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No matter what, a Millennium Item always breaks your soul.
Yugi had been tasked with housing the spirit of the Pharaoh and Bakura had had his body and life stolen by the dark spirit.
But even the holders of the Millennium items who were spared from that had their minds change.
In fact maybe the fact those two spirits had made their home in their souls masked the way that power always changed you.
Ishizu closed her eyes in the darkness of her bedroom. She was awake now, trying to remember the dream she had woken up from. It had been incoherent, more feelings than distinct scenes. She couldn't in clear conscience call it a nightmare. A clear memory of the feeling she had once known well echoed in her mind. The feeling she missed in these small hours in the morning when sleep eluded her. She breathed in, slowly and deliberately. She thought back to the moment when she had first touched the Millennium Tauk. The gold had felt so alive on her fingers and when she had first reached into it to see the future-
Something had changed.
She had changed.
Perhaps it was that a human soul couldn't handle the power to see the future without adjusting. Or maybe the item had simply molded her soul to its own ends. There had always been a will in the items. An instinct to be reunited... The Millennium Items had never been made for humans. They had their own goals and would simply use the mortals that were so certain they could gain power though them.
Or who were desperate...
It was painful, but Ishizu thought of her brother. For him it had been worse than for others. She blamed the rod that had carved away at his mind until there had been a hole that had to be filled with something.
And the man who had held the Millennium eye... Had he not felt unfinished and incomplete as a human after the eye gave him a taste of what he could gain? Ishizu could imagine what it had been like. Having that eye be a part of you. For years be guided by its visions.
Every single one of the people holding the Millennium Items had come out of the experience a bit less human.
How did you even go back to being so much less when you had had a taste of power like that?
Ishizu could feel her breath catch in her throat and tried to remain silent to avoid waking up the figure sleeping soundly next to her.
Fight against the fear seeping into her mind as the space in her soul that had once been filled with visions of future now overflowed with fearful scenarios of everything that could go wrong.
She would wake up to the phone ringing, someone calling to tell him Malik had been taken to a hospital-
She would hear the doorbell ring, open the door and be faced with the boy Yugi, crying, saying it wasn't over and things had gone horribly wrong-
The person next to her would come to her senses and leave-
Hungry for certainty Ishizu instinctively brought her hand to her throat, fingers grasping for what had once been wrapped around her neck-
If she could only be certain again.
Mai stirred. "Ishizu?"
Ishizu struggled to keep her voice neutral. "Yes?"
"You're awake."
"Sorry. I tried not to wake you up. I was thinking."
She could hear Mai turning next to her on the bed. A hand brushed against Ishizu's arm.
"How are you?"
Ishizu turned to face her. "It is not bad tonight."
She smiled as Mai reached to kiss her forehead.
"Tomorrow- Or today, after you get back from work, we can go out to eat. Or we can stay at home and cook. Or maybe order pizza," Mai told her.
Ishizu's mind focused on these possibilities. She considered each possible timeline. One where they'd go to that nice little restaurant Rishid had found and recommended them. One where they'd cook... pasta maybe. One where she'd curl up next to her girlfriend as they watched some cheesy movie on TV while eating pizza straight out of a box.
Each a possible timeline unexplored. She let those ideas and expectations fill up that part of her mind that was hungrily reaching out to the Millennium Tauk for its visions.
"I can wear my purple skirt," Mai continued. "The old one. I think I should throw it away though so maybe I'll change my mind just before and try that nice little black dress out. I will try it on and ask you if it's too fancy for the restaurant. Or we'll stay in and I slip into my pyjamas as soon as I get home and have a shower."
"Those all sound like likely scenarios."
Possibilities. Uncertain, but-
Ishizu pulled Mai into a kiss. She was right there and real. Ishizu breathed in her scent and reached a hand to brush her hair as she deepened the kiss.
Her visions had given her nothing but despair disguised as tranquility. She had seen her end and been painfully aware of every step ahead of her, leading to her destiny.
Death at the hands of her brother.
She had broken away as Kaiba had shown her destiny was not absolute.
But it had been the woman now smiling against Ishizu's lips who had helped her forge her own future. One step at a time. Realize the things she could have, the new paths she could explore. Ishizu had made mistakes, she was uncertain of so many things, afraid of so much. She wasn't certain what would happen but she could plan for future, work for what she wanted it to be.
And in every possible future she could think of Mai was right there next to her.