'Meet my ultimate monster, the Thousand Eyes Restrict,' Pegasus declares proudly.

Mai is gaping at the newly appeared monster in horror. It is a dark brown golem, who appears to have neither legs nor a head. In the center of its torso, there is a maw that is slowly opening and two ominous, green eyes. From the forehead, a large bulge is protruding, with an artifact on its end; a golden artifact that looks exactly like Pegasuses Millenium Eye! The torso of the creature, as well as its giant, clawed arms, are covered with countless eyes, which are slowly opening, one after another.

'I-I don't get it,' Mai cries, indignant. 'Your life points have dropped to zero. You should have lost.'

'Under normal circumstances, yes,' Pegasus admits. 'But look at the face down card I activated, woman.'

Even though that card is already in the graveyard, Pegasus picks it up for a second and shows it to Mai. It's a trap card depicting a lovely, green landscape, with a smoke ring in its center. The area that the smoke ring surrounds is a wasteland, which implies that the smoke ring is getting wider and wider, turning the beautiful prairie into a desert. From the wasteland ground, two monsters are slowly emerging, while whirling around each other. Mai is not sure, but she thinks she can tell they're the same two monsters as the ones in the picture on the well known Polymerization spell card.

'Nihil Fusion!' Pegasus exclaims as he places the card back in the graveyard. (ORIGINAL CARD) 'I can activate it when my life points hit zero. I send all cards on my field to the graveyard. Also, I send a monster from my deck to the graveyard, one which can normally be used as a fusion material monster. As a result, the fusion monster which would normally be summoned by a normal fusion involving this fusion material monster appears on the field. So I sent the Thousand Eyes Idol from my deck to the graveyard to summon the Thousand Eyes Restrict.'

Mai is still gaping. Pegasus allows his words to sink in before carrying on. 'Don't worry, Mai girl. It's not as bad as it sounds. From now on, I cannot play any other cards. In other words, that single monster is my only weapon against my opponent. The only thing left between you and your dreams. Just beat it and you're the winner!'

Mai eyes the thousand eyed monster (no pun intended). It's ATK and DEF points are zero! Of course, obviously, it has some special ability. But, even if Pegasus can somehow give that monster an overwhelming number of ATK points, if he cannot play any other cards, Mai can just keep protecting her life points by playing monsters in defense mode indefinitely, until Pegasuses deck runs out of cards. (Mai remembers that Pegasus has drawn more cards than her so far, so, in such a scenario, it will be Pegasus who will first be unable to draw a card at the beginning of his turn.) So what the hell is that white haired madman up to?

'Now that the Thousand Eyes Restrict has begun opening its eyes, you cannot attack it, Mai girl,' Pegasus explains. 'Any monster of yours that attacks will instantly be paralyzed.' (Even the Harpy Phoenix Formation wouldn't work, because it would count as a simultaneous attack of the Harpies.)

Mai gasps. And she hasn't heard the worst yet!

'When, on my next turn, the Thousand Eyes Restrict has opened all its eyes, it will absorb each and every monster on your field and selfdestruct, thus killing all monsters it has absorbed,' Pegasus carries on. 'Then you will lose life points equal to the total ATK points of your monsters destroyed that way.'

'WHAT?' Mai shrieks, her eyes widened. She looks at her field. She already has one monster out, the Harpy. And if she plays more monsters, it will be worse.

'Hey,' Joey cries, clinging to the railing. 'This monster's effect is totally overpowered, totally...'

'Unfair?' Pegasus interrupts the blond boy with a chuckle. 'Well, this is my island, Joey boy. This is the game I created. I make the rules. I decide what is fair. As long as you are on this island, at my mercy, I am the God! MHAHAHAHA...'

The demonic laugh of the unstable man, who has closed his eyes and tossed his head back right now, reverberates throughout the castle, in a creepy manner.

'My turn,' Mai says, trembling, and draws a card.

Pegasus is still in no condition to concentrate enough to read the opponent's mind, let alone transfer this duel to the Shadow Realm, but it doesn't matter. From the way Mai mumbled expletives when she looked at the card she drew, from the way she set it on the board with a desperate expression, he can tell that this woman has no more tricks up her sleeve. This is her last turn!

'I play the Elegant Egotist,' Mai declares with a sigh of despair as she activates directly from her hand the aforementioned spell card, which depicts a beautiful, flowery pattern. 'It's a card that causes the Harpy to produce two duplicates of herself.' With a flap of her wings, the original Harpy raises her body, a white aura shrouding her. Two new bodies emerge from the white mass, also shrouded in the same white aura. When that aura has faded, three Harpies are hovering opposite the Thousand Eyes Restrict. The second Harpy has blue hair and the third Harpy has orange hair, with both of them having extreme haircuts. All three Harpies land, howling simultaneously. One could say that this triple howl is their sawnsong. Mai's swansong!

'My ladies,' Mai cries haughtily, 'let's die all together. Tonight, we're dining in Hell!'

Tristan and Joey are staring with desperate expressions. Tea sobs and wipes a tear with her sleeve. Yugi closes his eyes and shakes his head in sorrow.

'My turn!' Pegasus cries in an ecstatic state. On cue, the Thousand Eyes restrict has just finished opening all its eyes, which immediately start glowing and emitting wide, green beams.

That moment, Mai smiles. At first, Pegasus interprets that smile as resignation. No, wait, it's a victorious smile!

'I activate my face down card,' Mai cries. 'Spellbinding Illusion!'

Pegasus suffers the greatest mood swing of his life! 'NOOO!' he cries, with his eyes bulging, as a hexagram, the same one that is portrayed on the trap card Mai has just activated, appears around the Thousand Eyes Restrict. The eyes of the monster stop glowing.

'With this card, I can nullify the effects of one of your monsters,' the woman unnecessarily explains. 'Do you know what that means? That now, your supposedly omnipotent Thousand Eyes Restrict is nothing more than a vanilla monster with zero ATK points!'

Pegasus clutches his temples in despair.

Mai grins from ear to ear. Ahh, the perfect symbolism. The three Harpy Lady Sisters, who are essentially Mai's sisters as well, shall now end this tournament by attacking all together! 'HARPY LADY SISTERS, COMBINE YOUR POWERS. TRIANGLE ECSTACY SPARK!'

Each of the three female, winged creatures raises her hands to the level of her chest and begins forming a white energy sphere between them. A white line appears to connect the aforementioned spheres, thus forming a triangle. With the ATK of the Harpies increasing to 2700 for this attack, a large, light purple X mark appears in the triangle. A huge, multicolored blast is fired from the X mark. The blast engulfs Pegasuses monster, until it destroys it.

Pegasus falls on his knees, closes his eyes and slams his head down on the duel board. This time, it's really all over!


She is sitting in her office, behind her desk, surrounded by four walls a dull, grey color. The room is currently illuminated only by some sunlight coming in through the gaps between the wooden, brown window shutter slats. On the desk, there are some miniature pyramids, a black, obsolete telephone and heaps of paper documents.

She's a tanned skinned woman dressed in a white dress and a veil the same color that cover her almost entirely, leaving exposed only her hands, her expressive, blue eyes and her forehead. Ishizu Ishtar, one of the most important executives in the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities.

She's lazily caressing with her silky fingers the golden necklace around her neck. This is not an ordinary jewel. It is the Millenium Necklace! In Ancient Egypt, it was also known as the Millenium Item of Time, for it has the power to show its wielder the past, the present and the future.

The woman is looking at the door, as if she's waiting for someone to enter. Having seen the future, she knows indeed that someone shall enter in a few seconds.

And truly, a knock at the door is heard. 'Come in,' Ishizu calls out indifferently.

A man enters. He's dressed in a green, military uniform. Also, he's wearing a black cap and glasses the same color. He closes his eyes behind his glasses, places his palm on his chest and bows slightly. 'Miss Ishtar, I'm afraid I have some bad news,' he says with a solemn expression.

'Don't be afraid, Steve. Tell me,' Ishizu encourages him in a soothing voice, caressing her necklace, knowing full well what he's about to break to her.

The man gulps. 'I-I regret to inform you that two of the three God cards have been stolen.'

Ishizu does not react.

'Umm,' Steve carries on, tentatively. 'We're not sure yet, but we suspect that the Rare Hunters are behind this.'

Ishizu retains her indifferent expression.

'You-you don't look upset, Miss Ishtar,' the man dares to comment.

'You can go, Steve,' Ishizu replies.

'As you wish, my lady,' Steve bows again and exits the office.

And so, Ishizu is once more left alone. Alone with her necklace. She lazily plays with it a little.

By now, the Duelist Kingdom tournament must be over. And, as Ishizu already knows, since the Millenium Necklace has showed it to her, Yugi Muto, the boy who shares his body with the spirit of the nameless pharaoh, has won it. Let's confirm it.

'Millenium Necklace, show me the present,' Ishizu thinks while placing both her hands on the Ancient Egyptian artifact, concentrating on what is going on on Pegasuses island.

The necklace glows and images start flashing through Ishizu's mind. She sees Mai commanding her Harpy to attack. She sees the aforementioned monster attacking Yugi's Catapult Turtle, thus reducing his life points to 0. She sees Bandit Keith being knocked unconscious by Mai and dragged away by Pegasuses bodyguards afterward. She sees the ship taking Marik and his henchmen to their lair passing by the island without meeting Keith. She sees Mai's three Harpies attacking Pegasuses ultimate monster.

She sees Croquet raising his arm and declaring, 'And the winner is Mai Valentine, the new Duel King.'

'Queen!' Mai corrects him. (Still in Ishizu's vision.)

'Umm, you are right, Miss Valentine. I apologize,' Croquet slightly blushes.

Being in no mood to laugh at that last scene, Ishizu opens her eyes wide, thus cutting off the connection to the Millenium Necklace. She removes her veil, revealing her beautiful face and letting her black hair fall around her shoulders. Her expression is genuinely shocked.

This isn't right. According to the future the Millenium Necklace showed her, the pharaoh was destined to defeat that woman at the Duelist Kingdom semi finals and then proceed to defeat Pegasus!

How did that happen? Sure the future is something that can never 100% accurately be predicted, something that not even Gods know for sure. But this is the first time that her Millenium Item makes such a serious mistake!

With her mouth wide open in shock, Ishizu lowers her eyes to her necklace, still in disbelief. How will such major changes affect the future that the Millenium Necklace predicted? The young woman shudders to imagine.