Yu-Gi-Oh: A Past and Future Pharaoh
Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
Edited graciously by: Red Wings
A/N: Nope its 'flappy' So see Malik knows 'flabby' is a big insult so he's TRYING to be as close to accurate as he can get without being insulting... he failed. Please forgive.
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"Are you ok Ryou?" Anzu asked as she desperately tried to drag her voice down to being low and there was the whole 'Yugi' comment.
"I'll be fine Anzu, I just got 'reminded' that while Yugi is willing to explain things he's not, shall we say, an information station at my finger tips..." Ryou began through gritted teeth before he started pushing himself back to his feet. 'Of all the ways...' His skin was burning from the absolute shock of what Yugi had not only 'suggested' but let Ryou get a 'free viewing' of! It was probably a mercy that he saw clothes on the women at all!
"Well.. I got my outfit and stuff we can go!" a small make up kit and dress was thrust into his line of sight by Anzu while Malik pulled out the rings.
Malik had questions, but he also knew 'Kura well enough to know that not everything was going to make that hardened thief faint. It wouldn't be high end violence, it would be something else, something that would shock the bunny not the thief king.
He just would wait when Anzu wasn't in ear shot. Or his sister... Maybe Rashid would be curious but...
The next stop was Maliks' boat.
"Soo you can see the future..." Malik began slowly as he wiped toothpaste infused spittle off his face.
"I didn't see you decide to use the 'hallway' to appear!" Isis retorted before she disappeared back into the bathroom.
Ryou and Anzu just did the polite thing and stood off to the side.
While the hallway was certainly large enough for all three of them to appear, so it wasn't anything for them to wait as a towel was flung from the bathroom into Malik's face. They could hear Isis' pitiful spit after her bigger one, then rinse. Ryou quietly counting the thoughts in his head and Anzu openly using the hallway light to make sure she grabbed the right outfit and make up kit.
Which ended up being the very scene that Rashid walked in on. The noise hadn't been alarming, but Malik's sudden voice was enough to get him out of bed. "I see you have returned?"
"Oh hi Rashid!" Anzu sprang to life on this new distraction from the awkwardness behind her. "Has everything been going well here?"
"Mostly, Jounouchi and Honda have made a visit that Isis and I both find distressing. But as Yugi has declared that the demon's forces will do nothing during this time. We felt it would be wiser to let all of you have this bit of fun before what could possibly be worse happens."
Ryou turned to look at Rashid in shared concern, "the spirits mentioned seeing someone observing the old Game Shop. Which given its been completely torn down and cleaned up is worrisome. They said the guy is dark skin like u-s... Well like Egyptians." Ryou added, his voice tripping over saying 'us' as his brain reminded him he was a virtual snowball compared to the Ishtars now.
"Someone has been looking at the shop?" Anzu's confusion was clear in her voice. "But its gone? The city removed it though they weren't disinterested to the idea of a new game shop."
"People who commit crimes sometimes feel the need to return to the scene. For some the act is to get attention and people's focus on it gives them a type of elation." Ryou began, "though in this case, I doubt it. They would have been there after the bomb, not now after everything is gone. More over, we know Yugi is in Florida, there is no reason to believe he would just chance through to see the shop."
"The demons' followers aren't able to disrupt Kaiba's event but they're still doing stuff..." Malik suggested as Isis stepped out of the bathroom proper.
"Likely. Its just as likely that they would still be a bit disorganized from Yugi's awakening, or at least that is how Yugi would sway their thoughts. But regardless we can not assume that the group just shut down completely for the tournament. They're still here, active, and planning."
"Agreed, likely though this guy might have been the one to send the bomb." Malik noted as he walked into the bathroom. "If he's the guy who sent the bomb to the family, and he's from Egypt or adjacent to it somehow..." The blond began to muse the thoughts into his head. "If he's like me and he's got an issue against Yugi thus how he joined this group. Well he'd be stuck like us, we draw attention whenever we leave the boat because of how much we stick out. So finding him should be easy, the only way it would be hard. Would be if they figured out how to get the Dark Magician cards active for themselves and Mahaado would know and tell us right?"
The others nodded while Malik left the bathroom and made his way down the hallway. Leaving Anzu blinking in surprise.
'That's the first time I've seen him without his eye make up...' she mused in surprise and realized he probably had his stuff at the hotel. "Change of shirt?" She called out in question and received a nod from the blond as Malik disappeared into a room.
"We probably will have to brace for a renewed assault of sorts once the tournament is over," Rashid mused aloud.
"Oh no..." Anzu began to sigh in self directed annoyance. "We invited Mai and Valon to come to Japan, but where can they stay?"
"Mai and who?" Isis asked politely, she began gently guiding the pair off to the living areas of the boat before tucking her bathrobe more tightly around her frame. The quiet noise of their steps were reminiscent of the same sounds of when Jounouchi and Honda had been visiting earlier.
"Valon, Mai's new travel buddy kinda boyfriend person..." Anzu elaborated. "He's Australian though and Japanese isn't his language. Its obviously going to be a bit difficult for him here and well.."
"You were trying to figure out a place for them to stay. The hotels will be costly if its planned for them to be here for a time." Rashid thoughtfully noted yet there wasn't enough space on the boat for the pair unless they were already in a physical relationship. Then maybe they could fit but...
"Yes, honestly we doubt Kaiba would be willing to host them for any length of time, Yugi was a special case. They are not. But with the Game Shop gone all together, the boat is too small and that spare bedroom is more a closet. Valon is not massive but you won't be lowering your head to speak with him Rashid," Ryou began to recount. "And the rest of the gang is not feasible..."
"If they could work for Kaiba though I'm sure he could pull something, even if it was through or because Mokuba himself did it. But you're right, Mai is a traveling duelist she would not be willing to be tied to a job in a location for long at this point." Isis agreed thoughtfully. "Could they not... rent a place? Ahh wait... there is an option though... The rings that Mahaado made can be used by anyone correct? Realistically that would mean Mai could enter tournaments around the world any time and merely have this Valon person and one other go with her."
Ryou and Anzu blinked at the suggestion and the possibility did encourage Anzu a great deal as she chimed in.
"You're right! She could duel, collect her wins and pay their way!"
"More over Valon could just as easily go back to Australia and work at his old shop and teleport back when his day is done." Ryou added as the obvious was brought to his attention when he wasn't forced to think of the rings and their tie to Mahaado. As a tool of its own the rings would be perfect to help the pair.
"You would have to decide though which," Rashid warned. "The rings require three people yes? So you can't just take one person and drop them off at a location and come back, the other two would be stuck there too. So if Mai is playing in a tournament Valon can not work as well because who would the new third person to help teleport him? We can not be so cruel as to expect Mahaado to just make this host of teleportation devices for us at a whim. Anything solid that we can use, is something that can be used as well by any of our enemies."
Ryou was sitting down as Rashid spoke and musing over it himself nodded. "You have a point, perhaps a keen eye on what would make more money would be in order? On days that Valon would have no work, there would be no reason for him to go in. But when there is a toss up between a tournament or a job, which pay out is greater when the currency is swapped to the Yen? Even then tournaments across the world and Mai constantly showing up at the bank with large amounts of various foreign money would send up a red flag as well. She would need a way to launder it safely or just purely rely on Valons' far more stable Australian pay."
"The second option sounds better, if Valon gets paid out of pocket then at least the consistency would look normal. Like she's just getting checks from someone there. Less suspicious though given what she said about her natural blond hair. I hope no one just gets the idea to run a check on her or Valon."
"Understandable, though Honda's friend, that nurse could be an indicator that it 'is' doable." Isis pointed out. "An American with poor Japanese working in a hospital in any capacity is beyond odd to me. More over her disappearance and well... I did not wish to say it to his face, but I think that his friend is the one on the news. Despite her weight."
"I've heard things mentioned by the pair, and I remember Misty when I visited Honda..." Anzu automatically recounted in dread. "You've heard something Isis?"
Anzu's voice faltered as the gentle rolling waves of the ocean nudged the boat in its path. While the air echoed that soft sound of rolling waves, 'I can't believe they can walk so effortlessly from this to dry land...' Anzu thought to herself in amazement. Japan originally being a rice or fish cultivation type island, this probably would have made her a rice field girl. But the longer she spent on the boat the more she appreciated the elderly who made their living on them.
After all her dance classes had enforced the importance of protecting the joints of ones legs from damage. Especially as one got older where dislocation and injury increased and being older 'and' on a boat most of the day? Pulling fish from the ocean via nets?
Moments like this just gave her pause to reflect on the various life styles people lived to survived and made it work.
"No, whatever Honda has revealed to all of you has not changed, I had thought to try to see her future though while you were gone. But I was addressing more that picture he showed. He has no current picture of this woman so I don't know what 'Misty' looks like in his mind. He was only able to show me the one picture that she dropped. He's confident that she must be family, a situation where Misty took the picture. But I can not shake the feeling that it is this Misty in the photo."
"We know that the demon's followers are kidnapping people, Misty could be one of them. Sadly we can not stay at the moment, but if you can check Misty's future perhaps we can glean her current situation." Ryou inquired, "Honda would be comforted to know she 'has' a future, but if you find nothing for her don't tell him you tried. At least until we can get a good grasp on what happened to her. Though I am curious why? You never met her, how can you be confident that Honda isn't right?"
By now everyone was settled in the 'living room' area of the boat, either on couches or leaning against a wall.
"It's a feeling I get when I look at her and the man by her side. My gut saying 'this is it, you found it'. Honda himself is only acquainted to magic indirectly via the Pharaoh, whatever he experienced is evoked around him and onto him. Not from within him outwards, so he may not have developed the sensation. But having looked at so many timelines, its here," she placed her hand on her stomach. "The sensation that tells me when I should notice something, a lesson that my mother was able to teach me long ago. 'Sometimes you will be alerted by something other than visions, trust your heart.' Was something she would tell me." Isis' lips twitched into a faint smile. "Though I understand in this day and age the phrase would be 'Trust your gut', in much the same we didn't know the brain to be an organ. We... thought it more as an organ that made the snot run from our noses..."
"SIS!" Malik laughed as he entered the room with a grin and a light lavender shirt on, "but true, everyone valued the heart, the brain was just gray mass."
"I mean there 'are' surgeries that can help with weight loss... So its always possible she had that done and it 'is' the same person." Anzu agreed trying to find ways Honda could be both right and wrong. "But I can't imagine losing that much weight so suddenly not having bags of skin. Misty was a lovely woman, she looked naturally slender. Not like surgery," Anzu strained to think back to those dark days of hospital visits when she saw the woman but she wasn't really 'important' then.
In those days the world was just a blur of the Game shop destroyed via a 'bomb', Honda in the hospital and Yugi just being himself. There was just so much shock, grief and loss that her brain had overloaded. She 'had' spoken to Misty, her English good enough to get a question or two across but she just never cared...
"But without knowing how far back the picture was, could it be possible that she just dealt with the flaps of skin before you met? Like if surgery can make a fat woman thin, couldn't it not make her flappy?" Malik asked.
Rashid just took a breath and tried to deal with the inconsiderate question, "Malik, 'flappy' is rather insulting..."
Ryou's head began bobbing, followed by Anzu while Isis just had the long suffering look before Malik grumbled a 'sorry'.
"To answer your question though, I don't know," Anzu replied, "it never concerned me."
"Well I'm dressed so we can go pick up something for Ryou and we should officially be back in a day or three," Malik said without much preamble. "Because we know these people are kidnapping others and we're going to be swamped with this situation for who knows how long. So let's go and enjoy ourselves... If you want we can see if Mahaado can bring you two over on his own?"
"While the offer is nice, I would prefer to stay here. The peace we've been afforded now is something I would like to continue enjoying," Rashid replied from where he had settled down.
"I agree, given that the person who bombed the game shop is here in Domino. I would rather be here to make sure no one attempted to do the same thing to the boat." Isis agreed, her suggestion causing Malik to grow pale under his tan.
"That could apply anywhere though," he pointed out. "Sure Kaiba has security both at his home and job but all of us..."
"Not if you have the dead following you everywhere," Ryou deadpanned. "But while I may have that as some help I'm not stupid. The spirits could have been at the game shop and not been able to alert me or stop the bomb. We can't even really count on Mahaado either because the range of assassination tools are so wide he would be overwhelmed easily."
But while Ryou and the Ishtars spoke of it with almost a cavalier attitude a cold wave of sweat sent shivers down Anzu's back. "Bomb... my parents apartment?"
The words were squeaked out, causing Ryou and the others to instantly turn to observe Anzu as she began to shrink in on herself. Arms wrapped around her body as she tried to process what they were suggesting.
"I'm not going to lie and say 'it won't happen'." Ryou began, his words slow and measured. "We know that Yugi, on principle, won't interfere regarding this matter even if he wants to. But it 'is' a real threat that you have to accept if you want to keep being a part of this, Anzu."
"Where's the choice in that, Ryou?" Anzu argued as the fear settled firmly in her eyes. "We're already a part of this, and if I try to leave it doesn't matter. What stops them from just blowing up my parents apartment, the whole building even to send a message? Kidnap... Murder..."
Isis got up and moved her seat directly next to Anzu so she could grip the girls' ice cold hands. That chill alone enough to make her begin rubbing it to bring warmth back as best as she could.
"Kaiba." Malik answered, his tone pragmatic even if ruefully amused. "His divine sphere is to protect others, not ourselves. So just pray to him that He will protect your loved ones and he should be able to do it without setting Japan constantly on 'Storm watch' mode."
Pray to the God of Storms and Chaos who currently was a CEO to a former Weapons manufacturing company. Somehow it wasn't comforting to know that the 'Chaos' aspect was doing well and strong.