The Fortune Teller's Proposition
The airship soared upward, carrying us toward the finals. The main difference from the original story was that Joan, An Suzin, and Mai Valentine should have been present, yet now only men filled the vessel. Ah… there was one woman, at least. Ishizu. She was probably keeping to herself in another room.
After a late dinner and some rest, perhaps thirty minutes slipped by before an employee named Isono arrived and instructed us to gather in the hall.
“Ishizu, are you truly not coming out?”
“Don’t worry. You know the power of the Millennium Necklace, don’t you?”
“Yes, I understand, Ishizu.”
In the hall, the seven duelists excluding Ishizu—Yugi, me, Kaiba, Joey, Bakura, Marik, and Rishid—studied the bracket to see who would face whom. Ishizu had apparently declared that her match would be last and refused to leave her room.
Isono then announced that he would conduct the first-round drawing using the Ultimate Blue-Eyes machine loaded with balls numbered one through eight. The device resembled an oversized lottery machine.
The first duel of the opening round turned out to be Bakura versus Yugi. They began their match exactly as they had in the original story.
Marik employed the Millennium Rod’s power to confer with Dark Bakura, coordinating their assault on Yugi—or rather, Atem. Dark Bakura attacked using his occult deck’s Wizard Board, but Atem swiftly unraveled its strategy. He revived Dark Necrofear with Monster Reborn, temporarily shattering the trap.
Yet Dark Bakura summoned Jowgen the Spiritualist in attack position, tributed a card to send Dark Necrofear to his own graveyard, and reactivated the Wizard Board. With completion only one turn away, Atem destiny-drew the Sky Dragon of Osiris and completely reversed the momentum.
The second round followed soon after. The matchup was Rishid—disguised as Marik—against the real Marik. Rishid maintained the act, assaulting him with a trap-and-spell heavy deck. But Joey noticed that Rishid wasn’t striking with true killing intent, merely checking him, and his expression turned suspicious. Finally he blurted out, “You’re not Marik!”
Rishid’s face twisted in shock as he shouted that he was indeed Marik.
Sorry… Lord Marik… If I stall any longer, your true identity will be exposed…
Attack, Rishid. To erase their doubts, you must attack me.
He sent trap monsters at Marik, but when even those around Yugi—including Kaiba—began to suspect, Rishid finally summoned a cloned Winged Dragon of Ra and proclaimed himself the real Marik. The counterfeit god’s rage struck Rishid with lightning, sending him crumpling to the floor.
“Rishid…! Aaaargh!!!”
The moment Rishid collapsed, the Dark Marik personality slumbering within awakened. It moved to attack the fallen man, but the referee ruled it an automatic loss since Rishid could no longer continue. Thus, Dark Marik advanced as the second-round victor.
Dark Marik declared himself the true master of the Winged Dragon of Ra and vanished back inside the airship. Rishid was carried to a room where a doctor treated him; the process took several minutes.
Then came the third round. The pairing was Joey versus Seto Kaiba. The outcome was obvious… Kaiba’s victory. With overwhelming dominance, he struck Joey directly with Blue-Eyes White Dragon, ending the match in the third round.
Isono announced that the fourth round would begin after a short recess and instructed everyone to wait in their private quarters. Yugi’s group headed to Joey’s room to console him. After I offered my own words of comfort, I returned to my personal room.
“I never caught a glimpse of Ishizu… I really wanted to see her face in person.”
I sank into the sofa, daydreaming about Ishizu’s features. In Yu-Gi-Oh DM, the women—An Suzin, Mai Valentine, Joan, Rebecca Hopkins, Vivian Wong—had all been stunning beauties. I had even considered creating a separate ranking system just for the Yu-Gi-Oh wives…
Suddenly the door opened and a woman stepped inside.
“So it’s you… Beomseok…”
“Who are you?”
When the woman who entered called my name, I asked her identity. The room lights had been off, so I couldn’t make her out. The moment the lights flicked on, two women stood before me. One of them removed the veil that had hidden her face, and her features came into view.
“Ishizu?”
“As expected, you already know my name.”
The woman who had entered my room was Ishizu. I had no idea who the woman beside her was. Had someone like her even existed in Yu-Gi-Oh?
Ishizu began to speak.
“You are the one who will save my younger brother Marik…”
“Excuse me?”
I was dumbfounded. Out of nowhere, Ishizu was claiming I would be Marik’s savior.
She continued without pause.
“I have seen the future—the moment you duel Marik… the moment you awaken his true self and erase the darkness inside him…”
It seemed she had used the Millennium Necklace’s power to peer into the future before speaking to me.
“You… you know about the Millennium Items, don’t you? And… that you are not a person of this world…”
“If you’ve already seen the future, there’s no point hiding it. Yes, I came from another dimension. But you didn’t come here just to confirm that, did you?”
“Correct… If you save my brother Marik, I will give myself to you.”
Ishizu had glimpsed the future through her Millennium Necklace. In the original timeline she would duel Kaiba and win. Yet a drastically altered future had appeared—one in which she dueled me instead, suffered defeat, and was dragged into an unknown dimension. There she would become this man’s wife, serving him with sincere devotion for eternity, unable to resist.
Rather than become that man’s woman without any say in the matter, she chose to strike a deal: at least save her little brother, lighten the burden on her heart, and accept becoming his wife. But because the woman she had brought would be left behind, she had brought her along as well.
Ishizu laid out the terms of the transaction and the offered reward.
“If you save my brother, I will offer both myself and the woman I brought with me to you.”
She introduced the woman standing behind her. The woman stepped forward, removed her head covering and mask, and I froze in shock.
Sera? Why is Sera here?
It was unmistakably Sera from the Yu-Gi-Oh movie The Dark Side of Dimensions. She had lost her older brother in the war, been discovered by Ishizu, and come to regard her as an elder sister.
I stared, stunned. The character who had only appeared in the movie version of the manga was standing right in front of me… Sera looked at me with an expressionless face and offered a greeting.
“Hello, Mr. Beomseok. I heard about you from Ishizu.”
Standing beside Sera, Ishizu declared that if I saved her younger brother and helped Atem, both she and Sera would gladly become mine.
“If I accept this deal, Ishizu, Sera—will you two really not regret it?”
“Regret?” Ishizu’s voice was steady. “It is a future I must accept anyway… I have already steeled myself. If I can save my brother Marik and fulfill my destiny, I would even sell my soul to the devil.”
“Wherever Ishizu goes, I will follow,” Sera added quietly. “And if I must serve you alongside her, I will do so willingly.”
Both women insisted they would harbor no regrets. Since it was hardly a bad deal for me, I accepted Ishizu’s proposal.
Yet she immediately set conditions.
“However… there are conditions.”
“Conditions? What are they?”
Having accepted the deal, I dropped formal speech with her.
Ishizu stated her terms clearly.
“In our upcoming duel, fight me with everything you have. Only then can I believe in you…”
“And even if I lose, do not take me away immediately. I will follow after I witness my brother’s salvation…”
“If you defeat me, I will challenge you to a duel myself and surrender on the spot.”
Ishizu had set two conditions: first, that I reveal my true dueling ability against her; second, that I send her to the exclusive dimension only after she confirmed her brother’s rescue. Sera added that, should the deal be finalized, she would secretly challenge me to a duel and then forfeit.
I approved Ishizu’s terms. Together with her, I walked toward the hall to face the fourth round.