Chapter Five

Even before the dream started, Seto knew that it would be about the girl again. Most of his dreams were recently, and considering he had just discovered her identity, it was obvious that she would haunt him again that night.

Before, though, his dreams had always echoed the first time he'd seen her. Usually, in the dream, she would be lying in his arms, unconscious, and then, with an apparent effort, she would open her deep blue eyes. She would stare up at him with a pleading look, and whispered words would appear in Seto's mind.

It had been a while before Seto let himself recognize the Egyptian phrase: "Please, find me."

But tonight, Seto's dream was different. He seemed to stand in the typical ancient Egypt scenery, complete with towering pyramids in the distance. It was foggy. In front of him, half-hidden by the mist, was the girl.

She wasn't facing him and seemed unaware of his presence. However, when he started towards her, she moved forward as well, away from him.

"Matte!" Seto exclaimed. His cry echoed back, and the word sounded strange to him. He realized that Japanese would mean nothing to this silver-haired girl.

But he couldn't bring the Egyptian word to mind. The frustrating part was that he knew it, in some corner of his mind. But he couldn't remember…!!

"Matte," he repeated, knowing it was futile. "Onegai…" He ran towards her. She moved away, just as quickly.

"Matte yo!" he cried again in frustration. "Matte! …Kisara!"

The girl stopped. She turned towards Seto. "Kisara…" she repeated. Then she spoke in Egyptian, but Seto understood it without effort. "That… that was my name." She smiled softly. "I'm so happy that you've found it."

"Kisara," Seto said again. He spoke to her in her own language, necessity bringing the words to his mouth easily. "Why are you running away from me?"

"…" The girl's deep blue eyes saddened. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. Seto saw her shoulders droop with a sigh as she repeated the words "Please, find me."

The dream faded. "Wait!" Seto cried in Egyptian, remembering the word clearly now. He looked into the girl's sad, sapphire-bright eyes. They were the last thing to disappear as he awoke.

With the dream still fresh in his mind, Seto sat up in bed and sighed. The unnatural desire to find the girl lingered, and he tried to push it away. That had been one of the stronger dreams. Those ones really bothered him, the dreams—visions?—in which the girl's longing was echoed by his own, except it wasn't really his own. It was hers that he was feeling, or…

No. It couldn't be his past self's influence… could it? Was it the echo of an ancient love that he felt in those dreams? Of course not, Seto scoffed, scolding himself for being so unnecessarily poetic. All he cared about was the Blue-Eyes White Dragon. There's no way he cared about anything else… and he certainly can't have loved her.

Seto knew the girl could be considered pretty, even beautiful. But she was weak. She hadn't fought back at all against those stoning her—unrightfully—she'd just given up, as though her death was inevitable. Acceptable.

It was unbelievable that such a soul could house the magnificent Blue-Eyes White Dragon. From what Seto understood—instinctively, to his ire—of a person's "soul monster," their Ka, its strength was supposed to be equal to that of its owner's will. And that certainly wasn't the case with Kisara.

Kisara. She'd told Seto's past self her name when she'd awoken at the palace, having been rescued by him. The girl, though weak in body at the time from nearly being killed, fervently promised to serve Set with her life, so grateful was she to the priest for saving her. Set had at first said there was nothing she could do, and invited her to stay at the palace. Later, he'd remembered what one of the other priests—Shadah—had said about her soul monster's strength, and he began to wonder if he could control it for himself.

That was all he cared about. It had to be.

But it shouldn't matter to Seto anyway. He rubbed his forehead, frustrated with how much his connection—his supposed connection—to ancient Egypt had made itself apparent in his life recently. As if everything during Battle City hadn't been enough, now there were these dreams with Kisara in them, and sometimes feelings, very faint ones, that didn't seem familiar. Didn't seem like they were his. Because they weren't—they were Set's. And Seto didn't want Set's emotions. He didn't want anything to do with his past…

Perhaps that was why Isis had irritated him so much when they'd met—her perfect confidence in the Egyptian legends, her no-nonsense way of telling him that he was connected to the past, as if stating a simple fact. And it didn't help that, soon after their first conversation, the connection became noticeable, as if her presence had caused some sort of awakening in his mind.

But he'd grown less annoyed by her in the week he'd been at her home. And today, even though their conversation had already ended, he'd chosen to tell her Kisara's name for no reason at all.

In a way, he realized, he'd put his trust in Isis by telling her. Seto knew, after all, the importance of names to ancient Egyptians. Like in many other cultures, it was believed that to know a person's "true" name was to have great power over them; to erase a person's name from history was to make it so that they'd never existed.

Seto winced. Isis had told him that, when she'd invited him to the museum. Along with all that other nonsense about the Pharaoh and his past.

But now, she seemed to honestly wish for him to succeed in his search. For the most part, she allowed him to work alone as he wanted. And it was she who had convinced him to accept the fact he could read the scroll—Seto supposed he owed her some gratitude for that.

His opinion of her had transformed so much over the last week that sometimes Seto wondered if Isis was the one who'd changed. Of course, she was no longer pestering him to find out about his past; that was certainly a change, and one for the better. But it went beyond that.

Has she always been this beautiful? The rogue question caught Seto by surprise. He shook his head to clear it. Isis? Beautiful?? But he supposed it was true. She did have a sort of exotic beauty to her, accentuated by her flawlessly dignified bearing.

Fine, so yes, Isis, beautiful. What did that have to do with Seto? It certainly didn't matter to him. She could be the ugliest hag in the world and he would still be at her home, trying to learn about another girl.

But she was beautiful. It was a fact. And she was kind. And helpful.

But why should Seto care?

And why does she care about me? Seto wondered in frustration. Why was she so determined to help him, no matter how much he pushed her away?

Seto lay down again in his bed. He was tired of thinking about Isis. But now he was too awake to go back to sleep. After lying in his bed for a moment, Seto threw the covers back in frustration and stood up. He'd just get an early start on the day's research instead, then.