Bright and early the next morning, after Inari and Serenity had made a coffee-run for the others (they were the only two awake enough for it), the gang arrived back in the convention halls to see that only about half of the contestants were left from yesterday. People were already on the arenas, eager to collect their rose coins and move on. One arena actually had a small crowd around it, and Inari could see a familiar, blonde head. Sipping her go-cup of coffee, she led the group over to where Mai was dueling. It was already almost over, and Mai had her Pet Dragon out on the field, facing a monster-less opponent's Deck Leader, a Dark Witch, directly.

"Get 'er, Mai!" Joey yelled. "Finish it!"

Mai looked down, surprised, but she smiled. "What does it look like I'm doing, Joey? Alright, my Dragon, you heard him. Attack!"

The feathered monster let out a high roar that was tinged with the cry of an eagle, and blew the witch away with its fiery breath. Mai and her friends let out a cheer, the former unable to help but perform a small victory dance. She was gracious enough to recompose herself, though, when she and her opponent took to the floor.

"Here you go," the opponent, a young, bespectacled woman said, "My last rose coin."

"Making it my sixth." Mai snapped it into her compact and held out her hand. "That was a good duel, though, kid."

"Thank you." The girl shook it with an apologetic, nervous smile. "Y'know, I'm just glad I got to duel you. That was fun. I remember watching your matches in Battle City."

"Well, next time I'm in your neck of the woods, I'll look you up for another game," Mai offered playfully. Once the two said goodbye, she went to Yugi and the gang.

"Wow, Mai!" Yugi was grinning. "Looks like you get to go to the semifinals!"

"Of course, what made you think I wouldn't?" Mai scoffed, albeit with a little smile of her own. "You'd all better hurry up, though, and get to winning. Otherwise the other spots are going to be taken."

"Ah, don't worry," he replied, "We'll manage. Inari and I are only one coin away, ourselves."

The violet eyes landed on Inari. "I'm impressed. You're an unknown duelist and you've already made it this far. It's not unheard of, but it's not expected for your first tournament."

"Thanks."

The crowd who'd been watching Mai was dispersing, pressing in on the gang. One of them bumped into Inari, who lost her balance and fell directly into Tristan with a squeal, dropping her purse and compact in the process.

"Hey, buddy!" Tristan reprimanded, propping her back up. "Watch where you're going!"

"So sorry." Inari turned to see a man, probably in his mid-thirties, of average build with dark eyes and hair, a heavy leather jacket about him, holding her things out to her with a smile. He chuckled, embarrassed, as the case snapped closed in his hand, which was covered in a tight-fitting, leather glove. "I need to learn to watch where I put my big feet."

"It's nothing," she dismissed, slinging the purse over her shoulder. "I'm just as clumsy, I understand." He left, and Inari opened up the compact, just to make sure everything was still in there. She groaned. "Great."

"What's up?" Téa asked, watching her start to scan the floor.

"One of my coins is missing." They all looked over her shoulder, and there was a blank slot where one of her original coins had once sat.

"How?" Yugi asked, concerned.

Inari crouched down, searching the area where it had landed on the ground. "The case must have opened up when I dropped it," she put in, sounding exasperated. "It's got to be around here, somewhere…"

All of them looked with her, and it didn't turn up. She felt the panic starting to rise inside, her breath catching in her throat. How in the world did she lose it? It was shiny and gold, not exactly something that blended in with the floor. Joey and Tristan straightened up, exchanging a suspicious glance.

"You thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?" Joey asked. Tristan nodded, and they both ran off.

"Where are you two going?" Yugi called after them.

"To find that guy!"

Téa murmured, "You don't think…"

"I wouldn't put it past anyone here," Mai answered, crossing her arms over her chest.

Inari was the first to sprint after the boys, followed closely by the others, but she didn't care. She was only one coin away from placing in the semifinals. Just one. And that's all she could focus on.

They watched as the man pulled up the hood on his jacket and left the convention hall, heading out towards the greater hotel. He rooted around for something in his pocket, and had what looked like a small hand mirror in his grasp, when Joey and Tristan grabbed him.

"Hey!" he grunted indignantly, "What's the big-?"

"Can it," Tristan growled, and they dragged him off into the hall that led to the bathrooms, where Yugi had first overheard him. Inari and the others caught up just as the guys had pinned him up against a wall. "We know you took something from her, so give it back!"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Just give back my coin," Inari asked. While Tristan and Joey had the guy surrounded, standing on either side of him, she filled in the window they made. She forced him to make eye-contact. "I haven't seen you duel at all, even though there's a deck on your belt. If you're not competing, then why are you here?"

"I like spectacting—ack!" Joey whacked him on the head.

"Cough up the coin," he snapped, "Or we'll make ya."

"I can't do that!" the man burst out. "I need it!"

"For what?!"

He sighed and hung his head, and Tristand and Joey backed off a little. "I can't tell you that. I can give it back to you tomorrow, but not before."

"But I need it today!" Inari cried in desperation. "If I don't have six—"

"I'll let you duel me for it, if it'll get you off my back," he cut in. Immediately, he looked frustrated with himself and groaned softly, "She's gonna kill me…"

"Who's 'she?'" Yugi asked, but Inari interrupted him with, "I'll do it. I win, I get my coin back."

"And I keep it if you don't." The man held out his hand tentatively, and Inari shook it.

"Are you sure?" Yugi asked uncertainly.

Tristan added, "We could still beat 'im up for it."

"That's my coin and I worked hard to win it," she replied harshly, still glowering at her new opponent. "I'll be damned if I let a petty thief take it."

They took him to the emptiest hall, where Tristan and Joey escorted him to the closest arena and forced him to get in. As the gate closed behind her on Inari's side, she called out, "What's your name?"

He set his mouth in a frown, grudgingly shuffling his deck of cards. "Scott. Scott Seward."

"Well, Scott," Inari started, spitting out his name like she couldn't even fathom it was a name, "Let's make this quick. I choose the Illusory Gentleman as my deck leader!"

"Er…" Scott quickly flicked through his cards and set one down. "Monster Tamer." A heavily-tanned man-monster, dress head-to-toe in loose, red clothes cracked a whip, baring his teeth menacingly at Inari's side of the field.

The terrain was ridiculous. Every other row was almost entirely filled with labyrinth spaces, with two spaces on either side that were relatively passable. Three were Crush spaces. The rest of the map was a mix of meadow, wasteland, darkness, water, and normal squares. In short, if she wanted to reach his deck leader for a direct attack, Inari's monsters would have to weave in and out of the rows, taking up precious attacking time.

Her first hand was nothing but traps and spells, so she decided to make use of them. "I play Hinotama!" she declared, dealing him a meager amount of damage with the rain of fireballs. Then she made the Illusory Gentleman move over. The closer he was to the free, moveable edges for summoning, the better.

Scott scanned the map, then his hand, and chose to simply put down one card. But he moved it, too, in the same direction that Inari's deck leader had gone. He was on the attack.

Inari's next card turned out to be Launcher Spider. She'd wanted to hit him with Final Flame, but decided a monster would be better use of her time. So, after moving her deck leader again, she placed it on the dark square that skirted around the edge of the labyrinth.

"They're too quiet," Duke said darkly, "I don't like it."

"They're both focused," agreed Yugi, nodding. "And I don't think Inari wants to waste time with words."

Scott played another card, and moved everything on his side of the field around. He was going in for a pincer movement.

Catching his move, Inari let Launcher Spider creep along the dark spaces before she set down and flipped over another spell card. "I play Final Flame!" she declared. Monster Tamer went up in flames for a brief moment.

"If that's the only way you know how to deal damage," Scott taunted, "Then kiss your rose coin goodbye for the next twenty four hours."

"You'll see what I can do soon enough," she shot back.

Scott put down another card, and now had three cards on the field. Both of them noticed that she was completely undefended from her other side. Quickly, she combined Black Pendant with the Illusionist Faceless Mage and set it down on her other side. It wasn't the most powerful, but it was enough to make her feel more secure. Now, there was a crush space blocking Launcher Spider's path to the Monster Tamer, so she moved him into the wasteland, pleased that her monster received a terrain boost.

Scott continued his play of putting more and more cards out on the field, closing in enough to make her nervous. There were only two, maybe three spaces between their closest cards. She didn't have anything in her hand that she could play, yet, except for the spell card Black Hole. It could be useful, but she didn't want to sacrifice her Spider so soon. So, she passed.

He didn't seem to want to move his monster past the Crush space, but he had no qualms with taking the others around the left side. Then, he smirked to himself. "Ready for a taste of your own medicine?" he asked. "I play the spell Dokazi!" Now, it was Inari's turn to be attacked with a blast of fire, taking out 500 life points.

She played Swordstalker face-down, then immediately wished that she hadn't put him on the field at all seeing as how she had lost no monsters, yet. That was the fiend's special ability: his attack went up one hundred points for every monster in her graveyard. She moved Launcher Spider and the Illusionist Faceless Mage to meet the face-down card heading towards them. Scott seemed satisfied with the force he'd lain down, so he merely continued to move his cards.

"Why are you so set on keeping that coin?" she asked him, breaking the silence once more.

"Trust me, it's not because I'm a huge fan." Scott wouldn't look her in the eye, he only kept his gaze firmly on his hand. "It's my job, kid, sorry to tell you."

Looking confused, Inari added, "What job involves stealing from people?"

"If I told you that, I'd have to kill you. And hand over the down payment from my current client." He glanced at the field. "It's your move, little girl."

"That's even more annoying than 'princess,'" she muttered. Inari put down Magic Jammer, just in case he had a spell card lurking about somewhere. Now he had five cards out on the field, all face down. She set down Shadow of Eyes on her next turn with bated breath, waiting to clash with Scott when it eventually came.

"… and I set this card into Defense Mode."

"Not so fast!" she called, startling him, "You've activated the trap Shadow of Eyes! With this card on the field, you can't put any cards into defense mode!"

"You get really excited about this game, don't you?" he asked flatly.

Her chance to meet him face-to-face came, and she smiled. "Launcher Spider!" she commanded, "Attack his face-down card!" Her mechanical beast revealed a creature named Skull Stalker, a purple-and-red fiend that looked like a demonic, anthropomorphized scorpion. It wasn't particularly strong, so her Spider promptly decimated it.

"You've triggered my warrior's special ability," Scott said smugly. "Whenever Skull Stalker is defeated in battle, the opposing monster's attack points get reduced by three hundred."

Damn. Launcher Spider was the most powerful monster she had on the field. Now, that spot belonged to Swordstalker, who wasn't entirely that powerful at the moment. She played Ameba, hoping to use it to get rid of the crush spaces. Scott, entirely unaffected by the loss of his monster, played another card, letting it crawl down the line closest to the Illusory Gentleman. On her next turn, Inari slapped down her Dragon Zombie and moved Swordstalker to give Ameba room to work. Scott tried to play a card called Goblin's Secret Remedy, which would have restored some of his life points, but her Magic Jammer cancelled it out. Ameba went to the Crush space. Now, the problem was that she had to figure out how to get it destroyed and the ability triggered without losing too many life points. To end things, she played Tears of the Mermaid.

Again, he did nothing but sit on his cards, so she tried to take the fight to Scott. A weakened Launcher Spider moved inward, on the other side of the Crush space, towards Scott's monsters. Ameba was put into defense mode, and she drew a spell card that was useless to her right now—Horn of the Unicorn.

Still, Scott waited. He wasn't going to let her draw him into an attack, and she didn't want to wait to see if he ever would. So, she prayed to God that this thing looming in front of Ameba wasn't too terribly powerful. Hesitating for the briefest second, she called, "Ameba, attack."

Jirai Gumo. A large, fat spider with 2200 attack points, compared to her 300 point water blob, rose from its card and hissed venomously. It did what she wanted, and got rid of the Crush space, but then she also lost almost two thousand life points. She was down to 1600, and had to be careful. Maybe, just maybe, if she could get it to activate Tears of the Mermaid…

"Stop taking such risky moves!" Yugi said desperately under his breath. "This isn't going to end well."

Her new plan worked. Jirai Gumo tried to attack her face-down card, and was instead weakened severely by her trap card. Though she looked triumphant, when she went to attack Jirai Gumo with her Dragon Zombie, she was dismayed to realize that the sea terrain sliced off part of her zombie's attack points, too. They were evenly matched, and destroyed each other. The best thing, at least, was that she hadn't lost any points from it.

It went back to the "play a card, move a card, don't do anything else" formula from before for a while, but then Scott attacked her with a new monster: Suijin. The cloaked beast was a water monster, taking strength from the terrain she had put down.

"Attack her face-down monster!" Scott called out. Suijin made quick work of destroying the Ancient Elf that she'd played earlier.

There was nothing she could do at this point but play defense to keep it at bay—keeping a fresh monster between the Illusory Gentleman and Suijin. Even Aqua Dragon took on that role. Her favorite creature's special ability would do nothing for her, now. Even after she'd played the terrain-changer, Yami, Suijin's attack points were very high. He hammered her with another spell, one she didn't even remember, taking her life points down to 1150. So, she finally relented and played Dark Hole, destroying everything on the field in one fell swoop.

"Now we both have to start over," she murmured.

Inari played Invisible Wire, next, and destroyed his first monster. He fell into his old pattern of putting down cards, going in for a direct attack on either side, especially since she had rid one column of its crush space. Next, she played Crow Goblin, sending it out to defend her. After, she played Red Medicine to bolster her life points, though she still trailed behind Scott—not by much, after her spell card. Crow Goblin was drawing closer to his first target. She drew Neck Hunter, and immediately set him down.

Scott looked down at his hand. "I play the card Labyrinth Wall," he said, setting it down. Suddenly, one of the squares close to him shuddered, and a twisted, blocky brick wall rose from it.

It blocked Inari off entirely from reaching him on that end of the field, meaning that she'd have to send her monsters all the way around to the other side. What worried her most was the card he just played and moved—it was in a labyrinth space. No question, it must be a monster that could move freely about through them, and it meant trouble. She set to moving monsters along each row between the walled squares, ready to defend her deck master if needed.

After setting down another Magic Jammer card, she called, "Crow Goblin, attack his beast within the wall!"

"Big mistake."

"Oh my God!" Inari regretted everything instantly.

The Labyrinth Tank, a monstrously huge, blue machine with several large, red drill bits protruding from its face, had more than a thousand attack points than Crow Goblin and ran it in to the ground. She watched, helpless and horrified, as it proceeded to tear through the last row of labyrinth to reach her Illusory Gentleman. She only had six hundred life points left, and none of her monsters were even close to facing off with it. There was no question.

Her deck leader, speared through the chest by the Labyrinth Tank's drill, sank to his knees and slumped over, flickering out as the holograms vanished and the arena announced, "Winner, Scott Seward."

"Sorry, kid," he said, his tone business-like as he stepped off the arena, "But a deal's a deal. I keep your coin until I'm done with it." He wouldn't even look at her.

Infuriated, she ran to him and grabbed him by the back of his jacket. "Why?" she asked. "Just tell me why."

He turned, looking down on her with mixed emotions. Was that pity in his eyes? "I can't," he replied, gently prying her hand off of him. "Client confidentiality."

Inari shouted, "Asshole!" as he darted away, carrying one of her rose coins with him. Yugi squeezed her shoulder when she returned to the group.

"I'm sorry," he murmured sadly. There was a sinking feeling in his stomach, and he could feel Atem's anger. If they would have told her about what they'd overheard yesterday… the guilt was hard to swallow down.

Inari sighed, her hands clenching and relaxing before diving into her pocket for gum. "It's not your fault," she finally said. She forced a smile. "Besides, everyone must lose sometime, right? There's nothing left to do but find someone new to duel."

"There ya go." Joey was suddenly next to her, looking fired up. "Just wait, you're gonna mop the floor with your next opponent!"

She nodded, determined. "And then I'll get into the semifinals with Mai." Laughing, she added, "Are you offering to be my next victim, Mr. Wheeler?"

"Ah, no. That's okay."

They all laughed, and Inari felt her heart grow lighter. Still, something wouldn't stop nagging at her in the back of her mind: what did that man need with her coin? Her insides twisted. Who was his client?

In the hotel lobby, Scott Seward casually made his way back to his room, once in a while glancing over his shoulder to make sure none of those kids were following him. That had been a real pain in the ass, and a waste of time. Luckily, he was being paid by the day for this job. Carefully, he pulled the little gold coin out from his breast pocket, inspecting it. Making it catch the light, his trained eye caught what he was looking for: a smudge of oil secreted by a finger. A fingerprint. Something in his side pocket went hot, and he pulled out the small, silver hand-mirror. A dark face appeared inside, flickering like an old television set.

"Did you get what you needed?" it asked. It was the woman he spoke to yesterday.

"You're very lucky that I'm alone in here." He held the coin up to the mirror to show her. "Don't forget to send me the thing I asked for. I'll need other prints to match it to."

"You people have such strange ways of investigation…" she said, shaking her head. "It will be waiting for you in your chamber presently."

"Thanks." He snorted. "It must be a hell of a lot easier with magic."

She gave him a mysterious smile and merely replied, "Contact me again when you have concrete evidence for me."

"Absolutely."


Author's Note: Wow, I'm actually very surprised that I got this out on time. Holy crap. Anyway, thank you all for being patient with me and my updates! I hope you enjoy this chapter. It was difficult to get out, truth be told; the flow never clicked the way I wanted it to. I'm actually pretty happy with Scott Seward's character. He was supposed to be someone entirely different, but then Scott came out and worked leaps and bounds better for the purposes of the plot.

Please remember to review and let me know what you think! Constructive criticism is always welcome, and, as with the other duels, I really enjoy it when you tell me what works. I know this one was a bit of a step-backwards.

As always, thank you so much for reading! Lots of love, WolfMoonSinger

Edit: I added a line. It felt weird not having Inari think something was up.