Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-gi-oh. I only own a select few of the various products that are distributed because I am very, very poor.
My Notes: As part of my New Year's Resolution, I decided that I needed to spend even more time writing. That said, I've started yet another fanfiction. If you enjoy my work, go check it out. Remember that these are all experiments in writing and they aren't exactly supposed to be perfect (despite all your claims of the contrary). I keep finding errors here and there and I wish I could edit the chapters more closely.
Anyways the only real complaint I have now is that I have to actually keep writing this story. You may ask yourself, how is that a complaint? You see, I can't help but keep seeing scenes for this ever expanding story. Which only means it can only get longer. I'm nowhere where I should be, or thought I'd be. It'd be so much easier if I could just sit back and just watch this story unfold, like everyone who reads this does. But that's the burden of being a writer I guess. Here's the latest chapter in this painful torture I'm inflicting upon myself. Enjoy!
A Night Not Soon Forgotten
Ishizu took her time savoring the meal provided by the rich and famous CEO, Seto Kaiba. Although a gnawing pain had been growing in the pit of her stomach, she couldn't help but enjoy the food; Seto had chosen the premiere five star restaurant for their dinner-date. Ishizu didn't dare call it a date for two reasons: because she hadn't been on many dates before; and because the young millionaire was trying to get something from her.
"I hope you aren't getting any bright ideas. I'm only doing this for the museum sake," Ishizu said before taking a bite out of the finest lobster she had ever dined upon. She felt a bit modest since she was still wearing her normal white attire despite what the other women in the room were dressed in.
"I doubt a woman such as yourself would be accustomed to my lifestyle. I run my life the way I run my business, with my interests foremost." He took a slight sip of the bubbly, before setting it down upon the table. He looked out the window to watch the moon rise.
"I have you know Mr. Kaiba that you're playing a dangerous game," Ishizu warned, also turning to look at the night sky. "If Yugi were to find out…"
"Which is why he won't find out," Seto interrupted. "Besides I doubt he's in any condition to complain?"
"Just what do you mean by that?" Has he already acted against the Pharaoh already? Ishizu thought to herself as she faced her companion.
"I fear my brother has been corrupted," Kaiba said bluntly.
"Are you certain?" Does this also fit into his plans?
Seto merely nodded, before taking another drink. "The Kaiba mansion was put on alert. We've only done that in trial runs, never in actuality. Whatever Mokuba was doing during that time is beyond even my knowledge. My chief of staff reported only one person being brought in."
"Yugi Moto," Ishizu guessed, which was confirmed by Seto's nod. The tan woman began remembering her times with young duelist.
The young CEO only grunted. "He is vital to my plans. His departure is a setback. A temporary setback."
"I still don't like what you're hinting at," she chided, before digging in again with her meal.
"Come off it. I know you Isis. I made you my queen after I displaced the pharaoh. Or perhaps you were named Queen and sole regent?" Seto was enjoying watching Ishizu squirm. "I'm not sure, but it doesn't matter." He took a bite out of his own lobster. "Your spurious attempt at neutrality didn't work then, and your weak attempt now will fail. You were always power-hungry, just like your brother. You just hide it better."
"You're quite mistaken," Ishizu stated, quietly. "If you recall Battle City, I'm currently backing the Pharaoh."
"Only because you had to save your brother. But now that I'm almost rejuvenated, you will waver between that decision of who to trust?" Seto Kaiba smiled. "The Pharaoh who started all this, or the all-knowing High Priest who knows far too much for his own good? I admit, it's not an easy choice to make."
Ishizu carefully fingered the eye of her necklace. "Fate has always guided me."
At this, Seto let lose a small laugh. "Fate is whatever you make of it."
"I've had visions of the future. I've made predictions," she rebutted.
Seto Kaiba laughed even harder at this, causing a few other patrons to look in his direction. "Your predictions were never too close to being accurate."
Ishizu almost choked on her food. "You can't be serious. I know what I saw."
"Even a lowly High Priest has some leverage with the Gods," he stated.
"Have you been manipulating me this entire time?" she asked, stunned. If Sethos knew that I had to let Seto see his past self to start this grand plan of his…And is he also the reasons why my visions have stopped? No they stopped because he defeated me. Right?
"You have only been shown what you were meant to see, nothing more and nothing less," the CEO stated matter-of-factly. "To comprehend the Gods designs would be a serious undertaking which few are capable of." He took another sip from his glass.
"You can't be serious." He can't be serious.
"Dead serious," Seto stated as he wiped his mouth with his red napkin. "Why do you think history does not transcribe the name of the lost pharaoh? Because I ordered all the scribes of Egypt to have his name erased. Even my name has been removed from certain monuments and records after the fact."
"But why?" Ishizu couldn't help but listen. Is everything I've learned is a lie?
"Because the Pharaoh who I fought in the past is not the Pharaoh who is trapped in the Millennium Puzzle. Yugi Moto will always be my rival, now and forever. He just doesn't know it yet. But with a little help…from fate…," the CEO twirled his fork in the middle of his lobster.
"There have been a number of other reasons why a pharaoh goes unrecorded in time."
He pulled a chunk of lobster meat and stared at it before putting it in his mouth. "But don't those reasons have a negative connotation to the pharaohs in question?
Ishizu knew the logical jump and tried to defend herself. "Archeology is still a very young science. It hasn't uncovered everything…"
Seto Kaiba again smiled. "You're supposed to have the answers. So tell me, what happened to all the stone tablets that housed these apparent monsters?"
"Only fragments have been discovered."
"But the majority has been lost to the sands of time, no? Tell me, why does Pegasus create the game Duel Monsters just before Yugi Moto receives his famed puzzle?"
"I honestly don't know," Ishizu said. She took a small sip from her own glass.
"Alright then. Tell me, why does the Millennium Puzzle take the form of an inverted pyramid?" Kaiba leaned back in his chair.
"The symbolism of such an artifact seems hardly relevant."
"Only because you don't choose see things as they truly are," he replied. "Didn't Egypt in the past build pyramids towards the sky? What kind of message does it say to the people to have their ruler wear something that points down towards the earth?"
"Suggestive phallic symbolism?" Ishizu ventured a guess. I really am not in the mindset to debate these things, she noted as she felt her head ache softly "I suppose you have all the answers?"
"I have partial answers. But you are a researcher. It is your job to discover these things." Seto took his glass from off the undersized table and emptied it. "Tell me, why did a family of Tomb-keepers of the Pharaoh possess both my Millennium Rod and your Millennium Necklace? Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to hold the Puzzle?" He held his glass and slightly rotated it in the air. "But then it might have posed a significant risk. Imagine what your brother could have done if he had his hands on that, instead of this?" He flashed the golden rod from his seat.
Ishizu was tired of being patronized. "This is just meaningless speculation. It doesn't imply anything."
"I suppose it could be seen that way. But isn't just a bit convenient that each passing day, more of the Millennium Items are coming closer to one another when before they had been scattered throughout time?" Seto set his glass down. "Funny the way fate works, isn't it Ishizu?"
Her eyes widened at the dangerous implication. "This can't all have been planned."
"Remember the requirements that the learned priestly caste had in the past? They had to know how to read and write. That already alienates 70 percent of the population. So what other requirements are necessary for one to become a High Priest? To display sufficient talent to rise above the remaining 30 percent of the population?" He again smiled. "And what was requirement to being Pharaoh? A bloodline. A royal bloodline. That's maybe at most 5-10 percent of the entire population. You do the math of who really ran things during those antiquated times. I'd like to say things have changed in five thousand years. But then again…" Here again Seto shrugged before asking the waiter for another glass of champagne.
"I should have held on to the Millennium Rod," the Egyptian said, regrettably.
At that Seto Kaiba sat up. "No. If you had done that, I would never have recovered my true identity. Don't you see Ishizu, everything is going according to my plans: the plans I made five thousand years ago."
"But things have changed. The world has changed." Is that his hand on my knee? Why is his hand on my knee? Ishizu was somewhat thankful that the red tablecloth extended all the way down to the floor, but couldn't tell if her assumption was true.
"But people have not. Haven't you read Jung? People are based on individual archetypes to serve the whole. I myself am playing a role, just like you are."
His hand is moving! Closer! "This is madness!" Ishizu shouted, scooting herself and her chair backwards. "I'm having enough of this!"
"Then let me have what belongs to me: the Millennium Necklace," Seto said calmly, ignoring the additional glances people were giving due to Ishizu's outburst.
"But I gave this to Yugi. It wasn't supposed to come back to me."
"Then it seems you still have a role to play in this drama, don't you?" Kaiba thanked the waiter and brought both of his hands back into view.
"But it doesn't work for me anymore," she stated.
"Are you sure about that? Maybe you only think it doesn't work for you anymore." He rose from his chair. "I'm going to get some air. You should come to; you look slightly flushed."
Ishizu's head was spinning. "Maybe I just need to freshen up."
"I'll be over there then," Seto said, pointing to the outdoor patio area where a few guests were smoking cigarettes.
Meanwhile,
Far below where Seto Kaiba and Ishizu Ishtar were, a familiar foursome was trying to find the nearest subway station. Their only light was the light from the street lamps and the lights from buildings.
"Tristan, that was very rude how you behaved in front of Kaiba," Serenity scolded, passing a small restaurant.
"Come on. The guy didn't leave me much choice. Did you see the way he was eyeing you and Nadia? And then how he was blatantly hitting on Ishizu?" Tristan responded. "There's only so much of that I can take." He kicked a can off the sidewalk.
"Well it wasn't like he was threatening us or anything," Serenity stated. She did feel a tinge of excitement when the tall CEO stared at her, but she wasn't going to admit to it. "We weren't in any kind of danger."
"Yeah well, it just bugs me that he can get away with stuff like that," Tristan said, noting that Joey and Nadia were a few steps behind them having their own conversation.
"What gives Nadia?" the blonde duelist asked. "You've been awfully quiet ever since we left the museum."
"It's just that…," she started. Her eyes gave a glance around them. "I can't put my finger on it." She visibly shivered.
"You're just cold. Here you wanna borrow my jacket?" Joey suggested.
"No, thank you," Nadia politely declined. "I feel as though, how you say 'as if we were being watched.'" Her accent did not fail to convey the sense of fear.
"We're out in the middle of Domino," Joey stated. "Nothing that bad happens here."
"Say guys," Tristan said, loudly for everyone to hear, "do you hear that?"
"Hear what Tristan?" Joey asked. He didn't hear anything out of the ordinary. It was quiet.
"Don't you think it's a bit odd that we're in the middle of downtown but there's no city noise?" he stated. "There's no one in sight either."
"You're right!" Serenity said as she began to move closer to the group. The group was moving closer to a nearby building. "Wait, there's someone coming." The footsteps were plainly audible.
"Isn't that Ryu Bakura?" Joey suggested, as he squinted at the figure.
"Close, but look at his face," Tristan pointed out.
"And his eye," Nadia said, visibly shaking. Oh God, the eye, the eye, he's wearing the Millennium Eye! She clutched at her purse, which held the Millennium Ring inside.
"Well isn't this a lovely party?" Yami Bakura rhetorically asked. "It's a shame you didn't invite me."
"Bakura! What do you want?" Joey said as he and Tristan came forward to stand between him and the girls.
"Why, I just want to reclaim some missing property," Yami Bakura said simply. He pointed at Nadia. "Your little friend has something of mine and I'm here to get it back. At any cost!"