Six months ago...
They'd buried her fifth husband a week ago, so Ishizu's father was already angry. Their whole clan believed that Ishizu was cursed, and after the first four husbands had died, Ahmed had been the only man that their patriarch could bribe and cajole into marrying his daughter. But when he found a trading card—the only god card Ishizu had yet to hide—among her belongings, he'd gone into a rage. She'd been in the altar-room with Marik, supporting him as he went about his duties. He was sick, and everyone could tell, but that didn't matter enough to their father for him to let his son rest when he could hardly breathe. If Ishizu didn't know better, if she hadn't seen the future, she would have feared that he could die at any moment.
It was in the process of lighting fresh incense that their father entered the altar-room with a whip in his hand a thirst for blood. The instant Ishizu saw him, she felt cold and her stomach churned. She'd never seen him this angry before.
"Ishizu, where did you get this?" he demanded, holding up Obelisk the Tormentor.
Marik was confused, and opened his mouth to ask what it was, but wheezed instead. Ishizu turned to her brother, her hand going to his back as he bent over, struggling to breathe, but the snap of a whip made her flinch and look back at her father.
"Get away from him!"
Ishizu obeyed, as always, backing away from her brother, away from the altar, even though she wished to run to her brother and aid him in every way she could. If Rishid were here, he would help Marik himself, but he'd left to fetch the flowers from the hunters for the peace offering at the altar. Rishid, like Ishizu and Marik, was forbidden from leaving the tomb. Ishizu wasn't allowed outside because she was a woman, Marik wasn't allowed outside because he was an acolyte, and Rishid wasn't allowed outside because he was a slave.
"Where did you get this?" he demanded again, approaching Ishizu with such fury that she couldn't help but start backing away from him. Her back hit the wall, though, making her stop.
"From a man," she answered in a terrified whisper.
"Speak up, you barren bitch!"
"From a man," she repeated more clearly. "On the outside."
"The outside?" He was trembling with anger, his grip tight on the handle of the whip. He only used that whip when punishing Rishid. "Turn around, on your knees."
Ishizu obeyed, placing her hands on the wall as she braced herself. Marik had already turned his face away, holding onto the edge of the stone altar as he coughed so hard that he couldn't keep his eyes open. He wasn't coughing loud enough, though, that he drowned out his sister's screams.
At that moment, a small team of Japanese archaeologists equipped with flashlights was descending the stairs that led down into the tomb. At the bottom, they were met with a choice of two directions: right or left. They went right and followed the hall for a while until they came to another two way choice.
"This is pointless. We're going to get lost in here," Naomi said with a shake of her head as Ren frowned and turned to her.
"We can map our way as we go. There's no reason to get lost."
"I'd feel safer going back and returning with some rope to leave behind us as we go. It's more reliable than mapping it by hand."
"Fine, then, let's—"
"It's this way."
Ren and Naomi looked up at Kenji, who was standing at the right-hand turn, his flashlight aimed down that hallway.
"What makes you say that?" Naomi asked dubiously. "There are many false passageways in tombs, as you well know."
Kenji bent down and pinched between forefinger and thumb the end of a rough, hand-spun string that was on the floor, the length of which led into the labyrinth. His companions stood behind him, looking at it curiously as he stood.
Little did they know that the string had been left there by a young girl as she sought the way out, not even knowing that she was just a few turns away from freedom. During the four years between her vision of Isis and the day she was married, Ishizu had spent secret hours at night attempting to navigate the treacherous maze keeping her imprisoned underground. She'd known that she would escape some day, but she hadn't been shown how or when, so she'd tried to escape on her own. She would never have left without her brothers, unless they refused to come too, but in order to leave, she needed to find her way out. The men of their clan knew the way out, of course, but this was one of two passages to the outside, and they tended to use the other one because it was closer to the Nile. After hours of trial and error, she'd identified the false passages and circles were people were meant to get stuck and disoriented in the darkness. She'd tracked her progress by lining the passages with string that she herself had twisted from dried reed fibers. It was rough and crudely made, but it did the job. When she married the first time, her night-time freedom came to an end.
Now, the three archaeologists were following the string she'd left behind. The closer they came to the end of the maze, the more apprehensive they became.
"Do you hear that?" Kenji asked suddenly, standing still as he strained his ears.
"Hear what?"
"Sh."
After a few moments, the faintest echo of a scream hit their ears.
"Someone else is down here."
"It sounds female," Naomi commented, looking concerned.
"Then let's hurry." Kenji sped up, and his colleagues did too, until they reached the end of the string, by which time they could see lit torches resting in metal fixtures fastened to the walls. Kenji didn't stop, though. The screams were loud and close now, and he jogged to the first doorway he saw, which only showed a dark, empty room with a hole in the floor. A well. The screams pulled them all further down at a brisk pace, all of them on edge.
"What do you plan on doing?" Ren asked as Kenji removed his fishing knife from the sheath at his side.
"I plan on doing the right thing," Kenji answered simply before they stormed the altar-room.
One moment, Ishizu was crying in pain, hugging her dress to her chest since the whip had torn through the fabric covering her back and was tearing into her flesh. The next second, she heard strange voices speaking a strange language and something soft was being draped over her back and shoulders. Naomi had covered Ishizu with her sweater before darting up to the altar where Marik was in the midst of a coughing fit, on the verge of passing out because he simply couldn't breathe. Ishizu clutched the garment around herself, managing to save her modesty as she turned around to see two men in strange clothes pinning her father to the ground, the whip now out of his reach.
Ishizu ran to Marik, afraid of the strangers, afraid of not knowing what would happen next or if they were safe. The woman seemed to be kind, and she'd helped Marik sit down and start to breathe more easily, so Ishizu seized the Millennium Necklace off of the altar, her mind beginning to fill with answers the instant she touched the cool gold.
Rishid rushed in, then, having heard the screams, the shouts, and the altercation. He looked somewhat startled, but mostly angry. His posture was tense, his fists balled at his sides, his eyes narrowed. He was ready to fight, and he probably would have too if Ishizu hadn't stopped him.
"No, Rishid! These people are here to help us!"
His dark hazel eyes darted up to her deep blue ones, and for a moment, she was afraid that he wouldn't listen, but then he let himself relax a little, and she knew that the violence was over.
By now, Ren had Mr. Ishtar on his stomach on the floor with his hands pinned behind his back. Kenji now stood, looking between Ishizu and Rishid as he tried to understand their exchange. Their language wasn't quite like anything he'd ever heard.
"Who are you, and what are you doing down here?" he asked calmly, aiming his question at both of them, but they both looked confused. "You don't speak Egyptian Arabic, do you?" Still, no clear response. "Can you understand me now?" he asked, switching to Aramaic, but his efforts were futile.
"He needs medical attention immediately," Naomi announced as she sat on the dais with an arm around Marik's shoulders. "She does too. You need to try a different tactic, because we need to get them out of here now without making a fuss."
Kenji thought for another moment, then used one hand to gesture to himself, choosing to look at Ishizu this time for the sake of clarity. She'd wiped her face with the sleeve of Naomi's sweater by now, erasing most of the tears.
"Kenji," he said carefully, still pointing to himself. The young woman looked at him thoughtfully and tilted her head to the side, so he pointed to himself again, repeating, "Kenji."
She lifted one small hand and pointed to herself, carefully saying, "Ishizu."
"Ishizu," he repeated, and she nodded in affirmation of his pronunciation.
"Kenji," she reiterated, pointing at him this time.
"Yes."
"Yes," Ishizu parroted back as she sought to wrap her mind around the syllables she was hearing. It sounded much like the other language the men of their clan could speak. They interacted with people on the outside for the purposes of trade, and they used that other language to do so. After years of hearing it peripherally, she knew at least a dozen words and phrases of it. Before Kenji could speak again, Ishizu lifted her hand again and pointed to her elder brother.
"Rishid," she said carefully, then, pointing at her younger brother, "Marik." Then she pointed to the doorway of the room and said in hesitant Egyptian Arabic, "Go outside?"
"She can speak Arabic!" Kenji seemed pleased with the discovery, but Ishizu gave no indication of understanding his exclamation.
"Apparently only a bit of it," Ren commented, still pinning their father to the floor.
"I can't tell what she's getting at," Naomi mused worriedly.
"Are you asking if we can go outside?" Kenji asked slowly, and Ishizu understood enough of it that she began to nod.
"Ishizu, what are you thinking?" Rishid asked sharply.
"I'm thinking that if our medicine can't help Marik, maybe there's can!" she snapped back, which was enough to satisfy her brother. He cared about Marik as much as she did. "They're just here to help, Rishid. They won't hurt us." She tightened her grasp on the Millennium Necklace. "Trust me. I know."
"Very well." Rishid yielded and walked over to where Marik was slumped tiredly against the female archaeologist. Rishid silently lifted his brother into his arms, ready to carry him out of the darkness. Ishizu picked up the Millennium Rod as well, her knees starting to shake with weakness.
"Lead us out," Ishizu said in flawed Arabic, both artifacts in her hands as she held her head high. She was ready to see more than a sliver of the sky.
At that moment, their father began shouting and cursing at them, frustrated and furious. With a deft blow to the head, Ren knocked him out, then carefully stood.
"Let's go."
Ishizu felt disembodied as they made their way through the maze and began ascending the stairs that would lead them to the outside world. When Ishizu stopped, Kenji kept going for a few more steps before he realized that she'd stopped. He'd turned around to look back at her as she gazed up towards the light that shone from above, Rishid standing solidly behind her with Marik cradled in his arms.
"Go on," Rishid murmured. "You wanted this, didn't you?"
"Come." Kenji extended a hand to her, smiling encouragingly as he hoped that she understood. She did, and she hesitantly placed her shaky hand in his. He held it firmly and supported her as she stepped into the light, approaching the surface. When she finally lifted her eyes, she gasped. She couldn't have imagined what this would look like: sand as far out as the eye could see. In wonder, she turned, looking in every direction. Such space, such distance. She couldn't comprehend it.
When Rishid joined her, Marik opened his eyes. He cried out suddenly, the sound one of delight as he pointed to the sun. "Look, sister! Ra!"
Ishizu released Kenji's hand to shield her eyes as she looked up towards the sun, feeling a small smile curve her lips, despite her pain. Then she looked down at the hot sand that burned the bottoms of her feet and knelt down, scooping some of it into her hand and then letting it run through her fingers, watching it with the awe of discovery. Marik was still looking around, pointing and delightedly exclaiming things with every new discovery.
That was when Kenji and his colleagues began to suspect that they must have lived their entire lives underground.
Six days ago...
"I still can't get any reception," Kenji Bakura said with a frown as he glared at his cellphone. His colleague, Ren, was driving the jeep as quickly as possible through the busy streets while Rishid and Ishizu sat in pensive silence in the backseat, holding on tightly so that they weren't thrown from the vehicle. Ishizu was wearing all black with a headscarf that covered her hair and even half her face. Living in Cairo as she and Rishid waited to be cleared by the government for legal emigration to Japan, they'd had to blend in with the locals to avoid suspicion or attention, which meant feigning Muslim faith and adopting Muslim garb. It was safest that way, and with the Millennium Necklace always tucked discreetly beneath her scarf, she could easily avoid any dangerous situation.
It was also the reason she'd requested a detour when their paperwork was finally processed and their friends—Mr. Bakura and his colleagues—came to take them to the airport. She'd requested that they go back to the tomb where they'd been found, and they'd seemed to believe that she was crazy, that it was a waste of time.
She'd insisted that it was important, that there was something valuable she'd forgotten, and Kenji had believed her. So he'd let all but one of his colleagues go back to Japan, taking their findings with them. Kenji and Ren had taken the rental Jeep out into the desert, and as they drove, Ishizu had sensed that she was close to losing her chance to save the two god cards. Two days into their journey, and she knew that they were already too late. Not wanting to waste any more time, she'd told them that it wasn't there anymore. They asked her how she knew, and she didn't give them a substantive answer.
Kenji Bakura believed in the magic of the Millennium Items, however. He'd believed when he saw Ishizu give Marik the Millennium Rod and tell him to "give it to a boy his age named Seto." He believed when Ryou told him that the Millennium Ring had embedded itself in his chest and that a disembodied voice had claimed to choose him as his host. He believed when Ryou told him the story of what had happened when he tried playing Monster World with his friends. So when Ishizu told him that they needed to return to Cairo immediately, or they'd all be in grave danger, he'd believed her.
They were on their way to the airport, and the roads were packed with both people and vehicles. Kenji wanted to call his wife more than anything in at the moment, but his phone wasn't holding reception for more than a few seconds at a time. He probably needed to get a new one. They passed through the heart of the city on their way to the airport, and as they got closer, Ishizu became ever more apprehensive. A crowd was gathered there, but it wasn't the normal crowd of a populated city. There were no women, no children, just full grown men looking angry, shouting harsh words in harsh languages. Law enforcement officers were just arriving on the scene, armed and dangerous. A conflict was inevitable at this point.
"Ken, I think we might have a problem," Ren said as he stopped at a corner, waiting for an opportunity to turn. Ishizu's eyes were darting around wildly, Rishid watching her with concern.
"Get down!" she shouted suddenly, throwing herself to the floor of the backseat. Rishid obeyed instantly, covering his sister protectively as their two companions looked around in confusion. Then a shot rang out from the card, and after the first one, a multitude followed.
"Shit!" Ren exclaimed as he tried to maneuver the jeep out of harm's way. It was too late, though. A stray bullet missed its initial target and flew passed the crowd to tear right through Kenji's right upper arm before lodging into a piece of the Jeep's structure. He shouted with pain and his hand went to his arm. He was gritting his teeth in pain, but he managed to tell his partner to head straight for the Japanese embassy.
A moment later, Ishizu was handing him her hijab so he could use it to staunch the bleeding.
Maybe if she knew how to use the Millennium Necklace better, she could have prevented this.
Today...
"Have you heard from your dad yet?" Seto asked quietly as he and Ryou stood by the front door while Mokuba was collecting his cards.
"Not yet. It's been over a week. Mum and Marik are a mess." Ryou statements were short, a tired, stressed look on his face. While his mother was overcome with distress, he'd stepped up to do what needed to be done. It would have been easier if it weren't for the fact that he was distressed too. The rebellion seemed to be on the verge of being squashed, according to the news, but nobody could be sure of anything.
"I'm sorry to hear that. Are you sure there isn't anything I can do to help?" The dim sound of a cellphone ringing somewhere indoors wasn't loud enough to draw the attention of either teen.
"Thanks for the offer, but I—"
"Kenji?!"
They both turned their heads to look over and see Mrs. Bakura with her cellphone to her ear, eyes lit up with joy as they started to fill with tears. Ryou stopped breathing for a moment as he was struck with hope. Seto gave his friend's hand a squeeze, and Ryou squeezed back. Mokuba, Amane, and Marik were now watching her too, all of them waiting for good news.
"Are you alright? Where have you been? Why—?" She fell silent as she listened to her husband intently, dabbing at her glassy eyes with the ends of her shirt-sleeves. She gasped and exclaimed, louder than she intended, "You were shot?!"
On another continent, thousands of miles away, Kenji was smiling, infinitely pleased to hear his wife's voice again. "It just grazed me," he assured with a weak laugh. His arm hurt like hell, but at least no permanent damage had been done, as far as he knew. "It was just a stray bullet from a skirmish."
"I guess that's a good thing," she murmured into the phone, still sounding upset.
"Yes, it is. Like I was saying, we took asylum at the Japanese embassy as soon as the conflict broke out. My arm's been taken care of and as soon as we get the all-clear, we'll be on the first flight out of Cairo."
"Do you know when that will be?" She sounded anxious, which was only reasonable. He'd been gone a long time, and aside from him being wounded and caught in the middle of a rebellion in a violent country, they both simply missed the one they loved.
"No more than three days, my dear. I promise."
Author Notes: Ryou's parents are officially my favorite couple to write in this story. Maybe even more so than (spoiler omitted). In the next chapter, we have only one short flashback before returning to the current timeline.
The moment when I had Ren abbreviate Kenji's name to Ken, I immediately started thinking of the "Barbie Girl" song... Please tell me I'm not the only one?
Mals: I'm so glad to have brightened your morning! :) I find that placing a review requirement for a new chapter gives me the time I need to write/finish the next chapter while giving my readers a way to know/anticipate when the next chapter is coming. As a reader, I like that kind of awareness, and I've seen it work for other writers, so I use it sometimes too. (And sometimes when I don't get the requirement for a while, but I'm ready for it, I'll just go ahead and post it. I'm almost done with the next chapter, anyways.)
Plus, I do like reviews. ^_^ It's nice to reread them on my bad days when I lack motivation or lose confidence in my writing. I also just want to know what you people think, because I value your opinions and reactions. I love my readers. I like to know if the scenes that made me cry to write them made you cry when you read them. I want to know if you pick up on the subtle implications, if you see the parallels that I try to incorporate without throwing them in your face. Like I said, I love you guys. Talk to me, ask me questions. If you're curious about anything, I'd love to give you an answer!