Good Day Readers and welcome to the sequel to The Lost Kingdom! Thanks to all of you for the support and I hope that you all enjoy this latest edition of the Hope sisters. This upload will focus on the Grand Prix/Grand Championship arc whilst next week we'll move onto Dawn of the Duel arc
Obviously I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh only Kylie and Katherine Hope along with the unique cards within their decks and whatever other OCs decide to crop up. Also italics symbolise a mind conversation. I would appreciate any responses that you have, please enjoy
Chapter 6: - A Beautiful Duel
"Are you absolutely certain Seto?" I questioned. The remainder of the first Duels had finished up with Rebecca winning her match in the fourth round of B Block which meant everyone was pushing onwards to the next matches, but then Seto had contacted me with a worrisome suspicion. "Do you really think that someone in the contestants is our hacker?" I asked. My lips set themselves into a grim frown at the possibility that Seto had presented to me.
"Yes. I'm certain it has to one of them, I'm already running a background check on all of them once again, but I want to know if there's anyone in particular you suspect," Seto admitted. I pressed my thumb against my lips as I attempted to think about which of the contestants seemed the most suspicious but without actually knowing them personally, they all seemed suspicious.
"Sorry Seto, no. All I can tell you is that whoever hacked in has to be as good with a computer as me and you. The only contestant that I know of who is that good is Rebecca, but she'd never do this. Katherine, Jounouchi and Suguroku – Yugi's grandpa just so you know – aren't capable of doing that," I admitted. I didn't know if it could be any of the losers from the first round, or someone still in the competition but then a thought occurred to me. "That Sieg guy, there's something about him that doesn't sit right with me," I added on.
"That guy's the deadbeat's next opponent, you better watch him," Seto stated. I agreed to those words and we quickly hung up the phones we'd been using, I turned my attention to the group of people I was with as they waited for the start of the next round; all of the contestants alongside our friends and my family were all gathered in the room, it wasn't wise to say anything at the moment so I decided to keep quiet until we were alone.
As I walked over to them, the next set of matches were being announced causing Jounouchi to begin stressing which was made even worse when Rebecca and Otogi started to insult him accidentally, whilst Leon had come over to us and seemed to believe the stressed out blonde with us was actually Jounouchi being calm with the young boy being nervous
"What are you saying? You're also one of the best eight," Jounouchi stated. He pulled away from Honda and looked at the boy. "You should have more confidence and prepare yourself, that's all," Jounouchi reassured. The maroon haired boy looked a little shy as he pressed a right finger against the matching cheek.
"It's just… when I stop and think that I get to face Yugi-san if I win, I get all nervous!" Leon admitted. Yugi's eyes widened at those words whilst Jounouchi was surprised by how Leon believed he had already won the tournament; Rebecca chose that moment to stand up and look at the boy that shared the genius title with her.
"Wait a sec. If you win your match, then your opponent in the Semi-Finals will be me. And I won't hand over the right to Duel my Darling so easily," Rebecca warned. A cheerful note in her voice, Leon then reached his left hand back to rub the back of his hair as his right arm fell parallel with his right eye and he requested that Rebecca go easy on him.
"Not likely kiddo, I trained her," I piped up. Leon's eyes widened as he looked at me and Jounouchi laughed, Katherine simply suggested that the four not hold a grudge against the winner of the tournament; however as they spoke, I saw Sieg staring at us and I stared back, causing the pink haired man to quickly look away from us, but the door quickly swung open revealing Mokuba and a group of goons.
"Sorry to keep you waiting. Please standby," Mokuba requested. Everyone began to file out with Jounouchi attempting to be friendly to Sieg as we approached him, but the man dismissed Jounouchi without even a word, setting the blonde off and Jounouchi quickly charged after his opponent, we quickly followed only to find the two in the hallway with Sieg walking away as Jounouchi stood behind him, most likely glaring at the pink haired man.
"I hardly have the time to be concerned with an opponent who will vanish in an instant before me," Sieg stated. Jounouchi rightly claimed that Sieg couldn't decide how the Duel was going to end before it even started, causing the man to stop as he turned around. "The most foolish ones are those who do not know their own ability. You do not even have a mere one percent chance of victory," Sieg stated. Katherine suddenly moved forward to stand in front of us.
"The most foolish are those who don't give their opponents the proper respect," Katherine warned. Sieg turned his gaze down to look at my sister who had her left hand propped up on her hip. "If you get too arrogant then Jounouchi will take your feet out from under you," Katherine added on. Sieg simply told Jounouchi to continue with his futile resistance before walking away from us.
"You jerk!" Jounouchi snarled. The blonde began to rush forward, Honda quickly took a hold of him, keeping the blonde from doing anything ridiculous. "That bastard! If I let him say that- Get off, Honda!" Jounouchi rambled. I don't think even Seto got under his skin as back as Sieg had just done, Jounouchi shoved Honda off of him. "I'm going to settle this in our Duel!" Jounouchi vowed. With that he proceeded to walk away from us, Rebecca insisted that everyone should go and cheer for Jounouchi since he seemed more at risk than she did, all she asked for in return was the support in her next match.
"That's very mature of you Rebecca, good luck," Katherine stated. Rebecca nodded and she took off towards her match. "Take care of Jounouchi you guys, Sieg's already proven how strong he is," Katherine warned. With those words my sister took off away from us – I had previously sent a quick mental message to mum, which surprised the woman – with my mum and cousin quickly tailing after her
"Yugi, we need to talk," I spoke up. My voice serious as I turned to look at him as Mokuba also came over with a serious expression on his face. "Seto has warned us to keep a close eye on the Duelists," I revealed. Yugi's eyes widened and he appropriately asked what I meant by the words that I had just spoken. "I assume you recall the incident that happened on the day we got here and we got locked in the Duel Stadium. Seto suspects that one of the contestants is responsible and intends to make this tournament fail by causing more chaos like on the first day," I explained.
"Because I can trust you guys, I want you to cooperate. Report anyone acting suspicious to me right away!" Mokuba requested. His expression and tone were full of the anger he felt at the threat being directed towards the company his brother had worked hard to restore, Honda stated that everyone was suspicious with Anzu agreeing that they had no suspects.
"It's kind of… disappointing," Yugi admitted. I turned to look at the petite boy alongside everyone else, surprise evident on our faces. "Just when I thought we could just have fun Dueling with everyone… now there's someone out there trying to spoil it… you went through the trouble of recruiting people from around the world. I wanted to enjoy Dueling against everyone," Yugi admitted. He was truly dejected at the fact that someone had decided to ruin another tournament… and this time it wasn't even connected to Yami.
"Yugi, the sooner we find the creep, the sooner the tournament can go back to normal and you can have a truly fun Duel against the tournament winner," I reassured. Mokuba and everyone added on their own sentiments before Honda insisted we go to cheer on Jounouchi; Yugi nodded his head and we took off towards the Duel Area, which just so happened to be a rollercoaster inside of a place that was built to resemble the core of the Earth, we arrived just before the Duel started.
Jounouchi appreciated our support and walked up to Sieg, allowing the two to swap Decks and shuffle the opponents but during the shuffling I noticed Sieg glance over at a camera that was pointing at the field. Anzu asked if the blonde was going to be alright, so Honda and Yugi called out in order to try and get him to settle down as Jounouchi stalked over to the edge that was closer to the rock that we were standing on.
Jounouchi – LP: 4000
Sieg – LP: 4000
"My turn first! Draw!" Jounouchi declared. He pulled a card free before looking at his hand, but he seemed to freeze up as Yugi and Honda called out to the blonde, concerned as to why the knucklehead had suddenly gone as still as a statue; meanwhile Sieg mocked him by demanding to know where the skills were that Jounouchi had just vowed to show him. "I set a reverse card and end my turn!" Jounouchi declared. I flinched, realising that Jounouchi couldn't Summon out any Monsters.
"There were no Monster cards in his hand?" Yugi wondered. That or they were all high level ones, Honda got distressed about this fact and called out the blonde's name; this had to be the worst first turn of any of Jounouchi's Duels that I'd witnessed, Sieg seemed completely relaxed as he reached out towards the top card of his Deck.
"It is my turn. I draw," Sieg stated. He pulled the card free and looked at it, it had only taken one card in his last Duel to devastate his opponent's Life Points so I took in a sharp breath as I waited for the guy to make his move. "I invoke a Magic card from my hand, Angel's Charity. Due to this card's effect, I draw three cards from the Deck and send two to the Graveyard," Sieg informed. He calmly drew the cards and slid away two of them. "I then place one reverse card to end my turn," Sieg stated.
"I can't tell if he's mocking Jounouchi or if he had a bad hand as well," I admitted. Honda claimed that either one was lucky, but I saw Yugi and Yami talking and knew they were probably rightly suspicious of Sieg's move as well, sadly Jounouchi didn't seem suspicious at all as he immediately burst into laughter at the sight.
"What the hell was that? You couldn't even Summon a Monster?! And here you were boasting up a storm just a second ago! You really make me laugh, man!" Jounouchi mocked. However, Sieg wasn't even bothered and instead turned his head to look over at the camera and his eyes narrowed before turning to look at his left wrist, pushing back the frilled jacket sleeve to reveal a watch.
"Mokuba, he's acting odd," I warned. Mokuba stared at Sieg with more intensity than normal, it might be cruel to be suspicious of him with so little information, but his actions right now sparked my suspicions; just as Jounouchi started his turn, the miniature volcanos – Solid Vision again – behind Sieg suddenly exploded and jets of lava shot up to surround the Dueling area before descending down and then popping up somewhere else.
"This is strange… this wasn't set up," Mokuba admitted. Everyone turned to look at the boy, surprised by his words as Anzu asked for clarification if this tournament was being broadcast around the world and that could be why they're showing off so much; I watched the Dueling arena and saw a satisfied smirk spread across Sieg's face.
"No… Seto wouldn't do this, it's too dangerous. And Sieg seems oddly satisfied to be seeing such a scene," I commented. If anywhere else in Kaiba Land was being affected then I was worried about Rebecca since she was on the Ferris Wheel whereas Katherine was safe since she was at an amphitheatre, to do something so drastic, getting inside of Seto's system when the outside access had to be blocked after the earlier incident.
"This is a simple matter for me," A male voice chimed in my head. It was not a telepathic message though, instead it was a memory, from a time many years ago.
*Yu-Gi-Oh*
I pulled at the fabric of the dress that I was forced to wear to this party, it was full of businesspeople so I tried to be discreet about it, but it felt like everyone was staring at me. Katherine was clinging tightly to Dad's hand as the three of us walked through the crowd. However, our progress was stopped by two people, one I was unhappy to see had it not been for his companions, that demon Kaiba Gozaburo with his adopted sons Seto and Mokuba, they instantly brightened upon seeing me, but the other wasn't someone I recognised although a boy was standing at his side as well, short pink hair with a long fringe that hid his eyes.
"What do you want Kaiba? Greetings Mister von Schroeder," Dad spoke. He had glared at Gozaburo before nodding a neutral greeting to the other man who returned it in kind. "I repeat, what do you want Kaiba? I only accepted the invitation since my girls wanted to see your adopted sons," Dad questioned. The von Schroeder reached a hand out to press against dad's shoulder.
"Come now Mister Hope, no need for hostilities. Ah, but you have chosen fine successors," Mister von Schroeder spoke. Suddenly he dropped the hand on dad's shoulder to rest on the shoulder of the boy beside him. "However, he will not lose either, for he is also a genius," Mister von Schroeder insisted. I looked at the boy who was stood there.
"You both have 'this party is boring' written all over your faces. Perhaps you would like if I spiced it up a bit for you both?" The boy questioned. I furrowed my eyebrows at his words but soon got my answer, the chandelier lights suddenly flickered and dimmed before flashing back on only to flicker off again, I saw one of the goons approach the demon and whisper to him something that annoyed the twisted beast concerning a computer virus which he dismissed. "This is a simple matter for me. No, I speculate both of you could pull it off as well. As all three of us are branded as geniuses, it would be most beneficial if we all got along," The boy boasted.
*Yu-Gi-Oh*
Holy mother of the Gods! The boy from that party! He was certainly capable of something like this… von Schroeder, I hadn't heard that name for a long time and I didn't know the boy's name at all… but pink hair. I looked at Sieg's hair, Margaret might have had it, but hers' was a different shade to the boy's and Sieg's hair shade matched the boy's a bit more than Margaret's did, I took out my phone and sent a quick text to Seto.
"I was just reaching the climax of my highlight scene. Let's go! I Summon the Rifleman of Landstar in Attack Position!" Jounouchi declared. He placed the card onto the Duel Disk and the child like marksman was projected onto the field and I was just relieved that Jounouchi had managed to Summon out a Monster this turn, it would at least keep him safe from being attacked if Sieg got a Monster out on his turn.
Rifleman of Landstar – Attribute: Earth, Type: Warrior, Level: 3, ATK/900, DEF/1200
"Then I activate the Equipment Magic, Landstar Shot, from my hand!" Jounouchi declared. The gun that the childish warrior had been holding transformed into a machine gun type object. "This is an Equipment Magic only for Rifleman of Landstar. It raises his Attack Points by six hundred points," Jounouchi declared. Well, at least the Monster was stronger than it normally would be and could repel some attacks.
Rifleman of Landstar – ATK/900 – ATK/1500
"Go on, Rifleman of Landstar and Direct Attack the guy!" Jounouchi commanded. Rifleman pointed his new weapon at the guy, but before any shots could be fired, Sieg proceeded to activate his face down card, which was known as Wotan's Judgment, Sieg could exchange one Magic card from his hand with the top card of his Deck and shuffled the Deck before negating the attack and forcing the Battle Phase to a close.
"That's one handy card," I admitted. Honda complained about how close Jounouchi had got to harming Sieg's Life Points; but to me that card had been less about protecting his Life Points and more about getting certain cards into his hand, but for what purpose… perhaps he was attempting to perform the move he had in his last match.
"It is my turn. I draw," Sieg stated. He was very calm as he pulled the card free and looked at it. "My Magic card will activate. Pot of Greed, I draw two cards," Sieg revealed. He showed the card to us before drawing the two stipulated cards. "I will then invoke a Magic card. Goddess of Wisdom – Erda's Guidance. Erda, Goddess of wisdom, is capable of seeing into the past, the present and the future. Your hand is the future, your field is the present and your Graveyard is the past," Sieg explained. The woman depicted on the artwork appeared and she waved her sceptre over Sieg causing sparkles to rain down on him. "Due to this card's effect, I send one Magic card from my hand to my Graveyard, return one Trap card from the Graveyard and set it on the field," Sieg added on.
"Given that there was only one Trap card in his Graveyard, it's obvious that is Wotan's Judgment," I stated. Erda vanished once her effect resolved and Sieg proceeded to end his turn, shocking Jounouchi and those of us who were watching the Duel; not Summoning a Monster two turns in a row was awfully strange, even with Wotan's Judgment out to protect him, that was too risky. "He's planning something, perhaps waiting for that card he used against Selim, but if Jounouchi gets that guy out, Wotan's judgment is useless," I added on. They would know who I meant by 'that guy' since we all knew Jounouchi's Deck fairly well by now.
"Hey you!" Jounouchi yelled. Sieg's eyes had drifted to the camera once more, I was suspecting him more with every odd move he made, which was probably why Jounouchi had got angry at him. "What the hell do you keep looking at?! I'm over here you know! Are you that confident that you won't even focus?! Concentrate on the Duel!" Jounouchi ranted. Sieg proceeded to raise a hand and flicked his hair, and here I though only women did that.
"I do not feel the need to go all out on someone like you. As far as I'm concerned, you are merely a clown performing for my amusement," Sieg insulted. That set Jounouchi off as he repeated the comparison. "Just as a clown is meant to do, you must dance and make us laugh," Sieg insisted. Honda got angry as well and I felt an eyebrow twitch on my forehead at the insult, Seto was one thing but this guy… he was asking for a punch.
"I won't let you provoke me and if you underestimate me so much, you're going to be in for some pain," Jounouchi promised. He raised his Duel Disk and reached for the top of his Deck. "My turn! Draw!" Jounouchi declared. He pulled out the card but didn't spare it a glance and instead traded it for a different card. "I offer Rifleman of Landstar as a Release to Advance Summon Android – Psycho Shocker in Attack Position!" Jounouchi declared. A cheer erupted from all of us at the appearance of the Android.
Android – Psycho Shocker – Attribute: Dark, Type: Machine, Level: 6, ATK/2400, DEF/1500
"The Special Effect of Psycho Shocker activates! Negate all of his Trap cards!" Jounouchi commanded. The red lines of Trap Search appeared and easily sliced through the Trap, easily shattering it and shocking Sieg in the process. "And I attack you directly with Psycho Shocker! Cyber Energy Shock!" Jounouchi commanded. The energy gathered in Psycho Shocker's hands before being sent flying towards Sieg and smashing into him. "How's that? Wake up yet? There's a Duelist standing in front of you, and it's me! Name's Jounouchi Katsuya!" Jounouchi declared. When Sieg looked up, his eyes showed that he was furious as Anzu cheered Jounouchi's success. "My turn is over now. This time, come at me seriously," Jounouchi insisted.
Sieg – LP: 4000 – LP: 1600
"You have touched something you should never dare to touch! Foolish fool, you will pay retribution for what you have done! Now that you have forced me to get serious, it is far too late for you to lament. It is my turn. Draw," Sieg spoke. He seemed unusually enraged that just having his Life Points struck, but if his title of Untouchable Emperor was true then, perhaps he had a reason. "I will show it to you as well! My beautiful young warrior maidens who travel amidst time itself! I initiate a Magic card, Walkuren Ritt!" Sieg declared. That was the card! Damn it all! A light appeared above our heads in response to the card; the lava streams burst up simultaneously and I swear, I was hearing Ride of Valkyries playing.
"This is not good," I stated.