Ishizu plays Kelbek

If one is going to stall and build their hand, one could do a lot worse than using a monster like Kelbek to do it. Kelbek's effect would send Blue-Eyes back to Kaiba's hand when he attacked... Unless he had another quick summoning method, he wouldn't be able to get it back on the field for a while. This was her best method of buying time while she tried to come up with a way to circumvent the future her necklace predicted.

With her monster face-down, Ishizu placed a face-down card in her spell/trap zone and ended the turn. "Hmph. Awfully quiet, Ishizu. If you've already seen you'll lose, save us both some time and surrender now," Kaiba goaded her, while drawing his next card. He set a face-down, then smirked. "You're no great duelist, but you're smart enough to know that my Blue-Eyes White Dragon was summoned without the use of tributes. If you've placed Blast Held by a Tribute, it's not going to work this time." Closing his eyes for a moment, he continued smiling and narrating his plan for this turn, a move that might have made you think he was playing to some audience Ishizu couldn't see. "Whatever you've placed, let's see it stop this!"

Kaiba had never been one to stop at "good enough;" the Blue-Eyes White Dragon was the definition of overkill. What could be worse? "Next, I play Lord of D., followed by Flute of Summoning Dragon! With this card, I can special summon two more Blue-Eyes White Dragons from my hand!" he announced with a smugness in his voice, smiling from ear-to-ear. Whatever trap Ishizu had set, it wouldn't be sufficient to stop this onslaught. Suddenly, the arena was filled with dragons...

But the dragons weren't the part that was bothering Ishizu. After all, she had placed Drowning Mirror ****, a card that would take care of all of the dragons as well as the Lord of D. when they attacked. It was that flute...

Her eyelids lowered ever so slightly... was she getting sleepy? She did recall being sleepy before she'd woken up in this land of illusion, but was it possible to become sleepy during such a critical moment in any duel? She was just aware enough to know that this must be some sort of sorcery. But why would Kaiba have access to it and, for that matter, why would he resort to using it? These questions continued in her mind, overshadowing the most important question: why was she slowly unclasping the back of the Egyptian dress she wore? With slow, deliberate moments, she did so, then gently lifted the necklace and related jewelry from her collar, squatting to place it up on the floor in front of herself. "Wait..." she murmured with a hazy consciousness, her eyelashes fluttering up and down as she tried to fight off the soporific effect.

Finally, she managed to recover herself. When she looked at the field, she noticed that her Kelbek had indeed been destroyed, while the rest of the field had been wiped. She must have activated her trap after all. Kaiba looked frustrated, but his eyes only seemed to be on the field, not on her. "Seto Kaiba, we must work together. Try to recall what brought us here..." she requested, with growing urgency in her voice.

"Who cares who brought us here? Is this your way of taking a victory lap? If this is going to be about ancient magic again, you may as well quit right now," the young man growled, looking fiercely agitated. His fists were trembling with rage at his sides.

"I see... Only by defeating you in this duel will I have your attention. Very well," Ishizu resolved herself. In a few short moments, she'd thrown two more fairy monsters into the graveyard, then played Mudora in face-up attack position. "Mudora becomes more powerful with every fairy monster in the graveyard. With the souls we've sent there, his attack is 2100; more than enough to handle Vorse Raider, if that is the next move you're considering. Now, I direct attack!"

Kaiba took the attack, flinching only slightly to turn his head, but it looked like that was more due to rage than fear. "Oh look, you have some monsters that can attack this time. I hope you appreciated that opening, because it's the last one you're going to get," Kaiba announced, as he drew another card. He smirked; something in his hand agreed with him.