Disclaimer: I don't own Yugioh, but I do own the characters that you don't recognize. Unless you don't know who Mai Valentine is.

Chapter 20: Approaching Dragoon Island

"You lose, again." a blond haired boy noted to a blue haired one. The two were having a very interesting duel monsters match, and the blond, who went by the name of Shisei, had just pulled an amazing win out of his hat with some of his direct damage cards. "You'll never win against me if you focus on only attack." Shisei said sagely.

"AGH!" Kou, the blue haired boy, groaned in misery. "I'll never win if you keep changing your deck type!" he insisted, bringing his own point to light. Chiro, a spirit that resided in Kou's own body, alongside the boy's soul, more precisely, smiled in amusement. "What are you laughing at!" Kou hissed at the astral form of Chiro, standing just over them.

"He's probably laughing because you lost!" Shisei laughed as well. Kou aimed a blow at the blond's head, which Shisei dodged. Then Kou launched himself at Sei and met the wall as Shisei rushed to the yard of Kou's house. "Your to slow in the head to duel," Shisei began to taunt. "and to slow in the body to catch me!" he snickered as he rushed behind a tree to escape Kou's reaching hand.

"OUCH!" Kou's hand had lodged itself into a small hole in the tree, and Kou had watering eyes from the pain. Shisei came out from behind the tree. Big mistake. Kou smirked for an instant, and Sei realized he was dead meat. "GOTCHA!" Kou yelled, putting Sei in a choke hold. "I expect an apology!" Kou smirked as Shisei twinged in pain.

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry!" Kou released him as Chiro's astral voice called them back in.

The two stood up and approached the back doorway to Kou's house. Chiro looked at them, both covered in leaves and dirt, and snickered. "Did you two make out on the lawn!" he inquired. Both boys tossed their fists at him, but only succeeded in hitting the file cabinet behind him and, in Shisei's case, hurting his hand, while Kou gave his piece of furniture a very large dent. "Hey, next time you should try aiming for something solid!" Chiro snickered again.

"Okay, enough." Shisei put his foot down. "What do you want, Chiro?" he asked the astral form of the silver haired man. Chiro pointed to the table.

"The mailman dropped these packages through the mail slot, I think you should open them." he sidled himself on the couch, waiting to see what was in the packages. Shisei looked at Kou meaningfully. Kou didn't catch the look and grabbed the package with his name imprinted, and ripped the paper off of it as Shisei tried, to no avail, to knock it out of his hands.

"AH!" Shisei ducked behind the couch as Kou opened the package fully. Chiro and Kou looked at him as he emerged a few seconds later. "I-it wasn't a b-b-bomb?" Shisei stammered, feeling a bit silly for thinking such a thing. Kou raised an eyebrow at his best friend. Shisei got up fully and muttered something about not really thinking it was.

"Smooth Sei, real smooth." Kou commented. Then he himself jumped up and grabbed a hold of the ceiling fan, seeing something in the package that scared him. "F-finger!" was all he squeezed out.

Shisei took the box carefully, and saw what Kou meant. A small, plastic index finger, was indeed inside of the box, sitting next to it were a chain, most likely to attack the finger, which had a hole around it's nail area, and a duel disk. "Kou, it's a plastic finger, these are from Osmos, and the rest of the guys involved in the tournament." Shisei looked up to see a relieved Kou. CREAK. Suddenly, the ceiling fan Kou had attached himself to out of fear, creaked and gave way, making Kou crash down onto Shisei in a pile of Styrofoam peanuts.

"Sorry, Sei." Kou apologized and helped him up. A few moments later, Shisei had opened his own package and was reading the instructions for the tournament. "Okay, it says we can have a team, if we feel the need. But only up to three members on a team." he started, Chiro listened intently while Kou nursed a head injury. "You must collect fingers until you have 5 of the different ones. Thumb, Forefinger, Middle finger, Index finger, Pinky." he stated, lifting up a finger on each kind. "Teams will need two of each." he then looked up with a disgusted look. "Of course Osmos would pull something like this!" Sei said.

Kou stopped rubbing his head and blinked at Shisei in confusion. "Um.. What's just like Osmos?" he asked him.

Shisei pointed to the finger lying in his own box. "Supposedly, a God told the people that to point out someone, whether to point out good or bad, would be pointing ten fingers at yourself." he stated Kou blinked. "HE THINKS HE'S A GOD!" Shisei exclaimed in exasperation.

Kou just stared at him for a moment. "Yeah, you need to drop all that coffee Sei, it can mess with your brain!" Kou snickered and gave Chiro a high five. Shisei rolled his eyes and continued to explain the rules.

"The duelists will be allowed to bet cards on the outcome of the duel, so long as they both agree to the terms of the match. But you must, upon every duel, bet at least one finger." he stated. "The top three competitors will be admitted into a special session where they will face Seto Kaiba, Yugi Moto, and Joey Wheeler!" he finished in shock. "These top duelist shall act as a team and the three top competitors shall act as a team as well. The winning trio shall choose one member to duel against Higentaka Osmos himself." Shisei felt like he was going to faint. "We, we could be eligible to duel Yugi Moto! Yugi Moto!" he shook Kou to make him realize the importance of this one fact.

"Sei, I know, you told us!" Kou smiled at Shisei, who was to flustered to smile back.

"Well, with them participating, there must be something going on." Chiro said. Sei nodded, agreeing with this theory. "Okay, then we better get ready for the worst. When does the boat come?" he asked.

"Next Tuesday, then we stay on the island for as long as it takes!" Shisei smiled at Chiro. "Now that that's been taken care off, let's finish practicing." Shisei took out his deck, Kou smiled and got ready for another duel.

The days that took Kou to next Tuesday were quick and unnecessary. He didn't really hear anything that happened in his classes. Shisei wasn't even as attentive as usual. He had two separate decks now, one that was made specially to take on Yugi, and another that utilized his old strategy of only magic and trap cards. Chiro had his own deck "in his soul" and it would change the cards of Kou's deck whenever he needed to use it in a duel. Kou, though physically prepared, hadn't done any work on his deck. "I'll win with my old strategies Sei!" he continued to say to Shisei whenever Sei asked him about how his deck preparation was coming.

"Okay, if you say so." Shisei would then respond, pretending like he had finally accepted this answer. But he would ask this to Kou several times a day anyways.

Yes, by the time the tournament day had arrived, Kou was up and ready. He met Shisei, who was close to having a panic attack, near the docks. After some encouragement, they were both headed toward boat 19. "Well, this is it." Kou said, looking up at the huge hull that would take them to the Dragoon Island Tournament. "Let's get on." Kou jumped over the side of the ship, ignoring the line. Unfortunately, Shisei's physical limits kept him from following.

"Kou!" he yelled after him, but Kou was long gone. So instead, he sidled into the line as easily as pie. 'Leaving me like this, bastard!"' Sei thought furiously. just then, a finger tapped his shoulder. He spun around quickly, to see… "Namia!"

Namia, a female that Kou and Shisei had met in their last tournament, was standing right behind a shocked Shisei. "Hey there!" she exclaimed, hugging him. Shisei blushed furiously at this.

"Um, hi yourself!" he said, separating himself from her. "What are you here for? Did Osmos…" he trailed off, not really wanting to think of Osmos. Namia picked up the hint and simply nodded a response.

"Is Kou here? Where did he go?" she knew he was here, but she had to make sure. She felt breathless when it came to Kou sometimes.

Shisei pointed to the large hull. "He's already on the boat. Hey, Namia!" Shisei suddenly looked at her as though in a whole new light. "Do you… I mean, Kou and me need a third member for our team, you know, so we can try and face Kaiba, Yugi, and Joey as a whole…" he began. Namia got the message.

"Of course I'll be on your team!" she exclaimed, about to embrace him again, but before she could, the guard took Shisei's arm with the duel disk on it, and scanned it.

"In!" he commanded gruffly. Shisei stepped over the docks and onto the ship, followed moments later by a flustered Namia.

"Well, look who finally decided to show up!" Kou yelled at Shisei, and then he saw Namia. "Namia, hi." he said lamely. Namia waved, though she was only four or five feet away from Kou. "Are you… in the tournament?" he asked. She responded by nodding weakly. "Oh, good then." he said.

Shisei looked back and forth at the two of them, clearly amused. He was about to make conversation when Chiro rudely appeared in his astral form and said: "Hello again, aren't you going to thank us for saving you?" he asked rudely. Shisei winced as Namia blinked in confusion at first, but then glared at Chiro.

"Kou… What the hell is this supposed to mean!" she clearly thought this was some sort of practical joke by Kou, and hit him over the head. "How dare you, after meeting me again, you start this nonsense, and OH!" she finished hitting him to let him explain how Chiro was actually a sort of ghost. At hearing this, she paled. "You mean.." Shisei burst out laughing and Namia blushed, rubbing Kou's sore spot. "Sorry." she muttered. Kou shrugged it off.

"No biggie, a lot of people hit me." he then smiled. "So, um, do you have a team?" he asked. Namia smiled happily.

"Yep, Shisei invited me to join yours!" she beamed at him. Kou smiled wider.

"Alright, then we'll put our names on the registry list!" he said. That they did. After they finished with the list, they went and stared out at the ocean. "I can't wait." Kou stated. The sun was setting as the boat took off. "We'll be the best." he finished.

"Yeah, the best team of duelists." Namia added.

"The world will ever see!" Shisei said enthusiastically.

"Or become the world's biggest team of losers trying!" Chiro yelled valiantly. Kou, Namia, and Shisei stared at him. "What?" Chiro asked. Then all four of them cracked up laughing. Not caring about the strange stares they earned.

After a very long time, the boat had finally reached the mainland. It took even longer for the announcements to be made by a few "underlings" as Kou rudely referred to tournament officials. But after that, they were off, into the forests of the Island, the goal was to make it to the castle on Dragoon Rock before the end of 3 days, with the fingers needed.

Kou had been the first to take off, it took a while for Shisei and Namia to catch up to him. "What took you guys so long?" Kou asked, tapping his foot impatiently. His other team members rolled their eyes. "Never mind, I just found a sweet spot for dueling!" he said, he pushed back some overhang to reveal a clearing.

"Yeah, sweet, but someone already found it." Namia said, pointing at an odd looking woman, standing in the clearing. "Maybe you should duel her!" Namia exclaimed, proud of her idea. Kou was ready for it as well.

"HEY!" he yelled the woman looked up. She was a petite woman that wore many rings and bangles, her head was covered with a veil and she had sunglasses that covered her eyes. Her skin was milky white. "I challenge you to a duel!" Kou smiled, just happy to be able to say the sentence.

The woman looked at him, sizing him up. "You shall lose, but, I will duel you." she said simply. She adjusted her duel disk, as did Kou, ignoring her threat. "As per the rules, I'll bet you a middle finger, and you will bet your index." she stated. Kou nodded in acknowledgement, hanging his finger on a low hanging branch. "My angels shall demolish you boy, there is no turning back." she finished. Her voice was sickly. She was also wearing a pure white robe.

"So you say!" Kou prepared himself for his first duel, on Dragoon Island. "I didn't get your name, though." he commented.

The woman smiled, and ejected her disk's holo projectors. "You may call me, Oracle." she told him hoarsely, drawing her five card hand.

Kou-8000

Oracle-8000

Next time: The duel against Oracle proves to be more than a tough one for Kou. He brings out all the stops, but her angels hold more abilities than any other monsters he's seen. Can Kou win his match and her finger? Find out next time, on Duel Monsters: Maximum!