Chapter Three

It was impressive how fast Asima was called back into Hideyoshi-san's office.

"I told you quick, but it's only been a week," she said, pleased and impressed, sitting down across the desk from him again.

"Well, you gave me a lot to work with." Hideyoshi shrugged. "With surnames, exact city, and general age and lifestyle specifications, and the fact that all the adults use social media, I almost didn't deserve the money. Not that I'm giving it back."

"Of course," said Asima, her eyes sparkling with mischief.

Hideyoshi smirked. "Here's your information," he said, and handed over typed pages of notes detailing exactly where each family lived and what they consisted of, as well as all traceable family friends and their addresses. She got names, ages, everything - even Mai's orphanage. She'd chosen her investigator carefully - just sensible enough not to screw her over, just shady enough that he wouldn't look too closely at what he'd uncovered.

"Oh! I didn't get birthdays," she said, as if this were a great surprise and she'd just remembered. She asked for everyone's birthdays, to take the finger away from the children and point it at the parents.

Hideyoshi looked vaguely surprised. "You're going to throw one of them a birthday party?" Asima glared up at him flatly. "Alright, alright." He put his hands into the air in a gesture of surrender. He took out his notes, and rattled off the birthdays of each member of all three families.

Mazaki Anzu had been born first, on August 18th of last year. Then came Jonouchi Shizuka, on November 1st of last year. And finally Kujaku Mai, on November 20th of last year. That would make Anzu about five months old, while Mai and Shizuka were about two months old.

"Alright," said Asima, looking over her notes and deciding she had everything she needed, including addresses. She stood. "You've already been paid, Hideyoshi-san, so thank you for your time and services." He stood as well, and they shook hands formally.

As they did, Asima looked into his eyes and whispered a spell. She carefully plucked the memory of this case from his brain and wiped the memory away. He fell over in his chair, eyes blank. Asima walked smoothly out of the office, smirking, wiping the files on her in his office and in his computer blank on the way by.

Hideyoshi-san would come to, blinking, a few minutes later, with no clear memory or record of the past week. He'd realize later that he'd been paid from a frozen account for a case that he, by his own knowledge, didn't solve. The only other thing he had left was a lingering perfume of sandalwood and musk in his office.

The nursery was set. Three cribs were set across the long, rich, gold-colored room, each one hung over with a canopy of fantastic Arabian colors and cloth. Hanging from the center of each canopy was a mobile of glow in the dark stars. Plants and more fairy lights lined the walls and edges of the nursery.

But the room seemed empty. It needed children.

Asima planned it all carefully. She called Mai's orphanage and said she was interested in adopting a baby girl. They gave her a list of names, and she made an appointment to visit Kujaku Mai, seemingly at random, at Domino City Orphanage the following week.

She had to make sure, just in case the Kujaku parents called the orphanage ahead of her.

Then she booked a three-week stay at a Domino City hotel, rented a car, and drove two hours straight to a slum just outside Domino City. That was where Mai's biological parents lived.

She drove past rundown, graffiti covered buildings, windows smashed, locked bars on other windows, poverty stricken people in baggy clothes in the streets. She edged her way down several narrow side streets before finally arriving, squinting through the windshield, at what seemed to be the correct address. It was a two story house, and one family lived in each story. Mai's parents, it was said, lived in the first story. Asima could see clothes hanging from clotheslines in front of their house, crisscrossing between their own building and the one across the street, indicating they couldn't afford a laundromat. The front door was closed but the screen was slightly ajar.

She got out of her car, fit the bar across the wheel, slammed the door shut and locked it. It was parked illegally along the side street Mai's parents lived in. Asima looked around, then hurried across the street to the Kujaku couple's front door. She was wearing sweatpants, sneakers, and a sweatshirt, along with a messier ponytail, in an effort to keep it from looking like she had something worth stealing. The car was humble, too, inexpensive, small, and black.

She moved the screen aside and knocked on the front door. "A minute!" she heard a woman shout from inside, and then the door swung open. Mai's mother was a vast, scowling woman in a baggy T shirt. She didn't have all of her teeth, probably because she couldn't afford a dentist. "Yes?" she snapped, leaning against the front doorway, not allowing Asima inside. Asima couldn't blame her suspicion. She saw the figure of a man in an armchair in front of a tiny old television in a postage-stamp sized living room, his feet up on the coffee table. A dog lifted its head from the floor to whine anxiously. The place was shabby, but it smelled like good food.

Mai's mother moved aside so that Asima could no longer see the interior of the house. "Yes?" she repeated more aggressively. "Look, I don't fuckin' know you, so unless you got somethin' to say that interests me -"

"I'm sorry," Asima blurted out. "I'm here about your daughter."

"My daughter -?" the woman repeated in confusion. Then she froze as realization hit her. She didn't have a daughter, but then she seemed to remember the one she'd given up. Anger began to gleam in her eyes, growing slowly.

"I, I'm considering adopting her, and I was just wondering if I could have your permission -" Asima babbled quickly, for Mai's mother intimidated even the unassailable Asima. She was intimately aware, suddenly, that she was in violent territory with nothing but her magic to help her.

The woman sighed, as if tired, her anger going out like a light being turned off. She leaned against the doorway. "Look. We gave up the girl for a reason. We hope she has a good life. We really do. But it ain't me ya have ta ask no more. I - I didn't want it to be that way. But that's how it is." She glared defensively.

"What's going on?!" a male voice called from within, where the small, cheap TV was running.

"Nothin'!" the mother called, and slammed the door in Asima's face with something like bitterness. Asima got the impression of a woman who had been disappointed at having to give up a child for money troubles - disappointed, but used to disappointments.

Next came the appointment with Mai herself at the orphanage.

Asima walked up to a tall, forbidding dark grey stone building. It would be renovated a few years later, the orphanage, supposedly to be made more palatable. But for now when she knocked on the door, it was a somber place. The place that Mai in the other timeline had grown up.

A door swung open and a young woman in white uniform stood there. "Hi, I'm here for an appointment about a possible adoption," said Asima. "I'm supposed to meet Kujaku Mai."

Asima would give this to Mai's mother, she had not looked Asima up and down as if she were an alien, the way this girl did now. But at last, the serving girl said in a tone of distinct confusion, "... Come in." She stood aside to allow Asima entry, her brow furrowed in suspicion.

But the matron, that motherly old lady from Asima's vision, bustled over. "Tammam Asima?" she said brightly. "Right this way. Come meet Mai."

She led Asima by the arm through the entryway and up the stairs. Asima did not like to be touched but she tried not to show that. They entered the infants' wing, which was two long rows, one on each side, of cribs set next to rows of windows. It was plain, bare, shabby, poor, and grim, all grey linoleum.

There were names at the ends of the cribs, "so we can tell them apart," the matron explained. Asima was brought to the crib labeled Kujaku Mai.

Asima walked up hesitantly, and bent over the crib. Baby Mai turned around with effort and looked up at her, as if determined to see her future mother, blinking up at her with big violet eyes. There was a kind of intensity to her look, unusually sharp for an infant, as if Mai was assessing her options just as much as Asima.

Asima smiled.

"Hello, Mai," she murmured, taking up a toy and dangling it above Mai's crib. Mai gave the toy a determined bat, and knocked it right out of her hand.

"Mai!" said the matron, despairing, but Asima was laughing.

"No, she has spirit," said Asima with great humor. "I like her."

"Really?" said the matron, hopeful and tentative.

"Yes. In fact." Asima drew herself up proudly. "Have the adoption papers drawn up. I will have her with me by the end of the month."

The matron beamed in triumph.

Asima eventually left the orphanage, one adoption already underway, but she had one more visit to make. A family friend of the Mazakis was a gym trainer. Asima entered the gym, and the tall ponytailed blonde bounced right up to her.

"Hi!" she beamed. "Are you here to -?"

Asima whispered a word and looked into the gym trainer's eyes. The gym trainer's blue eyes went blank, her perfect jaw slackened. "You are a friend of mine. My name is Tammam Asima," said Asima. "I am looking for an adopted daughter. You will recommend me as a potential mother to the Mazakis, and arrange for a meeting." She slipped the slack woman's phone out of her pocket, typed in a number for a personal cell phone she'd bought just for this occasion, and slipped it back in. "My number is on your phone. You will call me when the meeting is arranged. You will awaken in exactly sixty seconds with no record of this meeting."

She let the magic snap away, turned, and walked straight back out of the gym, running back down the outdoor mall parking lot to her car.

Now for the hotel.

All it took with Shizuka's mother was a private letter pretending Asima knew a social worker. She put a vague hypnotic trance over it, and the panicked woman immediately called, agreeing to meet.

Asima sat down across the outdoor Domino City cafe table from the woman. She had brown hair and worry lines; she was thin and wore poor clothes; she looked constantly around, shifty.

"I promise nothing untoward is happening!" she said immediately, tears in her voice. "My husband - he drinks too much and he gambles too much - and sometimes he gets loud and carried away, but he -!"

"Relax. I am not here to put your husband under arrest, and neither is my social worker friend," said Asima. "She put us into contact because I am looking to adopt an infant daughter, and you have one."

The woman paused.

"It would be discreet," said Asima. "I am wealthy, a professor. I live in Tokyo. I have a nice house. I have no nasty relatives, and one other daughter around your daughter's age. Shizuka, was it?"

"... Yes, Shizuka," said the woman tentatively. Asima could see her already considering it, and that was no hypnotic trance. She was firm on that. All the parents would agree under their own power. She would just arrange the meeting. "It is true, a little girl should not be brought up in that environment, more so than a little boy."

Asima remembered the messy, cramped little apartment, the angry drunken man and the thrown beer bottle, the screaming mother, from her vision. It was hard to tell whether that was a pattern of behavior, or just one night amid a somewhat shitty life. Shizuka or her replacement sister would supposedly be injured in the eyes by their father. But if Asima changed too much in Jonouchi Katsuya's life, there was also a chance he would never achieve his destiny.

"My husband would kill me," said Shizuka's mother, humiliated and terrified. "And her brother Katsuya, of course, he can never know."

Here, Asima was not sure what would happen. She knew another little girl would come, in spite of Shizuka's mother not right now seeming to want one. What did that indicate? There was the darker version of things, but then there was simply the idea that many times a couple had another child as a replacement, or because they thought it would fix everything.

"I could take care of your daughter," said Asima quietly at last, and simply. It was all Fate would allow her to do, or so she told herself. "I will follow all your requests. I will tell no one of your situation, and I will give your daughter a good home. I will keep her given name - Shizuka. That is what you wish?"

Shizuka's mother sat back, defeated. "It is what I wish," she admitted.

"Shall we arrange a meeting to sign the papers, then?" said Asima, purposefully light.

"... Yes." A light suddenly came into the mother's eyes, and she sat up straight. "You know what, screw him! Fuck yes!" Passing people glanced over at the sudden explosion of sound.

Asima made the arrangements. Only one parent was needed to sign, so the mother would come alone to the official's office with baby Shizuka on the appointed day. As she walked away from that cafe, Asima was beginning to feel very sick with what she was doing. She may have just taken one child away but consigned two others to a horrifying childhood household. She may have just comforted a mother, but made her life misery.

But these three girls needed and deserved a good home, and they were destined to help save the world if they were raised by Asima. The world itself was at peril, as was the girls' lives and outcomes, as was Jonouchi Katsuya's, who was similarly a part of saving the world. And that outweighed the costs.

Asima knew why the spirits had chosen her at last. It wasn't because she was a good person. It was because she was a bad person, who liked to pretend she was good. She had brought herself up from nothing, to pretend she was good. She had abandoned her biological family, because she wasn't. She would raise the girls well, to pretend she was good. She would take them away and do nothing else, because she wasn't.

The arranged meeting with Anzu's parents came last.

Asima sat down in the living room across from the stiff, wealthy couple. The cushions were expensive, but stiff, poofed, and uncomfortable. Formal pictures filled the walls of the cold house.

"I am so glad we had a family friend introduce us," said Asima warmly. "I heard you just had a baby girl. Congratulations."

The couple shared a look. The mother sighed and looked away. "Well," she said, "I suppose we have to put up with her."

"You didn't want a child?" Asima asked with polite curiosity. She already knew.

"Well. It was a surprise," said the mother with flat bitterness. "But financially, we can manage."

"I… think I might know a solution without either of you losing face," said Asima slowly. "I've… actually been looking to adopt a daughter. I am a professor of Egyptology from a respected Tokyo university, and I even used to be on the dueling circuit. I live in a Tokyo suburb and have two other beautiful daughters around Anzu's age.

"And I have enough money to take a leave of absence from my job and raise the girls in their infancy. I could then work from home. And I would certainly love to have your daughter."

The couple looked at one another once more. "It's an idea," said the husband quietly. "She is reputable; Akane can vouch for her."

"It certainly is an idea…" said the mother brightly, thoughtful and interested. "Yes, that is quite an idea… Why don't I show you Anzu?!"

She stood, suddenly excited and energized, and ran from the room. She came out with a baby girl with blue eyes, and placed the swaddled girl in Asima's stiff, uncertain arms. Asima held up a finger; Anzu made a firm noise and grabbed onto it with tiny hands, holding it close.

Again, Asima found herself smiling despite herself - her second smile this whole trip.

"Yes," she said. "I like your daughter very much."

The Mazaki couple looked at each other. "We will never get a better opportunity," said the father simply.

"... Alright," said the mother, determination filling her eyes. "Let's do it."

And they arranged for adoption papers to be signed.

Asima picked out one day toward the end of her trip, and got up early. She got the car ready, packed with groceries, diaper bags, and baby toys in the trunk. She strapped in the car seats for infants using the directions.

Then she drove around and got each girl in order.

She signed the papers in the orphanage matron's office, and the little old lady beamed as she handed Mai into Asima's arms. Asima took Mai out, and strapped her into the car.

Next was the office to sign the adoption papers beside Shizuka's mother. They both signed, and then Shizuka was placed into Asima's arms by her own biological mother. Shizuka had hazel eyes, Asima knew, but she was peacefully sleeping, looking as serene as the meaning behind her name. For the third time, Asima smiled at that picture of dreaming happiness. Then she noticed the mother's eyes beginning to water.

"She will have a good home," said Asima, uncertain but trying to be comforting. The mother let out a sob and hurried away out the door, running off, her hand over her mouth. Asima looked after her, somber and torn, filled with guilt.

Nevertheless, Shizuka was strapped in beside Mai in the very back seat.

And finally was Anzu. Asima drove to the Mazakis' house. The papers were signed in the living room by all three parties, and then Anzu was handed over to her. There was no sadness in these parents. They were happy to see the girl go - not because they regretted being unfit for parenthood and were happy to see Anzu placed in a good home, but because they saw their daughter as a fundamental and undesired mistake and were happy to see the back end of her.

Asima left them and their city townhouse behind with a bad taste in her mouth. Those were the kind of people who would only regret if their daughter amounted to anything - and Asima was determined to ensure such. Professional duelist at a young age? That should do it.

Someday, Asima promised herself, they would regret just as much as the other couples did. Anzu deserved that. She strapped Anzu in beside her new sisters in the car across the street.

She stood, hands on her hips, looking at them. "Well, Tammam Anzu, Tammam Shizuka, Tammam Mai," she said. "We're all together. There's no going back. Let's all do our best."

Only as Asima looked at the happy little baby girls did her guilt lighten. She would learn this - only the gift of her daughters made it all worth it. Not even who they would become, but the daughters themselves. They were what brought her happiness.

She would always regret abandoning Jonouchi Katsuya and his second sister to their parents, in the same way she would always regret abandoning her biological family to the tombs. The adults in all those places had free will, she knew, and she knew that Shizuka's sister would escape, and she knew that Jonouchi Katsuya would save his sister's eyesight and go on to save the world. But the guilt remained. Yet… as she looked at the girls themselves… Asima found she couldn't regret a thing.

She strapped herself into the car, and began the two hour drive back to Tokyo. As the car zoomed away, she never looked back. She and her daughters would not return to Domino for roughly fourteen and a half years.

If there was any great scale weighing in the afterlife, she would try to make up for all the bad she had done to others by investing these girls with every scrap of love and goodness she could find within her blackened soul.

She understood now. She had not been given a lighter load than Rahman. If anything, she had been given a heavier load. She was the one the universe had given power to and then told only to do with it what Fate willed.

The best job she would ever have - it was raising these three girls, to be happy and healthy, giving them the power they needed to survive what Fate had in store for them. She got to shape their hand in destiny.