Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Love Gave the Wound ❯ Private Exhibition: Seto Kaiba ( Chapter 4 )

Disclaimer: I do not claim to own anything-"Yu-Gi-Oh!", poetry about insects, or any blouses that are not middriff. Should I be sorry for that? ^frowns^.

This section takes place after Duelist Kingdom, when Ishizu Ishtar invites Seto Kaiba to her museum to discuss destiny...and a few other things.

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Love Gave the Wound

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Private Exhibition: Seto Kaiba

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But straight I saw motions at lightning grace,

And then descried the glist'ring of his dart:

But ere I could fly thence, it pierced my heart.

(Sir Philip Sidney, from Astrophel and Stella)

**

She's waiting for me in the museum lobby like the spider for the fly, and her smile is reflected in the polished floor tiles. She's so still, as if she herself were a statue in her own collection. But statues don't have ebony hair, don't have eyes as black as the floor I'm walking across. The necklace around her throat is real gold and looks heavy enough to crush her rather dainty-looking collarbone, but she wears it as if it were a part of her.

"Good evening, Seto Kaiba. I am Ishizu Ishtar."

Of course she is Ishizu Ishtar, from the glimmering circlet atop her midnight hair to the soles of her soft slippers. She can't be anyone else.

"Where are the other guests?" I ask, looking around at the empty echoing lobby.

She smiles silkily. "I said this was a private exhibition, didn't I? We are quite alone."

Quite alone is way more alone than I want to be with her. Her voice is like the musical purr of a cat to its dinner, and I'm not in the mood to be dinner. "It's been two minutes, Ishizu, and I'm already bored." I turn to leave, but she's ready for me.

"I thought you wanted power, Seto Kaiba?" she asks sweetly.

"What do you mean?" I ask suspiciously.

"It's why I called you out here. Are you interested in owning a card more powerful than Exodia?"

Oh, boy. She's got my number all right. I stumble mid-step as I stop walking and turn to face her. "You're bluffing. I know everything there is to no about Duel Monsters, and no such card exists."

"You're wrong, Seto Kaiba. The game of Duel Monsters is based on the Shadow Games of ancient Egypt, except that in those times the monsters were ...real."

"That's impossible," I tell her immediately. "There are no such things as monsters." But I sound like a scratchy recording: No such thing, no such thing.

Ishizu shakes her head. "Again, you've been misinformed, Kaiba. The Shadow Realm is indeed real, and its monsters are out in force today. Maximilian Pegasus fell in love with the game and adapted it for modern times in the form of cards, but it's no surprise he kept the most powerful monsters for himself."

I shake my head. "It doesn't add up. If Pegasus had such powerful cards, why didn't he use them on me at Duelist Kingdom?"

"Pegasus feared the power of the Egyptian god cards I speak of," Ishizu explains. Her eyes are so black that she looks blind as she turns her gaze to me. "He was wary...and afraid. Are you afraid, Kaiba?"

"No," I say, my voice suddenly scratchy with the idea. A card more powerful than Exodia the Forbidden One-no one could beat me, not even that little runt Yugi.

She walks deeper into the museum, a gliding movement that's almost spooky, as if there weren't a full set of legs under her skirt. "Follow me if you are a brave man. If you are a coward, then leave."

She disappears from sight, having sprung her trap. I'm two feet away from the sliding glass door, and my limo is purring outside, waiting to carry me home. All I have to do is leave and my life can return to normal. Her insults don't mean anything to me, and I have no reason to believe that she's got a card more powerful than Exodia-there's no proof of that.

All I have to do is walk out the door.

With an almost reluctant sigh, I follow Ishizu down the dark hallway.

"Good man," she says as she melts out of a shadow, as if I've passed some kind of test. "Follow me." She glides past the artifacts like a spirit, her flats making no noise on the polished floor. She looks as though she herself is a part of the exhibit, as if she could climb into one of the sarcophagi and be at peace.

She stops at a stairway that seems to lead down into the earth itself. I'm reminded again of the poem about the spider and the fly-"whoever goes up your winding stairs can ne'er come down again." Only here, getting down isn't the problem. The trouble will come when I want to go back up.

"We keep the most precious artifacts down here," Ishizu tells me, waving a graceful hand to display a stone tablet scarred with hieroglyphics. "This tablet depicts an ancient battle between the pharaoh and his greatest nemesis."

"Wait a minute," I say, squinting at the stone carvings. "That's no pharaoh. That's Yugi!" It is Yugi, carved in stone-I'd recognize that ludicrous hairstyle anywhere. "And the monster he's summoned-it's the Dark Magician!"

Ishizu's eyes are so bright, someone may have touched a match to them. "Very perceptive. But the true surprise will come when you see his enemy-or rather, when you see his enemy's monster."

Please, no, I think as I look up at the opposite side of the tablet, but it's there, carved in stone. "It's a dragon," I say, swallowing the lump of cold terror that's suddenly blocking my throat.

"Not just any dragon," Ishizu says ominously. "A Blue Eyes White Dragon." She walks boldly up to me, her eyes burning into mine. "Your dragon, Seto Kaiba."

"Impossible!" I say through gritted teeth. "There's no way! I don't have to listen to any of this!"

"No, but you can look," she says. "If you do not believe what you see here, perhaps a glance into the past will convince you-with the help of my Millenium Necklace."

Aforementioned necklace gleams around her bronze throat as she presses dream-visions into my head, visions of sand and stone and a battle that will remain forever unfinished. It's too much for me, and I'm suddenly on my hands and knees, my briefcase tossed aside, my own name forgotten.

"Kaiba? Seto Kaiba?" Ishizu's tone is concerned as she kneels beside me-it wouldn't do for her to kill me before she's got whatever it is she wants from me. What that is, I don't know, but it's something. She said she brought me here to give me power, but I'm rich enough to know that nothing is free. If an exotic stranger promises you untold power and asks you to meet them in a dimly-lit modern tomb, be sure they want something from you.

The question is, what's her price?

"Get...out...of...my...face," I say slowly, as soon as I am sure I have enough breath to speak.

"Now do you believe in destiny?" she asks fiercely. The necklace gleams as she offers me her hand, an eye in the middle of her throat; a grotesque idea, but she pulls me to my feet, no less lovely. I wonder at her, at her careless grace in a room full of crumbling death. It's as if she truly is Isis of the Ten Thousand Names, Queen of the Dead. Could you say no, in your last moments, to eyes like that?

"I make my own destiny," I tell her, and luckily my voice is not shaky. "I do what I want." And yet my feet stay anchored to the tiled floor. I am your victim, Goddess.

She blinks at me, her beliefs dueling with mine in our faces, our eyes. Rather than continuing the argument, she points to a section of the stone tablet where the hieroglyphics have worn away. "The winner of the duel was written here, but it is indecipherable." Then she turns my gaze to the top of the tablet, where monsters gather, frozen in stone. "This is the part that will interest you. See them." She points to each monster in turn. "Obelisk, the Tormentor. Slyfer, the Sky Dragon. The Winged Dragon of Ra."

"Those are the Egyptian god monsters you mentioned earlier. You're saying Pegasus made them into cards?" I ask incredulously.

She nods her dark head. "Possess one and you are a force to be reckoned with. Wield all three and the earth itself will quake with fear!"

Her voice seems to own me as her necklace owns its visions of the past. She says the words "quake with fear" and I obey against my will.

"What did Pegasus do with such powerful cards?" I ask, silently begging her to tell me. Her answer is grave, ringing with importance.

"He gave them to me, for safekeeping."

Who is this woman?

Ishizu continues. "But the cards have been stolen by a group of rare hunters, and I need your help to retrieve them."

I arch a brow at her. "My help? What can I do?"

"If you hold a tournament, Seto Kaiba, it will bring top duelists from around the world. "It will be the biggest collection of rare cards in one place-"

"-And the rare hunters won't be able to resist," I realize, the discovery dawning on my face. "They'll come like vultures to a carcass, and they'll bring the Egyptian god cards." I smirk. "I like the way you think, Ishizu Ishtar. I'll hold your tournament, but not because I believe your little fairy tale. I want to reclaim my title as world champion."

Ishizu smiles and holds something up to me. A playing card. "Then you'll need this."

I take the card and look at the vicious monster painted on it. It looks oddly familiar..."Wait a minute. It can't be!" I snap my head to look at the carvings again. "Obelisk the Tormentor!"

Ishizu is looking like the Egyptian cat goddess who ate the canary.

"You said the cards were stolen," I accuse.

"I never said they were all stolen," is her answer. "I managed to retrieve this one in time. You may borrow it for the tournament, but remember, this card is on loan from the Ishizu Ishtar collection." She smirks. "I expect it back."

"What makes you think you can trust me?" I ask, flapping the card lightly against my hand. "I could walk out of here right now and you'd never see it again."

"You will return the card to me," Ishizu says, her voice a silken hiss. "I have foreseen it." The necklace seems to follow me as I turn to leave.

"Why don't you turn your all-seeing eyes to visions of my victory?" I ask. "It's been a pleasure doing business with you, Ishizu Ishtar."

"And the pleasure's all yours." Her voice echoes off the dark walls, following me out as I walk up the stairs. I smirk as I look at the card in my hand.

Indeed, my benevolent goddess. What else do you see in my future?

**

Author's Notes:

Mmm...Kaiba. The trench coat is perfect symbolism for him to wear, as his moods swirl around him and trail behind him as he moves. Kaiba is enigma; no wonder every Yugi fan I know is a little bit in love with him. The lure of the bastard-I'm guilty of it, too.

I especially like the episode containing the meeting between Kaiba and Ishizu. Dice are rolling as soon as Kaiba walks in the door-each has their own agenda, and will stop at nothing to get what they want. Ishizu gives up the card as a means to an end, but as is usual with the CEO, he's thinking about the end, not the means. He doesn't pay any attention to Ishizu's warnings, and that means may become an end in itself!...I love their verbal sparring, diplomacy, bravado, veiled insults, blatant insults. No wonder Kaiba's such a good businessman.

I think this is my favourite out of all the chapters so far, with Yami Yugi a close second. But I have a few more in me, I think. Reviews of all kinds are greatly appreciated as always *^_^*