"We Praise thee oh great Sun God, for you have blessed us with a bountiful crop this season. You are good and you are pure, we thank thee every day for our blessings...."
-Morning Prayer

It had been Three Weeks since the move to Domino city, and the weather had been unnaturally hot, but no one really cared that much.

Sunlight filtered through the thin tan blinds and across the hardwood floor of the small room. A room just with enough space for the double bed, medium sized desk, shelf unit, closet and night stand that decorated it.

With a loud groan, the form in the bed rolled over on to her side trying to keep the sun from further disturbing her waking slumber. A loud rapping at the door didn't come as much help to this growing problem, and made her groan again, pulling the sheets over her head in an attempt to block out both the sound and the light.

"C'mon Amber! Wake Up! C'mon you can't stay in there forever!" came a feminine tone from behind the door,

"Yes I can. Watch me." Amber shouted back pulling the pillow over her head and rolling onto her other side again still trying to block out the sound of her friends pounding on her door.

"Amber! It's 2 PM! Time to get up!"

"Don't make us come in there." came a second voice outside the door, masculine this time.

"Are you sure that'd be safe?" Amber called from under the pillow

"Where's Ali, let's send her in there." the female stated, talking more to the other friend then to Amber now

Amber groaned once again the sound of her friends pounding on the door. This was starting to give her a headache. Throwing off her sheets and blanket she tried to sit up using her elbow for balance only to find the edge of the bed much closer then she liked and ended up falling off of the bed with a great 'THUD'.

There was silence for a long moment as Amber lay on the floor, looking up at her ceiling, and after a second or two more beginning to laugh hysterically. Giggling some more and rolling over, further tangling herself in her bed sheets, for some reason she found this the funniest thing in the world at the moment.

Out side the door, Holly and Chris, the two of Amber's friends and roommates, looked at each other with the same confused look.

"Amber, did you just fall out of you bed?"

Chris smiled as he herded Amber's laughter, looking at Holly, who is leaning against the wall trying not to join in Amber's insane laughter as well.

"It seems Amber has a problem getting out of bed." Amber said as she opened her door.

Both Holly and Chris look down to find that Amber had dragged herself to the door, still tangled in her sheets.

Red in the face from laughing so hard, Holly has tears in her eyes and is holding on to the door frame for support now.

"You're both Freaks." Chris stated throwing his hands up in the air with a shake of his head before turning and walking down the short hallway to

the kitchen.

Once there he finds a short note scribbled and left by Ali earlier that morning, before anyone else had woken up. Sitting down on one of the cold steel chairs he re-reads it for a lack of anything better to do.

'Dear Everyone,

I've gone to the Library to get out some Cultural and Samurai books. Don't wait around for me, I'll probably be gone most of the day-yay! A real Library, not like that dinky small one from our town.

Anyways, see you all around dinner time.

Signed Ali'

Giving a small chuckle and tossing the note back down on the table, Chris looked up just in time to see Amber stumbled into the kitchen, her hair still all over the place and her kitty cat pj's a wrinkled mess, one pant leg was rolled up just above her knee."Hungry...I want sushi." she said opening the small fridge and leaning into it before standing back up with a frown across her tired face. "Well that sucks." She grumbled shutting the fridge door with more force then she'd ment, knocking some stuff off the top of the fridge. "Chriiis."

"What?"

"I want sushi."

"So?"

"Get me Sushi?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm too lazy to go out to the store to get it?"

"Well, be un-lazy then."

"Go get your own sushi."

With an all to common glint in her eye, Amber took the three steps it took to get from the fridge to the table, as she began to raise her arm. Chris saw her coming and was off of his chair and out of the way of being poked before she got there.

"Hey! Get back here." Amber pouted

"No."

Still to tired from having just woken up to continue trying to harass Chris, Amber sighed turning back to her hunt for food. She looked around the cupboards for but when she didn't find anything she sat at the table opposite end of the table from Chris with a 'humph'. "We don't have anything to eat, an I'm hungry."

"Well, it's holly's turn to do the shopping, you can go with her when she goes."

"When's she going?"

"I have no idea. Why don't you ask me these things?"

"Hoooolly!" Amber shouted spinning towards the kitchen door,

After many moments of silence they looked at each other with raised eyebrows.

"Maybe she's gone already." Chris suggested with a shrug but Amber shook her head as she prepared to push herself away from the table when Holly's head peeked around the corner. She looked wet and rather unhappy to have been summoned to the kitchen.

"You know I was taking a shower...what is it?"

"Sushi! Want." Amber replied

"Well, I'm going out soon."

Amber frowned "I want sushi now."

"Can you wait about ten minutes. You're not even dressed yourself."

"...So?" Amber grinned starting to giggle as she looked down at herself.

Chris slammed his head against the table causing both girls to look over at him.

"What's wrong with him?"

"Sushi?" Amber said giving a shrug still grinning as Chris took up hitting his head against the table repeatedly, only making the girls giggle more.

"Why, oh, why did I put myself threw this?" he asked rhetorically

"Because you wanted to get away, and my aunt had offered to board and pay for us for one year while we settled in and got our own jobs." Holly said with a grin, she had one hand out and was making a mocking movement with it like some old school teacher. Still grinning she then dashed back down the hall, leaving a wet trail across the floor as she went, just causing Chris to groan again.

It was a few hours later that both Holly and Amber were walking through the small grocery store, picking out what they would have to eat for the next week. Amber had already put more then her share of food and goodies in to the shopping cart. It was full of Pocky, Ramen, and other, what she called, singsongly 'the bear necessities of life'. While Holly was trying her best to be mature and responsible by getting the food that would keep them full for a longer time then pocky. She had a large bag of rice placed in the cart, followed by various meats, vegetables, and fruits. They were just leaving the store with their five massive bags of food when something bright caught Amber's eye causing her to stop suddenly to read it, making Holly bump into her and almost drop the vegetables and rice.

"What is it?" Holly asked looking over

"It's a flyer...something about Duel Monsters...or..."

"Let's see." Holly said putting down her bags taking a closer look over at the flyer that Amber was staring intently at, both were still not very good at reading Japanese and could only make out every other word. They were both bent over looking like old people who needed glasses.

"It says, a city wide tournament, will be held this coming week, all duellists who want to participate are asked to sign up at the nearest gaming shop. The grand prize is a trip for four to any where in North America. The cut off date for entries was today." The two girls spun around to find a boy about their age who had spotted them trying to read the flyer standing behind them, also holding bags in his arms.

He smiling politely at them, his dark eyes seemed to sparkle from the florescent lighting, but what was strange about his appearance wasn't the fact that he was wearing a navy blue school uniform, but that he had the strangest hair. It was longer then most of the boys they had seen, going past his shoulders and the colour of it was quite strange. It seemed so pale a blonde that it looked white in color. It looked natural but either of them had seen someone that young with that colour hair, and he didn't sound very Japanese.

"Er,.. Thanks. We were having a real hard time there with that character." Holly pointed to the poster, the boy only smiled back,

"That would be a difficult one. So, where do you girls come from? Are you just visiting or are you on an exchange programme?" the boy asked

"Oh, we moved just here." Amber said pointing to Holly who was still looking at the boy with wonder.

He tilted his head slightly and looked from Amber to Holly and back again. "Well, it's always good to see some new people around here. I hope to see you both again." he said shifting the weight of the bags in his arms and began to walk off.

"Wait, what's your..." Holly let her question trail off as the boy had already gone out the sliding doors and she didn't feel like chasing after him to ask him for his name.

"C'mon, I want to get back and eat some sushi! I haven't had breakfast yet." Amber stated picking up her bags again and beginning to head out of the store, pausing only when she noticed that Holly wasn't following her. She turned back and gave Holly a funny look. "What is it?"

"I have a feeling I've seen that boy somewhere before...but I can't remember where."

"Probably someone who looks like him walking down the street."

"How many people have you seen here that look like that?"

Amber gave a shrug, "Not many, but then again, we haven't exactly gone out a lot now have we? Anyways, he was shopping here so I'd assume he probably lives nearby. You've probably seen him walking around."

"Your right Amber...let's go." Holly said grabbing her bags and following Amber out. Though she still couldn't shake the feeling that she had not only seen the boy before, but had met him before as well. She shook her head and deciding that it was probably just her imagination running wild again and that she shouldn't think anymore of it.

"Sushi! Sushi! Sushi!" Amber chanted happily as she bounced down the street, Holly laughing loudly as she followed her friend, luckily they didn't live too far from the store and so they didn't need to carry the heavy bags that far. It was Obvious that the two friends would have fun when they got back, and hopefully Ali had returned by then so they could tell her of their strange experience. it was too bad that it was too late for any of them to enter the tournament, it would have been fun to have participated in. A test of their true skills.

Back at home Amber finally had her sushi and was enjoying playing with the remains of it as Chris laid on the living room sofa reading a book, Holly lay on the floor not too far from him writing a new story. The three stopped what they were doing briefly at the sound of the door opening and the familiar thud, thud, thud of Ali's shoes as she entered.

"Hey you. Find any interesting books?" Chris asked glancing up from his book. He paused raising a curious eyebrow when he noticed that Ali was holding a large box in her hands. "What's that?"

Ali shook her head in an 'I don't know' way, and by this time both Amber and Holly's interests had been peaked as they slowly made their way towards the box. "It was on the front stairs when I came home. It's addressed to all of us." she said placing the box down on the floor.

Holly looked at it as if it was about to bite her and shuffled away quickly. "What if it's a bomb?"

"Then we go boom." Amber stated smiling with a shrug

"Holly, why would there be a bomb on your front porch?" Chris asked with a slight sigh shaking his head at Amber as he put his book down and inspecting the box himself. "There's no return address. Nothing to even indicate who sent it or even what it might contain."

"Let's open it!" Amber said pouncing at the box, knife in hand. Instinctively the other three friends leapt back, as they knew that Amber with a knife was a dangerous combination. She slid the knife through the cardboard and with only a little trouble and managed to open the top. Dropping the knife on the living room table, Amber poked the box, when she decided that it wasn't going to explode she leaned over it and looked into it-leaping back with a large gasp. Grabbing Chris's shirt she shoved him towards it.

"Hey! What the...what is it? What's in there?"

"Look!"

"I'd rather not.."

"Look!"

"Oh, I'll do it." the three watched as Holly moved towards the box peeking over the edge into it, the expression on her face changed from fear to bewilderment as she reached in and pulled out a duelling disk, holding it in her hands and looking to the others. "You guys,. as far as I can tell, this is real..." she said, running her fingers along the metal frame, before she strapped it onto her left arm.

Ali then moved forward looking into the box and pulling out a small computer typed letter. "Here, listen to this,. Dear friends, if you are reading this then the package arrived to you safely. In it is four duel disks, four duellist I.D. tags, and four duellist com's. Please take great care, you four are now entered into the Domino City Tournament. Please join the other participants at the clock tower by 10am sharp on the morning of September 5th. From there you will be given further instructions and instructions on how to use your duellist com's. Enjoy, and hope to see you all there. Sincerely, your Friend."

The four looked at each other in silence, they hadn't talked to very many people in the three weeks they had lived there, and they hadn't had the time to go into great detail about their lives, and especially the fact that they all were duellists from North America, they hadn't told a soul about anything of great importance. None of them had entered the tournament, as they had just learned of it that day.

Holly looked down at the duel disk on her arm as it beeped and hummed. They were all thinking the same thing.... Who in Domino City knew that they were duellists? and why had someone gone out of their way to enter the them in this tournament?