don't need your help. Shouldn't you go eat dinner?"

Isis seemed confused by his blunt refusal. "What about the other pages? Would you like me to correct them?"

"No."

"But…"

Was there something about this woman that blinded her from seeing when she wasn't wanted? "I don't want your help, Isis!" Seto half-shouted.

"I can't say I find that surprising," said Malik's voice. Seto and Isis both turned towards the door. Malik was leaning on the doorframe. "Does it always take you so long to deliver someone's dinner, Isis?" he asked. "Or is it because you were having such a nice chat with Kaiba that you let your dinner get cold?"

"I was helping to correct some of the hieroglyphs he copied," Isis protested.

"Why?" Malik asked, glaring at Seto. "He doesn't want anyone's help."

Seto scowled back at him. "I don't need anyone's help."

Instead of replying, Malik went to Seto's stack of papers and picked up a sheet. He scanned it, amusement creeping into his annoyed face. "Yes you do."

"Malik! Don't be so rude!" Isis said quietly in Arabic. Seto wondered if she were under the impression he couldn't understand her.

Malik turned towards her, but looked at Seto out of the corner of his eye. Speaking in Arabic as well, he replied factually, "He's certainly being rude. In fact, he's being an idiot." Seto frowned. "He won't listen to our suggestions or let us help. There's no way he'll find this girl he's looking for in a month." He paused. "Got that, Kaiba?" He asked that in Japanese.

Seto smiled coldly and nodded. Looking embarrassed, Isis asked, "You speak Arabic?"

"I speak quite a few languages," Seto replied.

"Oh."

Still looking at Seto, Malik said, "Why don't you go eat your dinner, Isis."

Isis began to leave, but stopped when she noticed Malik wasn't following. "Aren't you…?"

"I'm going to speak with Kaiba for a little longer."

Seto and Malik watched as Isis left, then turned to each other. "What do you want?" Seto challenged.

Malik leaned on a wall. "I meant what I said, you realize that," he replied casually. "You are acting quite… unwisely by forcing away anyone who wants to help you. If you continue doing that, there really is no chance of you finding this girl within the month you are allowed here."

Frustrated and angry, Seto stood up from his chair. "I can do this on my own. It's not as though I ever asked you for help."

"Yes, you did. When you asked if you could use our library."

Seto hadn't thought of it that way, but he didn't let it show. "That was when I was under the impression I could use my computer." Then he realized something. "You knew my copies were going to be horrible, didn't you?"

Malik looked surprised. "Why would you think that?" he asked, no hint of sarcasm in his voice.

"Why else wouldn't you worry about scanning in my copies, as opposed to the originals? If they're good, it doesn't make a difference, because the information is still out there."

Malik shrugged, looking away slightly. "Honestly, that never occurred to me," he admitted. "I just didn't… want the texts to reach the internet, or anything like that. These books are kind of my treasure." He paused for a moment, seeming thoughtful. "Imagine if someone wanted to scan… say, your Blue-Eyes White Dragon card into the internet, but you knew that if they did, there was a possibility that someone could make illegal copies, really good counterfeits from it. Would you still allow that?"

"Of course not." Seto crossed his arms and waited for Malik to make his point.

"Because it's your treasure, your most precious card, maybe even your most precious possession, right?" Malik asked. When Seto nodded, he continued, "You want to protect it. You don't want anyone else to have it, especially people who shouldn't. It's something like that with my books."

"Whatever," Seto replied, purposefully distant; in fact, he understood what Malik was saying. "That doesn't mean I can't do this on my own."

Malik sighed. "You're beginning to frustrate me. You didn't come here expecting to do this on your own—you expected to have the help of the computer—and no one says you have to work alone now. Rishid and Isis and I know far more about these texts than any computer does. So why won't you accept our help?"

"I'm getting tired of repeating myself. I don't need your help."

Picking up the paper he had looked at before, Malik scanned it, counting. "I see ten mistakes in the first two lines alone," he said. "It took me eight years to learn to write fluently in hieroglyphs and five just to learn to read them. And here you are, expecting to learn in less than a month. You need to accept our help, or you need to get out of here and stop wasting our time and yours."

Seto's fists curled at the threat, but he replied coolly, "I'll think about it."

"You do that," Malik said, beginning to leave. Then he stopped and turned back to Seto. "And one more thing: be more polite to my sister. She wants to help you. She wants you to succeed. She was the one who argued so strongly in your favor when we discussed whether you should be allowed to research here."

"Probably because she wanted me to learn about my past, right?" Seto asked, remembering her insistent campaign during Battle City.

Malik shook his head. "That was a while ago, Kaiba," he said. "She really wants to help you, that's all."

Seto shrugged. There was just something about the Egyptian woman that irritated him. But he conceded, "Fine. I'll be nicer. Happy?"

"Thanks," Malik replied. He left.

Seto sat back down at his computer, sighed, and scanned in another page of hieroglyphs. He would think about accepting help—later.