Chapter 56: Game Day

Chaos.

Rose had no other word to explain what she was experiencing. An incredible force was weighing against her, as she struggled to stay on her feet. Gusts of wind blew around her as she fought back, and her ears filled with the sound of screams and roaring laughter. Where was she? What was she doing? Rose had no idea. All she knew was that she couldn't give up. She had to keep fighting, she had to protect-

"Rose!"

She knew that voice, so familiar, and yet no face was put to the baritone that rang around her. Her sight was practically useless as all she was aware of was darkness, a thick cloud of something unknown surrounding her. The pressure of the unknown source began to grow stronger, and Rose let out a yelp as she tried to fight back, but she felt weak, and her grip was slipping. There was a voice behind her, but their words dissolved into the roar of wind and chaos around them. The force pressing against her became unbearable, and Rose could feel her limbs wanting to give in, the pressure of it all became painful to the point where Rose didn't know how she was still standing. She just knew that this was her duty, and if her fate were decided here, so be it. She let out a cry as the force began to overcome her, and she was only barely aware of hands grasping her waist-

Rose lurched into a sitting position, gasping for air that she was sure she had been deprived of. Her bedroom looked the same as it always had, dark and quiet. She absently grasped her chest as she tried to calm herself down. She hadn't had that nightmare in a week or so, and it seemed every time it did seep into her dreams, she remembered more and more of it when she woke. She knew she was protecting something, she just didn't know what, or why.

A movement from the corner of her eye caught Rose's attention, and she turned to see a familiar spirit standing silently by the door. She let out a breath of air, "Pharaoh."

His features were soft as he walked into the room, "I could sense your distress," he murmured. Rose leaned back against her bed frame, grateful for the company after such an unsettling dream. "It was that nightmare again, wasn't it?"

She nodded, pulling her knees up to her chest. "I could hear a voice this time," she recalled. "Or, I remember one now."

The Pharaoh looked deep in thought as he moved over to Rose's bed, seating himself on the edge, though the bed did not sink down as if anyone had sat there. "The person you're protecting, perhaps?"

Rose shook her head, "I don't know. There were lots of voices, really. Lots of yelling and screaming...and laughter." She blinked a few times before waving a dismissive hand towards the spirit, "Don't worry, it's all the same. Sorry for disturbing you."

Yami had no inclination to leave as Rose had hinted, and he gave her a soft smile. Every time she had been haunted by that dream, it seemed that the Pharaoh always became aware of it. He wasn't sure how, but there would be something, a bump of the wall, a murmur, or even a feeling of unease in his gut. It was strange, he thought, that he always knew when Rose was getting this nightmare, but every time he would be there when she woke, to offer company and someone to talk to. Rose very much appreciated this, though the Pharaoh had nothing else to do while Yugi slept. He had an inkling that his awareness to Rose's nightmare had something to do with their millennium items, for it seemed the heart and the puzzle were connected somehow, but he could never be sure.

"Soon you won't have to worry about any of it," he replied. "Once Kaiba's tournament is through, we'll go to Egypt and settle this once and for all." He almost absently reached a hand out to pat her arm reassuringly, but he simply passed straight through her, as always. A slight frown sat on his face as he drew back, finding his current circumstances quite irritating, though not for the first time.

Rose didn't miss the prickling sensation that ran through her arm where the spirit had met her skin, but she smiled in return, "And we'll find your name," she said. "Despite the fact that Pharaoh is your title, it would be nice to have something better to call you."

He chuckled, "Indeed." He let his eyes wander as her sentence sank in. His single word reply didn't quite hint at how much he yearned to know more about himself, his past. Even the girl in front of him plagued his thoughts when considering such things. If only he knew...

Realising he had been biting the inside of his cheek again, the Pharaoh turned back to her, a sentence on the edge of his lips. "Rose..." She had been glancing at the clock on her bedside table, and the girl in question looked up upon hearing her name. After a moment of silent second thoughts, the Pharaoh simply sighed and shook his head. "Never mind, I'll let you sleep." He cast his eyes to the floor for a moment, as he stood once more.

Rose noticed the odd behaviour, but simply waved it off, "Thank you. For the company."

The Pharaoh looked back at her, as a smile adorned his features. "That's alright. I'll see you in the morning." Rose both loved and hated how much that smile put her at ease.

Despite that fact though, she was tired, and she needed rest, so she simply nodded and returned the smile, "Goodnight Pharaoh."

He had turned towards the door, but the spirit paused, looking back over his shoulder. "Goodnight Rose."

...

Rose's alarm clock hadn't even sounded when she received a rude awakening the next morning. The noise blaring from her phone was enough of a fright to send her sprawling onto the floor in a mess of sheets and curses. Yugi was alerted to the commotion when he heard a thump from upstairs, as he sat at the kitchen counter, a cereal bowl sitting in front of him. Curious eyes cast over to the stairs, as he heard another thump and some muffled words. He was considering going up to see if his housemate was alright, but after a few minutes of sitting there in confusion, the girl in question came blundering down the stairs, her phone wedged between her shoulder and ear as she attempted to throw her hair up in a pony tail. Yugi raised his eyebrows as a rushed Rose moved into the kitchen, still listening to whoever was on the other end of the phone, and began rummaging through the pantry.

"Okay, hold on a second," she interrupted the person, "Why on earth would someone attempt to hack the system and give up half way through? I mean, I know KC has brilliant security, but what you've just described doesn't make any sense."

Yugi continued munching on his cereal as he watched the scene before him curiously. Rose had her back to him as she eyed off the contents of their pantry. "Okay, so they got that far, but didn't actually try to change anything? Who's the one looking into it?" Rose seemed to have spied a box of muesli bars at the back of the pantry, and proceeded to shove her hand into the box as she continued. "Well why the hell hasn't he shown up?" A pause, as she triumphantly grabbed what she was after, then, "Alright, I'll be there soon, I'll sort it out..." Rose finally closed the pantry door as she fiddled with the wrapper of the bar, and she turned around, having only just noticed Yugi sitting at the counter. She gave him a smile and a wave, which he returned, before she spoke into the phone again, "Don't give me that, Seto, we have plenty of time..." A loud retort sounded from the other end, before Rose replied, "Yes that was a backchat, and yes you can deal with it. I'll be there in ten." With a loud sigh, she hung up the phone and threw it onto the bench, before going in search for her shoes which she had discarded by the couch yesterday, as she shoved half of the muesli bar in her mouth.

Finishing his cereal, Yugi turned to her with curious eyes, "Everything alright?"

Rose gave him a half hearted smile, before replying as she munched on her breakfast, "Yeah, all good. Someone just tried to hack the KC system but their pathway is quite odd, probably just some tech kid who thinks he can pull a prank." With a shrug, she swiped her phone back off of the kitchen bench and headed for the door, shoving the rest of the bar in her mouth. Her sentence came out a little muffled, though Yugi still understood what she said next, "Anyway I gotta get going, but I'll see you this afternoon when the tournament starts."

A perplexed look crossed Yugi's face, "Wait, didn't you say Kaiba only needed you until ten? The tournament starts at one."

A slightly guilt look crossed Rose's features as the thought occurred to her that she hadn't filled Yugi in on her plans for the day. She swallowed the rest of her food, before replying. "Right, yeah I'm meeting Brad for coffee after work, he wanted an interview but didn't get a chance last night." A slight shrug, as she picked up her helmet from the coffee table, "But I gotta fly, see ya this arvo!"

Yugi was left blinking at the side door as it swung shut behind her, and the spirit who appeared beside him seemed to sport an equally perplexed look. "Brad?" Yugi asked, searching his memory for who the name belonged to.

It was the Pharaoh who remembered first, clicking his fingers as he turned to the boy, "The journalist," he said. "The one who knew Rose in Australia."

Realisation dawned on the boy's face, before it was turned to one of uncertainty. He turned back to the door which Rose had just exited through, as the roar of her motorcycle faded into the distance. "I don't know if it's just me, but I'm not all that fussed about this Brad guy," he said, carefully folding his arms.

The Pharaoh nodded as he stood beside the boy, recalling his first encounter with the male, and the flare of jealousy that had regrettably sparked within him. He knew it was silly, but even when ruling out his personal opinion, he was a little iffy about the guy also. He sighed, deciding he was probably being unreasonable. If Rose was fond of him, then he must be alright. Perhaps the guy was simply curious of how Rose came to be alive after the whole cruise ship incident. He shook his head, before turning to the boy once more. "It's not just you, it's both of us."

...

With a heavy sigh, Rose plopped down onto her office chair, taking a moment to massage her temples. It had been a pretty hectic morning what with the Grand Championship starting that afternoon, and it would have all been bearable had everyone shown up for their shifts this morning. Rose had already doubled the workload of those directly beneath her to make up for the absences, while hers was still tripled, and it wasn't even nine a.m. yet. Just as she moved to sort out the last of the logistics for the start of the tournament, a familiar voice spoke to her through the speaker phone on her desk.

"Rose," Seto caught her attention, as she moved her eyes over to the phone. "Come in here, you may want to see this."

With a confused raise of the eyebrows, Rose stood from her chair, and trudged into Seto's office, where he was lounged in front of his laptop. Mokuba was peering over his brother's shoulder curiously, and he gave the girl a bright smile as she entered. "Hey Rose!"

"Morning Mokie," she teased as she rounded the desk, noticing the scowl that covered the boy's face at the un-favoured nickname. The only person who had ever called him that was sitting right next to him, and though the man probably wouldn't utter it nowadays, the boy still preferred it coming from him.

Seto ignored their antics as he leaned forwards in his chair, showing Rose part of the KC database. "Have a look at this," he began. "The hacker only got through the low-level security, and then suddenly pulled out. There's no reason why they wouldn't have tried to keep going, or even try to change something from here. Unless..." The man's forehead creased in thought, as Rose answered for him.

"Unless it was a test of what the system's security was like," she said. "We could be expecting them to try again soon."

Seto folded his arms, "Roland has already got the IT department set on doubling the system security. I can't have anything ruining my tournament."

Rose stood up straight once more, "And nothing will ruin the tournament," she said with confidence, before adding, "Apart from me losing perhaps."

Seto made a 'tch' sound, as he continued to stare at his laptop, before replying in a monotone voice, "I'm sure it'll be the end of the world."

A couple of hours later and Rose found herself finally relaxing with a cup of coffee, while sitting outside one of the cafes within Kaiba Land. The park had been opened earlier that morning for VIP guests to explore and try out the rides, and she had no doubt that Joey was probably hurling into a trash can after eating too many hot dogs before going on a roller coaster. The thought made her chuckle, as she placed her cup down once more, wondering how many more people would fill this very square once the gates were open to the public this afternoon. A noise from in front of her then brought the girl out of her daze, and she looked up once more to see Brad giving her a questioning look. Startled, Rose realised he had just asked her something, and she had completely missed it.

She cleared her throat, "Sorry, what was that?"

He moved the voice recorder into his other hand impatiently, before speaking again, "I asked you to explain what you remember from the night the ship went down."

"Oh, of course," She replied, trying to think of how to explain it all while leaving out a few things. "Well, basically by the time I woke up and discovered what was happening, all of the life boats had gone, and the ship was sinking. I remember running out onto the deck and being cornered on the end that was sinking, and grabbing one of the floating rings. Next thing I know, I'm in the water trying to stay afloat as the ship went down."

Brad took another sip of his coffee before he added, "I bet that would have been pretty scary."

"Terrifying," Rose confirmed. "At some point I blacked out, whether from exhaustion or swallowing too much water I'm not sure, but when I woke up..." A few different phrases ran through her head, before she decided on being as vague as possible. "I was with the finalists of the Battle City tournament."

Brad looked mildly surprised, "Would you say they saved you from the rough seas?"

Rose looked baffled at the odd statement, before stammering out, "Well, uh, I guess."

"Does this mean that you basically got a backstage pass to the Battle City finals?" Brad asked.

Rose nodded, "Yeah, I got to stay with them all in the blimp and watch the duels first hand." She tried to sound positive about the statement as she said it, but it didn't stop the bad memories from the finals creeping into the front of her mind. Joey losing consciousness during his duel, the night where Marik had taken control of her and almost sent her over the edge of the tower, duelling the madman in a cloud of shadows surrounded by her nightmares, watching Yugi slowly disappear into the shadow realm bit by bit while the Pharaoh faced off against Marik.

Although there were a lot of unsettling memories, there were also good ones, too. It was at those finals that Rose discovered she was stronger than she thought, that she had made some great friendships, and it was also where the Millennium Heart had materialised, right when she needed it the most.

"So what are you doing nowadays? How did you get from being a survivor of a sinking cruise ship to entering the Grand Championship?"

Rose stared down at her coffee cup as she replied, "Well, luckily Yugi offered me a place to stay, and I sort of tagged along with the gang I met at the finals for a while, until Seto offered me a job working for him. Then it just so happened that one of the participants pulled out, and we needed another person, so after a trial duel, I was put in their place."

Brad was staring at her with his mouth gaping open, and she blinked at him. "Yugi," he repeated, "As in Yugi Mutou, the King of Games? You're living with the King of Games?"

Rose nodded hesitantly, which caused Brad to dive into various other questions about her relationship with Yugi, and Seto, and all of the well known people she hung around with on a daily basis, and how she landed a job at Kaiba Corp so easily. Honestly, after all the chaos of the past year, she had pretty much forgotten how well known they all were.

And it seemed that now she would be too.