"And so, the winning team, who will be parading back to their dorms with this fabulous Golden Spatula – though they're quite welcome to stay and watch the other team's elimination if they wish – is..."
Otogi felt his hands tremble in anticipation as Pegasus put a thoughtful finger to his chin, cruelly prolonging the suspense as he delicately wove a quilt of tension out of the very air itself, spreading it wide enough to cover everyone present. And that was pretty much everyone aboard the ship not wearing a suit - the CEO had gathered all of the contestants in the kitchen around his handy dandy television screen, just as he had before the challenge had begun. It didn't exactly bother the raven-haired teen that Pegasus refused to see anyone in person - but he had to admit that, if he were anyone else, this behavior would likely come off as odd.
"Is..."
As the older man opened his mouth and closed again, his gaze flickering to the torn envelope, then to each contestant in turn, a strange mix of excitement and fear fell upon Otogi. Excitement, because he was positive that his team was the victor - and fear because he knew that Pegasus was unpredictable to say the least; so his group's winning was too obvious, too good to be true. After all, were he to be declared the winner, he would be victorious against none other than Seto Kaiba - not something to be taken lightly.
Seto Kaiba...
With that, a sudden thought crossed his mind that made his heartbeat speed up, his eyes darting around between his team mates for comfort, though none of them seemed very much at ease themselves. It was hard to relax with Jounouchi shifting his weight from one foot to the other constantly, Anzu biting her lip and looking down, and Honda and Shizuka exchanging whispers with each other while glancing briefly at Pegasus every now and again; and so Otogi's own tensions went left unchecked.
The question, he supposed, was this: Was the win too predictable? If it were, Pegasus would surely cause Team Kaiba to win, if only to buck the expectations of his audience - and besides, Team Kaiba was technically the better team, the team with the more skilled players. Perhaps they had not won together, but the raven-haired teen certainly wouldn't have wanted to face any of them individually.
You see, much as he hated to admit it, Otogi knew exactly who the major players were in this game - in any game, to be honest - and they were all on Team Kaiba. Of course, there was Seto Kaiba, the CEO of KaibaCorp, a legendary gamer, the one who started the whole Battle City tournament in the first place; none of them would even be on this blimp if it hadn't been for him. Then there was Yami Malik. He was the resident murderous psychopath and the holder of the Egyptian God card "The Winged Dragon of Ra", and while Otogi professed to be no expert on all the strange ancient Egyptian things that his friends told him about, he was pretty sure that an Egyptian God card meant that casting aside Yami Malik's psychopathic tendencies, he was still a very dangerous person. Last, but certainly not least, the team had Yugi - or rather, they had Yami Yugi, who seemed to be some sort of ancient Egyptian Pharaoh if the claims of his friends were to be believed. Otogi could be sure about that, but had to say himself that Yugi always did have a certain majestic air about him when he dueled.
And, perhaps most importantly, none of them had ever appeared to lose a game.
Taking this last fact into account, Otogi figured that he could be fairly certain that neither he nor his teammates were even on Pegasus's radar. It might have been his inner pessimist talking, but he couldn't help but think that this competition was created solely for the three elite gamers, in spite of any hopes Otogi held of merely existing in Pegasus's eyes. As far as Pegasus was concerned, Otogi and his friends were only there to fill in the missing spots in the competition; so they would automatically lose-
"Team Otogi!"
He almost didn't hear Pegasus when the latter announced the winners; and probably wouldn't have if it hadn't contained his own name. The sound of something familiar startled the raven-haired teen out of his worried thoughts, bringing him abruptly into a room with no clapping, no rejoice - just silence and a ridiculous amount of tension, courtesy of a fuming Seto Kaiba. At that, Otogi realized that he really needed to stop getting lost in thought every time Pegasus started talking, though he couldn't help the fact that the CEO's voice had a certain quality to it that made him want to zone out.
"Come and collect your super-special Golden Spatula, and proceed upstairs!"
The young man's eye twitched at the words "Golden" and "Spatula", but he sighed and cast a relieved look over his shoulder at his teammates. For the better or for the worse, they seemed to have the common sense not to question Pegasus's Golden Spatula; and so Otogi decided it was best to just go with the flow, gesturing to his teammates to follow him as he headed towards one of the bodyguards who were standing by the television. He was soon halted when the man held a hand up as if to say 'Wait''; and so he waited... waited... waited a bit longer... got bored... kept waiting-
THUNK!
At the sudden noise, the boy swiveled on his heel, to find himself staring at Yami Yugi. To his dismay, the Pharaoh now appeared to be pinned to the wall by several knives thanks to Yami Malik, who looked to be merely passing the time; his tosses were careless, the throws lazy. All the same, Otogi had to hand it to the insane teenager - his knives hit as close to Yugi's body as they could without puncturing the skin, which probably required either a lot of training or just a lot of idle knife throwing; the point was that he definitely had skill. The raven-haired teen almost wanted to help Yami Yugi out - but he wasn't quite certain that he fancied being on the business end of one of Yami Malik's knives; and he sure valued his life a lot more than he valued the other Yugi's life, so he opted to stay put.
Just as the team leader was about to open his mouth to ask about the holdup, the double doors at the end of the kitchen burst open and perhaps a dozen men in suits marched through, their legs moving at exactly the same pace.
Sheesh, how many of these guys does Pegasus have?
A man he vaguely recognized from his visits to Pegasus's castle stood in the center of the formation. Otogi had to swallow a snicker at the sight of him; for there he was, tall and muscular, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses - oh yeah, and daintily carrying an elegant, satin, red pillow. Placed upon it, like an exotic jewel from an Indiana Jones film, was the Golden Spatula, gleaming under the bright kitchen lights, casting an almost yellow glow upon the kitchen floors which had, in the time it had taken Pegasus to make his decision, somehow been cleaned to reflective perfection.
The raven haired teen found himself grinning widely as his valuable prize was brought to him, and turned around to give Honda a celebratory thumbs up as Jounouchi did when he'd won a duel - only to find the boy completely enthralled by the Golden Spatula. The brunette's face was a long way from its normal expression, with big brown eyes as wide as saucers, right hand slowly ascending to cover his open, gaping mouth. Otogi rolled his eyes at his friend, who was no doubt visualizing all the things he could buy if he sold that spatula: a bigger house, a nicer car, pretty golddigging girls - the raven-haired teen knew himself that, if that spatula really was pure gold, it would surely cost a fortune.
"Come here, Otogi!"
Pride swelled in the victor's chest as he glanced up at the scary man who had stopped him earlier, not moving until he had received a curt nod. He stepped towards the television screen, unable to hide the smile on his face, focused as he was on trying to block out the intense hatred emanating from Kaiba; a rage that rivaled even Yami Marik's usual anger. He wasn't quite sure who the CEO's fury was meant to be directed at, naturally - but chances were, Otogi was candidates one, two, and three.
"Ah, this Golden Spatula of mine..." Pegasus crooned dreamily, as though speaking about an old and tragic love affair, raising a few concerned eyebrows in the process; after all, he was into some pretty strange things. Luckily, the speaker managed to save Otogi from his wild imagination just before he could become scarred for life, by continuing on: "Would you like to know how I acquired such an exquisite piece of culinary history?"
It's not like we have a choice, Otogi thought bitterly, but that bitterness was neutralized by the high he had achieved earlier by rising to a celestial gaming status and being one of the few people who are able to say that they had defeated Seto Kaiba and Yugi Muto at the same time, not to mention being the only person ever to have defeated Kaiba, Yami Yugi, and Yami Marik all at once.A few idle words from Pegasus were not about to bring him down from that electric high.
Not that he was exactly saying a few words - no, the silver-haired man absolutely rambled on about his trip to ancient Egypt, though it wasn't very new information. A while ago, Honda had slipped his friend some information about Yugi's earlier exploits in Duelist Kingdom - there, Pegasus had told the crew the story of how he had received the Millennium Eye, which he always hid behind the cascading bangs over the left side of his face. Otogi wasn't sure if Pegasus still possessed that eye, but he figured that removing an eyeball from someone's eye socket wasn't a very pleasant thing, so it was very likely that he hadn't removed it yet.
For a few minutes, the raven haired teen found himself tuning back into the speech, just to check and see if there was anything interesting being said amidst Pegasus's prattle:
"I was actually on my second expedition to Egypt - a lovely place, I must say - when I came across a peculiar man. Incidentally, this man saved my life on several occasions - some of you may have seen his image framed on the walls in the very halls you walked during your time in Duelist Kingdom." The silver - haired man here sent a meaningful glance at Yugi and Anzu, the former now jacketless due to it being still pinned to the wall, and the latter having taken this chance to stand beside her friend once again, much to the chagrin of the resident censor and hostess.
"What does this have to do with anything?" Jounouchi asked, clearly getting impatient with the older man. "Can we go now?" He thrust his thumb behind him blindly in the direction of where the door would be, and as Otogi glanced back at him, he didn't have the heart to tell him that his aim was slightly off.
"Oh, patience, Joey-boy!" Pegasus snapped at the blond, as though he were scolding a dog that was misbehaving. Jounouchi must have caught wind of that tone, because his eyebrows twitched, and he immediately averted his gaze from the television screen, deciding that the provocative Toon Gemini Elves on the wall nearest him were much kinder than the man he was supposed to be listening to. The man in question paid the boy no mind, as he continued his dull tale about some Egyptian guy named Shadi, and how he was somehow relevant in this cooking competition.
As the older man droned on and on, Otogi sensed the familiar warmness of Honda stepping beside him, the coarse sleeve of the boy's coat rubbing against his bare arm, something which certainly served to irritate the gamer. He stepped to the side, maintaining a fair, non-intimate distance between him and his friend, before attempting to toss over a derogatory comment involving Pegasus's hair and L'Oreal as way of apology. However, his words somehow managed to go unheard, seeming to pass straight through Honda's right ear and emerge from his left. To be honest, it genuinely concerned the raven-haired teen that his friend's first response to a L'Oreal comment wasn't "Because he's worth it!", uttered in that perfectly feminine voice which Honda had an uncanny ability of faking.
Worried a little now, Otogi found himself studying the brunette for any other strange behaviours - not that he had to really look. Honda was definitely in a very odd state at this point; for starters, he was concentrating, his body stiff, leaning slightly forwards. His senses were also focused straight ahead - his eyes absolutely plastered to the television screen in front of the two of them, his ears drinking in every word Pegasus spoke; making the raven haired teen think that perhaps his words hadn't gone in one ear and out the other, but they had rather bounced against Honda's right ear and flung themselves back at Otogi's face like a rogue rubber band. And man did that sting, because it effectively meant that the young man's friend would rather listen to Mr. Campy over there, as opposed to indulging Otogi and responding to his tragically lame shampoo joke. And yes, the joke was lame - but if Honda wasn't there to make Otogi think he was actually funny, what good was he as a sidekick - heck, what good was he as a friend?
"Are you actually interested in all that ancient Egypt crap?" Otogi whispered that the boy beside him, just to confirm that the boy was in fact interested in Pegasus, and glancing around at the rest of his team to make sure that the only attentive teammate was in fact Honda.
"Uh, Otogi, pal? Do you mind? This stuff kinda sounds important." The statement was so shockingly dismissive that it almost shook Otogi to his core quite literally; as he stared incredulously at Honda, his mind worked overtime, trying desperately to fathom the fact that his friend, Hiroto Honda, was more interested in what a madman, who likely still religiously watched the Sunday morning cartoons every week, had to say about a freaking spatula, than in the Ryuuji Otogi and the joke that he had worked very hard on, even if it was a bit lame.
In spite of everything inside of him begging him to tune Pegasus out, the raven haired teen decided to pay a tiny bit more attention to what the man was saying, if only to see what exactly Honda was so interested in. He didn't expect much, and he didn't exactly get more than he expected.
"You see, this Shadi took me down to an old familiar tomb, and I must confess I was a fair deal intimidated as it was in that very tomb that one of the most life-changing experiences in my life had happened. I'm sure I don't need to tell you what that was."
The Millennium Eye, probably.
"That very tomb was the subject of many of my most terrifying nightmares, but it was also where I picked up this little trinket!" His eye wandered over to the man standing beside him, or rather the spatula resting upon the small pillow in his henchman's hands. "Trust me, there is more to this spatula than meets the eye!"
I doubt it... the raven-haired teen thought, struggling valiantly against the powerful urge he had to make a hideous face at the man who had dared to snatch his friend's attention away; such a move would probably do more to entertain him than to irk him, he reasoned with himself.
"Use it well, Otogi!" Pegasus added at the end of his speech, giving the boy a mysterious smile, his single visible eye twinkling in the light of whatever room he was sitting in. "It might just be the very key to your victory in this..." The madman rolled his eyes over to the seething Seto Kaiba, standing rigidly at the center of the room. "...stiff competition." After a small pause to make sure that Kaiba wasn't about to go red in the face at Pegasus's sheer audacity, he spoke his final piece of advice to the winning team. "This spatula may also be the very key to your downfall as well. One must only know howto use it!" Otogi wasn't absolutely certain if it was his imagination or not, but he could have sworn that the usually cheerful face turned a shade darker as he spoke his last words - but the change was so quick and before he could have the time to ponder upon this strange expression, Pegasus's men were thrusting the spatula into the teen's unprepared hands.
"U-um... thanks," he said shakily, after attaining an adequately firm grip on the golden utensil. It was smooth to the touch, a bit heavier than he had anticipated, but upon closer inspection, there didn't seem to be anything too special about it - it was just your garden variety spatula.
"Congratulation, round one winners!" Pegasus chimed, and Otogi found himself beginning to realize just how much that voice grated on his nerves. The younger boy rubbed his temples with the hand that wasn't clutching the Golden Spatula and tried to look at the television screen with a straight face. "You can now go back to your chambers for some well deserved rest!"
Finally!
"Please show them out, Kemo."
END
(Golden spatulas are serious business)
Yes, another Saturday... and another chapter ;D
How do you put Shadi in a cooking fic?
This is how.
Also, go forth and read Spooner's half!
I shouldn't even have to tell you.
