"Yugi… Yugi…"

The boy arose from his comfortable bed. He had thought that the voice calling out to him was his darker self, but alas, it was his grandfather.

"It's about time, sleepy head!" His grandfather nagged.

"Mmmnn." Yugi groaned, sliding his legs off his bed. "What time is it?"

"About a quarter after ten. I know it's summer vacation and all but I won't let you sleep in this late."

"WHAT!?" Yugi jumped out of his bed and quickly started unchanging out of everything but his boxers. "I thought I told you to wake me up at nine, Grandpa!"

"Well I'm an old man, how can I resist remembering?" his grandfather giggled. "What's the big occasion, anyways?"

Yugi had already dressed and grabbed his puzzle by the time his grandfather had finished asking that question. "No time!" he yelled hastily, pacing out of his bedroom door.

"Gr, I'm gonna be late!" Yugi thought to himself.

"What's the rush, Yugi. What's going on?" a voice in his head replied. The voice seemed much deeper than his. More dark and mysterious. But the boy seemed too much in a hurry to reply to his darker self who lurked inside of him.

Yugi continued towards a large crowd in front of the town square. In the middle of the square was a tall man with black hair that went down to his shoulders. His brows were light and curved. He was wearing a white shoulder-bladed jacket with a red tank top underneath. His jeans were leather like Yugi's. He was holding a microphone. He looked as though he was preparing to give a speech.

Yugi quickly crawled his way through the crowd. Because of his height no one really seemed to mind. As a matter of fact it seemed as though everyone thought he was a small child who just wanted to see.

"Welcome, everyone!" The man started into the microphone. His voice was booming and he had an accent to it. Once he started talking, Yugi made his way to the front.

"Today we begin the Duelist Destiny Duel Monsters challenge!" The man said. "My name is Yori and I will be this tournament's host." Yugi already looked pumped.

"If you're standing here you are automatically qualified to join!" The crowd cheered of joy, then dispersed a few minutes later.

"There is only one rule: play fairly. No cheating." The crowd talked among itself of the first rule. Yugi found it quite obvious not to cheat, so he simply waited for the man to continue.

"When you join at the front desk at the recreation center," he continued. "You will be given a brand new Duel Disk, built by Kaiba Corp…" the thought of that company name gave Yugi good and bad memories. "…and you will be given a die." He held up a pair of dice in his fingers. "These will be like your 'star chips' from the Duelist Kingdom or your 'locator cards' from the Battle City Tournament. These are what keep you in the game."

"Another tournament, Yugi?" The darker half asked.

Yugi pulled out his deck from his pocket. "Yeah.." He murmured quietly. "I have a feeling that there are still unclear things about your past." The look on his darker half's face told Yugi that he couldn't deny what was just said.

The crowd was already starting to move towards the recreation center. Some people running. Yugi started his way through the crowd when a familiar voice called him: "Hey, Yug!"

He turned to see his friend Joey running through the crowd behind him, Tristan and Teà following him.

"Hey, Yug! Are you joining the tournament too?" Joey asked once he finally caught up to the boy.

"Yeah," Yugi replied. "Me and the Pharaoh thought it'd be a good chance to discover more about his past."

"Because it seems that playing card games does that now a days, eh?" Teà joked.

"Well I'm joinin' this tournament, too!" Joey exclaimed. "It'll give me something to do during my summer vacation."

"I heard a lot of other people were joining this tournament. There's Duke Devlin, Mai, Rex and Weevil, and a lot of other people too."

"Well we've beaten all of them before. We'll need to do it again to get to the top." Yugi glared down at his millenium puzzle that dangled from his neck, grinning. "If there's nothing in this tournament that helps the Pharaoh, I'll just be glad I joined for fun."

"Nyeh?" Joey turned his head from side to side. "Hey, Yug. Not for nothing, but weren't we supposed to be headed towards the recreation center?" Yugi looked around as well. There was no one around. The entire crowd was already at the recreation center.

"Crap!" Yugi exclaimed, starting to run. "We'd better go!" His loyal friends followed him.