Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ The Dragoness ❯ Hooded ( Chapter 10 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Outskirts of Chicago, Illinois, United States

Just after sunset

Never. Never had she felt so tired, barely able to keep her head up despite the roar of the stolen motorcycle. Which figures, since she had been riding for five, maybe six hours now. “Keep this up and you'll be asleep at the wheel, Rye,” she chided herself. The plane had touched down in New York City a while ago, so she figured that Kaiba would have tracked the flight number by now.

She was running, as far and fast as she could; away from Kaiba and Japan and all those about to break out of her past and into her miserable present- and she wasn't going to let them. “How long until he knows who I am? I didn't exactly hide it from anyone…”

Chicago was coming into sight. “Home sweet home,” she said, felling revitalized by the very sight of her American city. Kikas International was just another blue city in the smoggy skyscraper skyline, but she could pick it out in the dark from memory.

“Sue,” she said pleasantly, looking at the tall, thin woman that was sitting in her desk.

“Hello Lil. Having fun with your new husband? But, oh, I forgot, you married him for his money.”

“Alright,” sighed Lilly.

“Alright? Alright what?”

“You asked me, on my wedding day no less, if you could kill Seto Kaiba. Alright.”

“Why the sudden change of heart?” She scanned her little sister's face. “Oh, he's stumbled on what really happened to you ten years ago.”

Lilly's face was sullen. “You kill him or kill me. Because this thing, if it comes to a head, will destroy more than my life. The enemies of my enemies must now be my friends, although at one time my friends were my enemies and my enemies were my friends.”

“You mean Yugi Motou, the King of Games, from Domino?”

Lilly nodded. “He was once my gravest enemy. But now we must be allies, lest the former Rare Hunters try to kill him and his friends again. Did you look up what I asked?”

“On the current events in the underworld? Honey, I may be a part of legalized crime, but not a deep sea fish like Tyas Fullam. His workings are beyond my feeble mortal mind,” Sulara challenged sarcastically.

“So I've missed a lot? You used to be the best, Sue.”

“I still am. You watch.”

“They have a new name, so I've heard.”

“Yes. The Luminaries. It's some kind of poetic justice, that the most evil beings in the world would gather together to turn on their former leaders and claim that they are the light.”

“Well put sister.”

“You really want me to kill Seto Kaiba?”

“It won't be difficult. You look so much like me that you could walk in there and he would have no idea.”

“I'll consider that. At first I thought you wanted me to sell you a metal man.”

“An assassin? If I wanted an assassin, I'd do the job myself.”

“When was the last time you were paid to kill, sister Lillian?”

“I did a number in Italy once. Some billionaire brat that I put out of misery…”

Domino, Japan

Earlier that day

“Mr. Ishtar,” Kaiba began to the brother of the curator of the Domino Museum, “It recently came to my attention that I haven't spoke to you in four years.”

“Interesting Kaiba, but you also forgot that I know you, inside and out. What do you want?”

“Alright Malik, I'll be to the point. Did you ever know a woman named Lilly Kikas?”

The Egyptian considered it. “No, I've never met the woman. Her name is Japanese, so she must be from the country, correct?”

“Actually she's an American.” Malik flinched a bit, beginning to put the pieces together. “Is the name “Ryca” familiar to you? I know that that name is Egyptian.”

“Egypt is a big place, Kaiba, and I certainly didn't spend a whole lot of time on the surface,” Ishtar pointed out.

“Don't lie to me Malik. I know you once knew her- I have a picture of you and her together.”

He gave a stubborn look. “I know no such creature as a Ryca.”

“Her life may be in danger. By your Rare Hunters, none the less.”

Malik looked alarmed. “So you do, or did, know her,” Kaiba said satisfied.

“Fine, I'll talk…”

“Five million dollars,” announced the hooded female figure in the center of the crowd. It was a horde of low lifes, hanging out in a bar near the docks of the great lake.

They looked interested. Then, knives, guns, and other violent looking material was suddenly pointed at her. She didn't flinch. “Five million. A large amount of American money for information.”

A man, possibly an important figure in the rabble, handed her a glass of wine ceremoniously. She took one sip of the blood red liquid, draining it thus. Then, she smashed the glass on the table behind her, leaving only a razor sharp stem. She held it up for all to see, then traced the Horus eye on the back of her left hand with the glass, leaving a thin, bloody mark.

The crowd sighed, satisfied. She had passed.

But of course she would. She was their leader, after all…

“Five million to the man who can direct me to Tyas Fullam.”

“Hell, for five million, you can have me Ryca!” a man shouted in the back.

“I'm sure I could, Domo.”

“I'm looking for Tyas. He's your leader now, isn't he? Luminaries?” The men hushed, disturbed and embarrassed, like a child that admits to preferring one parent over the other.

“I'm here, so I guess that five mil goes to me!” shouted Fullam from the back of the room.

“Come and claim it,” challenged the woman. She removed her hood. It was Lilly…