Considering the power that Ba-Khu-Ra knew the Millennium Rod could hold, she was surprised to find the set of siblings were tucked away in a rundown building on the edge of the city. She supposed she could understand why-if they were hiding from others of their clan, this was somewhere that would have been hard to find if she had not tracked Marik.
If she had been able to control the minds of others, though, she would have made a rich man sign over his house to her and then she would have gotten rid of him.
Still it worked to her advantage because it meant that no one in the area would notice if she broke into the place. She ducked down into an alley when she saw the figure waiting by the door of the building he was heading towards and from there onto the roof so she could sneak closer.
From her perch on the roof, she could not quite hear everything that was being said, though what she did hear about the youngest of the Ishtar siblings needing to be careful for the sake of the oldest's mental health was quite enlightening and was something she could use in the future.
Not that she was surprised that an Item holder was less than stable. With the way the Millennium Items had been created, it took an incredibly strong will to resist being twisted and warped by them. Anyone who was already unstable when they received an Item was more prone to it. Still that did not mean she should underestimate the older sister. Just the fact she had been able to seize a Millennium item meant that she had a strong soul, and that made her dangerous.
The Thief Queen slipped in through an open upstairs window and found herself in a dingy, damp corridor, where the wallpaper was peeling off the walls and the flickering light bulbs swung from their leads without lampshades on them.
There was a moment, a brief one, where sympathy shot through the Thief Queen, having been reduced to similar conditions many times over the thousands of years she had been body-hopping. Then she shook herself off and tried to sense where the sister was. The Millennium Rod was like a beacon and its call was easy to follow. As she approached, she could sense someone working with the magic, though she could not tell what they were trying to do with it.
Just the knowledge that someone was working with their magic was enough to make her hesitate, though, and she approached cautiously, stopping in the doorway to watch the girl sat at a desk within as she took a couple of drops of her own blood and rubbed it into the cracks in a small figurine that looked confusingly like a cheap gachapon Spiderman toy, before easing some of the magic from the Rod into the Item and using her own blood to bind it there.
Ba-Khu-Ra had seen something similar before, when she had worked with the cults around the world who thought themselves clever enough to control the Shadows. It was possible to store Shadows in things using a little blood from a Shadow-Touched individual. Not much, maybe enough for one single Summoning, Penalty, or Shadow Game at most, but it allowed those without a Millennium Item to have finer control.
She hated seeing it, though, because she highly suspected that it was the experimentation which had developed the one-off magic storage that had led to the creation of the Millennium Items.
She stepped into the room, internally grimacing when the floor creaked and startled the girl at the desk. Ishizu's head snapped up and her eyes widened as she beheld the intruder. "Oh."
The Thief Queen let out a soft breath as she realized that, yes, this was the reincarnation of Sacred Guardian Isis, born again the modern age, just like most of the Pharaoh's Court had been. "You're playing with fire there."
"I've made Mementos before. I know what I'm doing." The girl shrugged, setting down the small toy and rising to her feet in case a fight started. "If you're here to talk, rather than fight, come on in. Otherwise, can we do this another day? I have plans to make."
Ba-Khu-Ra snorted, amused, and leaned against the wall by the door as she noted the new name for the old magic. Isis had always been an ally of hers in the past, at least until things had fallen apart, and she had certainly been one of the most reasonable of the Sacred Guardians. That did not mean that if she tried something now, she would not destroy her, but she was willing to hear her out at least.
"It's been far too long, Isis." The Thief Queen leaned in the doorway, unwilling to be trapped in the room after her recent problems with the Otogis. "But then your name is Ishizu in this life, isn't it?"
The girl paused to consider her guest carefully before answering, her head tilting slightly as she got the same slightly distant look that Bakura recognized as someone reaching for a familiar memory that was just out of reach. "That's right, Thief Queen Ba-Khu-Ra. I assume you're here for my Millennium Rod."
"Seth's technically." Bakura snorted, having been warned by Honda that the Ishtars would know who she was. "You were always better suited to the Necklace. You had the head for future planning."
"Oh, I can still plan." The black-haired, blue-eyed Arabic female let out an amused snort. "And I'm still not above taking horrible advantage of a situation I can see coming."
"Oh? Because right now I could rip your soul apart and take the Rod without too much sweat."
"You could, yes," the girl allowed, "but why would you? You need the Pharaoh's name and the Items to open the Gates to the Afterlife. I want the Pharaoh to get her name and leave so my brothers and I can be free of the Tomb Keeper tribe. We can work together on this."
The Thief Queen paused. She had not missed the order of wording. She had never particularly enjoyed attacking people who were fighting for their family. It was why she had made a deal with Crawford rather than removing him and why she had allied with Kaiba on Duelist Kingdom. If Ishizu was going to harass Yugi to free her brothers from the Tomb Keepers' clutches, she had a conflict of interests.
"You could give me the Millennium Rod and leave," Bakura offered. "I would actually let you walk away, as a throwback to our ancient friendship, and then the Tomb Keepers will stop chasing you."
"Not that simple." There was a shake of the head. "We know too much to be released from service. No matter how much we want to be. This has to end before we'll be free."
"And you'd ally with me? The source of your family's suffering?"
"Oh, don't get me wrong. I hate you. I hate you passionately. You're the reason my family is in the state it is. Why my ancestors have suffered for three thousand years… but here's the thing. My brothers? They matter more than how much I hate you."
The Thief Queen could understand that all too well. "So what are you thinking?"
"The Tomb Keepers have been using MY Millennium Necklace to hunt me and my siblings across the globe. Its powers have allowed them to keep tabs on where we've been going because while the Rod protects ME from its vision, it doesn't protect my brothers," Ishizu explained. "If you can find and get the Bearer of the Millennium Necklace off our backs, I'll give you the Millennium Rod once Battle City is over. Without a fight."
"Do you know where they are?"
"No, but I got a report that the Tablet of the Pharaoh's Lost Memories, one of the keys to unlocking the Pharaoh's ancient name, memories, and powers, was in Tokyo this weekend. The Tomb Keepers wouldn't have been too far from them. I suspect that now they've confirmed Yugi is the Pharaoh, they'll bring the tablets to Domino."
The Thief Queen tapped her foot on the floor as she considered the offer. "You're supposed to be on the Pharaoh's side. I'm surprised you'd turn on her like this."
"I'm not. She claims she's not strong enough to take you down yet." The girl stretched, her clothes shifting as she did so, allowing Ba-Khu-Ra to see that the Millennium Rod was tucked into Ishizu's belt. "So I'm going to make her stronger."
The Spirit of the Ring let out a sharp breath as Ishizu ran her hand over a small packet that was the size of a deck and a powerful burst of sun-bright flames responded to her touch.
She knew that power.
"You have the Winged Dragon of Ra." The Thief Queen's eyes narrowed and her hands balled, remembering that monster all too well, as well as the damage it had done the last time she had fought against it.
"I do. My darling brother brought it to me after the Tomb Keepers were stupid enough to think he had returned to them." The smirk on the Rod Bearer's face was out of place for the Sacred Guardian Bakura had once known, and she had to remind herself that this girl was not the same Priestess she had known in Egypt. "I'm going to use it and my Mementos to push the Pharaoh to her very limits. She'll get strong enough to do what we need her to do, or she'll decide that she can't keep putting her friends through what I have planned. Either way, I've helped her complete her destiny, and we win."
Bakura felt Amane's worry and concern from behind the chains in her mind, along with a twist of fear, which was the first coherent things she had felt from the girl since the demon had laid into her for interfering in the fight in the Game Shop.
'Careful, Sen, don't overstretch yourself,' she cautioned her light, amused that the demon could not truly cut their connection as she considered her options. "Why would I want you to make the Pharaoh stronger?"
"Because she's refusing to get her name and memories back. She claims it's because she's not strong enough to fight you, but it seems more like she values your life, the life of a traitor, over those of us who have served her loyally for thousands of years," Ishizu answered with a bitterness that was hard to fake. "The sooner she goes to get what she needs, the sooner you can get what you want."
The clearly deranged young woman was giving her food for thought, however…
"I was not the one who started the treachery in Egypt," Ba-Khu-Ra hissed out.
"Possibly not." There was a slow nod. "But think about it this way, go after the Tomb Keepers who're guarding the Tablet, and you'll win yourself the Millennium Necklace. Any questions you have? You can get the answers from it. And like I said, take care of them for me, and after Battle City, I'll give you the Millennium Rod. I won't need it anymore."
'Can we trust her?' her sister asked quietly over their mental bond, her mental voice shaky and barely audible.
'Not even slightly.' The Demon Thief snorted in return, just relieved to be able to hear her. 'But I have a feeling I know how I can leverage it so we can at least ensure she waits to stab us in the back.'
'Be careful…'
"Fine, Ishizu. I'll take your deal." Ba-Khu-Ra huffed, letting her fists relax. "But I'm warning you. Betray me or harm my host in any way, shape, or form and I'll take away everything you treasure. Starting with your brothers."
That struck a nerve.
Shadows flooded out from Ishizu and swept the room. Bakura just stood firm, her own magic rising to shield her from the tidal wave.
"Touch my siblings and you'll pay." The Thief Queen was torn between the demon's amusement and her own concern as she realized the creature in front of her was not entirely Ishizu, not anymore. As her features warped and shifted and Ishizu opened herself to the full powers of the Shadows, Bakura could sense a fragment of the demon within her. Possibly the fragment that had been sealed within the Rod, since it had been split up between the seven items, with the majority going into the Ring with her. "If anything happens to them, I will tear you apart the way the Pharaoh should have done three thousand years ago."
"Sounds like we understand each other perfectly." Ba-Khu-Ra gave the other demon-possessed girl a toothy grin. "See you after Battle City."
"Get out of my house."
Bakura left, aware that the girl would take it as a win. That was fine, the Thief Queen would let her think she had that win. It would make her cocky the next time they faced off.
In the meantime, she wanted to hunt down the Tomb Keepers, find out what the Tomb Keepers would give her to deal with Ishizu for them, and, if they attacked her, deal with them and take the Necklace.
After all, she had questions she wanted answering.
As she made her way back across Domino, it was not hard to pick up on the traces of the Tomb Keepers. The Millennium Items called to each other, both because of the fragments of the demon within them and because the Puzzle bound them all together, no matter how far apart they were. The moment she asked the Ring to find the Necklace, the points glowed brightly and picked their direction with little hesitation.
She chose to follow them off street level, moving carefully from roof to roof, partly because it was the safest way to travel when the streets of Domino grew dark and the thugs came out to play, and partly because she knew it would keep her from thinking too hard about questions she did not want to answer right now because she would need to focus so she did not fall.
She was not entirely sure she knew what she was doing. Part of her wanted to go back and get rid of the demon-possessed girl before Ishizu turned out like her. Another girl did not need to end up like her because of the Pharaoh, after all. If she ended it now, then at least Ishizu would get to move on.
While another part was loudly pointing out that she had an ally. A real one. Who had no intention to protect the Pharaoh from herself and would push her to grow so she could finally get on with finding her name so Bakura could use its power to free her friends, family, and people from the darkness once and for all. One she would have to watch her back around, true, but an ally none the less.
And a small part, a part she tried to tell herself was tiny and insignificant, had not missed Ishizu's jab about her life being important enough to the Pharaoh that it was a reason for putting off her destiny. The destiny that both spirits knew would end in the complete destruction of either the soul of the Thief Queen or the soul of the Pharaoh.
Both halves of them.
She did not understand why her safety was even a concern. She had shown herself to be dangerous and out of control. That she would take advantage of any situation that would benefit her to win this war.
So why did the Mutou twins care?
If it was because of their ancient relationship, it was long dead. As long dead as she and Meisa were. At least, she kept telling herself that. Ever since Mahad had told his side of the story, it had been harder to hold on to the hatred that had kept her fighting all these years.
Not that it mattered. Even if she made up with Meisa, she could never go with her to the afterlife and renew their life together. Even if she finally managed to go through the gates, her soul would be forfeit for everything she had done.
In exchange for all the destruction she had caused and the souls she had destroyed over the Millennia, she would be fed to Ammut, the soul devourer. She knew that. She did not even think that the Pharaoh speaking for her could save her from that fate. So surviving this war did not matter to her.
But apparently it mattered to the Pharaoh.
It mattered enough that the Pharaoh had risked antagonizing someone who would have been an incredible ally.
She supposed she could understand the concern more if it was actually for her host. Amane was as innocent in all of this as the Pharaoh's brat was. Neither girl deserved what they were caught up in, and if the Pharaoh and her brat were trying to see if they could separate her from her host, she would not blame them.
After all, while there was no hope for her, she could accept her fate more easily if her Sen, her precious sister, could escape the fate she had sealed them both into so long ago.
The Ring led her to a hotel, not a particularly high-class hotel, but certainly better than the place that the Ishtars were holed up in. Interestingly, it was not too far from Kaiba Corp, causing the Thief Queen to wonder if the company's owner was aware the Tomb Keepers were here.
Once she knew which window the room belonged to and counted the number of windows so she could get a rough estimate of which floor and room number, she paused to consider her options. She could quite easily rush in and handle it now, but that came with the risk of any noise attracting the attention of the rooms around the one she wanted.
Plus she did not know exactly where her targets were located, making the whole operation harder.
Considering that her target was an item bearer, the safest option would be to scout things out properly, find the right moment, and then strike, rather than rushing in. And it was not like there was not time.
But the temptation to get answers was strong and the Necklace was right there…
'If they were in Tokyo this weekend, then they probably spoke to Yugi,' Amane pointed out, her voice still weak. 'We could talk to her and find out what they told her first.'
That was an option, the Thief Queen allowed. If Yugi had kept her word, she would have asked about what had happened in Egypt. So she could have new information.
At the same time, she could not help but distrust the Pharaoh and the likelihood of actually getting to talk to Yugi rather than Meisa, after the fight that had happened on Friday night, was slim.
'If you really want to go in there, I can't stop you, but just please be careful… and don't hurt anyone you don't have to.'
'Have a little more faith in me.' The Thief Queen let out a huff as she slipped down to street level. 'I'm going to be careful. I remember what happened with the Otogis.'
The slight mental shudder told her that Amane did too.
Entering the hotel was not hard; the receptionist was so busy painting her nails that she missed Ba-Khu-Ra strolling past. Nor did the Thief Queen have to worry about the security cameras because she could easily see that they were pointed at the bar and the reception desk, not the entrance. The lift required a key card to enter, but when a hotel guest stepped out of the elevator, she slipped in, waiting for the doors to close behind her and picking the floor before letting out a sigh.
Modern security was both dangerous for her work because things were more likely to be recorded, and a blessing because it made people lazy. They thought things were protected by technology so they did not bother keeping an eye on things. She missed the days where breaking and entering was an actual challenge and she had had human wits to test herself against, instead of machines.
'Gods, even my thoughts sound old,' she grumbled as she emerged from the lift.
Working out the direction to the room she was looking for was not hard, and she very briefly used the Ring's powers to confirm which door was the correct one before putting an ear to the door.
She could hear the sounds of running water within, suggesting someone was running a bath or shower, but no talking, suggesting that either there was only one person in the room or the other person was distracted.
She paused and grimaced. She did not know who or what was on the other side of the door, and while she was certain she could take one or two people, she remembered being shot well enough to not want to risk the body. Not when, with a little patience, she could corner her prey in a more advantageous position, where she would have all the advantages.
She could afford to take the longer path. After all, she had time before Battle City to deal with the Tomb Keepers, and she had waited three thousand years for the full truth, she could wait longer.
'Fine, Sen. You win. I'll go talk to the Runt. Or I'll try at least.'
She could sense the relief from her other self as she turned away from the door.
Only to hear it click open.
Before she could press herself against the wall, an Egyptian woman stepped out, calling, "I'll be right back, I'm just grabbing those towels from reception."
A male voice answered as Ba-Khu-Ra backed up, eyes narrowing as she saw the Millennium Necklace hanging around the woman's neck. Once the door was shut, the woman turned to the Thief Queen and took a deep breath.
"I'm impressed, Thief Queen. I've only been in Domino for an hour." Her voice was soft and hid the nervousness Bakura could read in every inch of her body language. "My name is Azra, and I'd really prefer we did not do this tonight."
"Everyone would prefer their time not to come." The Demon Thief let her aura loose and the Necklace Bearer took a step back, swallowing hard as she got to sense just how powerful her adversary was. "But I've already made one bargain tonight. What do you have to offer in exchange for me not taking your Necklace and your soul?"
"How about a way you and your other soul might survive this war?" Azra offered.
"You can't know that. You can't see anyone who holds a Millennium Item."
"No." The woman's hand went to her item. "But I can see what can happen after someone stops bearing one. Your other soul has a life after this war."
Surprise and hope crashed through both Ba-Khu-Ra and Amane at the same time.
"I'm listening."
"If you fight the Pharaoh in Battle City, there is a strong chance your light will die," Azra warned, noting that her adversary's expression had shifted, but not sure what it meant. "A very strong chance. I've only seen one timeline where she survives the tournament. The same, only timeline where our Pharaoh survives it."
The Thief's eyes narrowed. "Your Pharaoh."
"Our Pharaoh. She had me look into the betrayal. She was not the one who ordered the attack on you, it was another. One of the Sacred Guardians, acting without orders."
"Show me."
"I can't. Not right now."
The frustrated huff Bakura let out hid her irritation at the reminder that she had been played like a fiddle back in Egypt. "Why not?"
"Our Pharaoh asked me to look back at too much and I've not had the chance to rest properly yet, but," Azra held up a hand when the Ring started glowing, reacting to the Thief's anger at the excuse, "I will do you this deal. Side with the Pharaoh in Battle City and I will answer ANY questions you have that I CAN answer, before I surrender the Necklace to our Pharaoh."
"Any question?"
"Any question I can," Azra corrected her. "Think about it this way, Ba-Khu-Ra. I'm fully trained in how to use this item. I can get more information from it than anyone else right now. Destroy me, you could lose that information forever."
The Thief tapped her foot on the floor as she considered her options.
She could take the Necklace now, then she would be guaranteed the Rod after Battle City.
But she wanted to, no, she needed to know the truth.
"Swear on the Shadows," the Demon Thief decided. "Swear on the Shadows that you'll leave the Ishtars alone and give me my answers."
There was a confused pause as Azra processed that, then, "I will agree to that. I don't have the strength to fight Ishizu anyway. Not now the demon has gotten its claws into her."
"Swear it properly. Someone with your training should know how."
Azra blanched.
"Swear it properly or I'll disbelieve everything you've said and take your Necklace now."
The Tomb Keeper nodded, her Millennium Necklace glowing. "I swear on the Shadows and those souls within, that if Thief Queen Ba-Khu-Ra sides with the Nameless Pharaoh, currently known as Mutou Yugi, during Battle City, I will leave the Ishtars alone unless they attack or approach me first or I have to duel them for my own safety, and that I will answer any questions I can posed to me by the Thief Queen after Battle City. Once answered to her satisfaction, I will surrender my item to my Pharaoh. If I break my word, let the Shadows take my soul."
The Thief Queen relaxed as she darkness wrapped around Azra and herself and settled like a shroud.
"Fine. We have a deal." Bakura could feel her sister's pride at her having found a method of keeping her deal with Ishizu that did not involve ending someone prematurely.
"Just remember what I said, Thief Queen. If you want to survive this war, you need to side with our Pharaoh during Battle City."
"I'll remember, don't you worry about that."
And once Battle City was over, there would be two more Millennium Items in the small collection that was beginning to build up in Domino City.
"Have a good night, Ba-Khu-Ra. And a good night to you, too, Amane."
The thief felt her other self startle at her name being used, but it gave her hope. After all, there was no way Azra should know her sister's name.
That she did said that maybe, just maybe, she had been telling the truth.
Now she had one last stop to make.