Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!
Chapter 42: Waking up Dead
Kouichi Nandao opened his violet eyes and moaned from his headache. 'Where am I?"' he looked around to see where he was and all the details of the day before came back to him. 'Oh yeah, I'm in hell…."' he sighed and glimpsed his surroundings.
He looked to be in a cemetery of sorts, there were many things that didn't look as though they belonged anywhere on the human realm. Coffins lined with red velvet and red decapitated bodies of odd creatures. Small gremlin like things occasionally ran by him. 'Chiro, do you know where we are?"' Kou asked his alter ego. 'Wait!"' Suddenly the thoughts of Chiro losing to Kamishiro came to him and he realized that Chiro was already dead, according to Kamishiro. 'He's…dead."' Kou fell to his knees in defeat, he had lost the duel and was now stuck in this odd realm, Kamishiro would be free to go after his friends easily.
Just as he had given up, a loud sound, like the chime of a clock, escaped into the air around him and the cemetery. Kou looked up and saw in the distance a large oddly figured clock. 'Don't have anything else to try, I always wanted to die in a clock tower anyway."' Kou thought dejectedly. He picked himself up off the ground and walked farther into the shroud of mists encircling the strange place.
Kaiba rolled his eyes as he tried to remind himself why he was dueling a kid. 'Oh yeah, Yugi would probably pull one of his sideshow victories off without that Blue Eyes card the kid has."' he remembered. Ryuko was jumping up and down in excitement, he was going to get the three Blue-Eyes cards he always wanted.
"Want me to go first, or do you-" Ryuko began, but was suddenly bashed on the head by Shisei. "OW! What the heck did you do that for! Loser!" Ryuko glared at the taller and older blond boy. Shisei rolled his eyes and ignored the insult.
"I did that because this is really stupid." Sei explained as though it was obvious. Namia approached the boys, having a hunch of what Sei was going to tell Ryuko, she wanted to reinforce his opinion as she agreed with him.
"Shisei's right," she began, getting a glare from Ryuko. "this match is going to be way to hard for you, and if you lose, which will most likely happen," she continued. Ryuko still hadn't stopped glaring. "then you'll lose your Grandfather's heirloom. Do you really want that to happen?" Namia looked at the boy, waiting for an answer.
"I'm just trying to do what my grandfather wanted, and let him rest with all of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon cards!" Ryuko retorted. Shisei sighed and bonked Ryuko again. "WHY DO YOU KEEP DOING THAT!" Ryuko asked with a growl and a half glare, considering Sei's hand was still firmly atop his head, he couldn't look up to do a full glare.
"I did that one because your grandfather probably wants you to keep that card, not risk losing it to some puddle of slime." then, with a look at Kaiba, he added: "No offense." Kaiba only rolled his eyes and muttered something that sounded an awful lot like "dorks".
"Look kid, I didn't stand a chance against Kaiba when I dueled him, and, I hate to say it, but Yugi came pretty close to losing whenever they duel." Joey added. Ryuko growled even louder, then kicked Shisei in the knee and hopped away before anyone could stop him.
"I'm dueling this loser, and that's final!" Ryuko activated his disk and everybody gulped.
Kou sighed, having finally reached the tower he discovered that it was, not only closed, but there was no entrance to it at all. No doors, windows, nothing. Instead of making a ruckus by breaking in through solid wall he decided to freeze his butt off in the cold. 'Okay, I think I'll make a ruckus now."' he thought. Lifting himself up, he walked into the cemetery to look for a grave digging tool, like a shovel, pickaxe, anything he could use.
That was when he saw them. Two gravestones that were decorated beautifully. There was a pit of soil where the coffin would go in one of them, in other words, it was void of a dead person. The other already had a coffin in it by the looks of the grass growing in front of it. But the gravestones or the graves weren't the things that scared Kou. It was the names on them. 'Chiro, Kouichi…"' he gulped and tried not to look at the one marked with his name. BAM. There was a sudden burst of soil and chunks of rock into the air as Chiro's coffin rose from the grave. Kou gulped and approached it slowly. It had no lid, so he could clearly see Chiro's body, pale and lifeless.
"I think he looks better that way, don't you?" a voice, deep and mellow, asked from the darkness of the mysterious cemetery. Kou jumped literally ten feet into the hair.
"AGHHH!" he came back down and unsheathed his blade, looking around the darkness for his "attacker". There was no one near him. Yet.
"I see your easy to scare, better produce a form then…" Suddenly, one of the other coffins burst through the ground and opened to have man in a black cloak smile as he appeared. "Welcome to the depths of the Shadow Realm. Most human souls cannot take the pressure of being in such a mystical place." the mysterious cloaked man began. Kou just wanted to cut him in half and run as far away from the "dead" body as possible.
"Why am I able to survive then?" he asked this instead of slicing him in half madly.
"You are dead." the shadowed man said calmly. Kou blinked.
"WHAT!" he yelled in question at the man.
"Well, for the time being, but I am willing to give you a chance to return to the realm of the living." the man replied to Kou's surprise.
Kou jumped at that chance. "Okay, what do I do?" he asked. He didn't really care about the details of this realm, if he was dead, than he'd be trapped here forever anyway, and that was apparently the worst of the Shadow Realm's magic.
"First of all, if you choose to take this task, you will be fighting for the Seal Holder," the man pointed to Chiro, laying as stiff as any dead man. "as well." he stated. Kou almost forgot to ask about saving Chiro.
"Of course I want to save him, just tell me how." Kou said, now the fear of being trapped here was erased. His new fear, however, was that he wouldn't win and that Chiro would forever remain in this horrible place, in a slumber of a coffin.
"My challenge is a duel, you have already faced Oracle, no?" the man asked, receiving a nod in reply. "Then prepare, for now you must face your darker side, I am Shadow, and my Demons will demolish your soul from this realm!" Shadow laughed evilly and Kou smirked.
"I'm all to used to crazy idiots by now, so bring on the pain!" his deck was inserted into a duel disk he didn't remember having, and Shadow smirked as the field around them shifted to accommodate the duel. "Let's get this show on the road." Kou drew first.
Ryuko yawned as Kaiba drew. Kaiba looked his hand over and smirked. "Sorry our duel couldn't have lasted longer kid." he stated.
Ryuko glared. "No way you drew an opening combo that could beat me!" he growled at Kaiba's arrogance.
"If you say so." Kaiba calmly put a card on his disk. "I summon Cyber-Stein (700/500) in defense mode." An odd Frankenstein like monster appeared and moaned.
"I can see this is going to devastate me." Ryuko muttered sarcastically.
"It will, I activate my monsters Special Ability now! I pay 5000 LP!" Kaiba smirked and his beast shrieked, decreasing his LP.
Kaiba-3000
Ryuko-8000
Ryuko snickered as Kaiba removed a card from his side deck. "Now I can Special Summon any monster from my fusion deck. Say hello, to the Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon (4500/3800) in attack mode!" Kaiba laughed with joy and pride at having his mightiest beast on the field.
"You bastard, how dare you use that card! For this, I'll defeat you slowly!" Ryuko threatened. Kaiba rolled his eyes at Ryuko.
"You won't be defeating me in this match, and probably not any other. Now I play Megamorph, and because of Cyber-Stein's effect, I have lower LP that yours increasing Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon's (9000/3800) attack by double!" Kaiba laughed hysterically as he played yet another card. "It's over, I activate Quick Attack, allowing my greatest beast to attack you directly right now!" Ryuko had prayed that he got something good on his next turn, as he knew Kaiba couldn't attack this turn. Then his eyes went wide when Kaiba had activated Quick Attack.
Kaiba-12000
Ryuko-0
"Ho-how did you!" Ryuko fell to his knees in defeat as he saw the LP score.
"I chained your demise with my Mystik Wok, which allowed me to sacrifice Blue-Eyes Ultimate to make sure I didn't lose any LP to a wretch like you. Now give me that card." Kaiba demanded. Shisei was about to protest, but Yami shook his head. Ryuko felt tears in his eyes as he handed the betted card to the young CEO standing over him. "Thank-you. Perhaps next time you'll learn not to insult the Kaiba family, or ever to challenge me to a duel." Kaiba smirked and left towards Mokuba, who had been whistling and cheering for the whole minute and a half the duel lasted.
"Osmos, I've entertained your guest, that loser," Kaiba began, pointing at Shisei. "won't beat Yugi, so I think we can all forget about this pathetic tournament, I already have." with this said, the brown haired boy left the stadium with his little brother in tow, not halfway out the door before calling his private helicopter to the seen to pick them up. Shisei glared as he disappeared and helped Ryuko to his feet.
"Looks like you guys were r-right." Ryuko sniffled. Then he trudged to his place on the sidelines, looking away from his deck and yet still looking at the floor in defeat. Namia pushed Sei forward for his match.
"Don't worry, I'll cheer him up…somehow, you have to win against Yugi!" Namia smiled weakly. She knew this was Shisei's greatest ambition since he got into Duel Monsters. He always wanted to stand amongst the top as the King of Games (and puzzles) but now, when so much was at stake….
'I can't give up though."' the blond boy nodded and reported to the center of the arena, switching his deck with the one he perfected the night before.
"Are you ready to finish this, Mr… um?" Yami began, puzzled by not knowing Sei's name.
"Shisei Aragashi, and your Yugi Moto." Shisei stated. Yami nodded. "Then I suppose we should start huh?" Shisei readied his disk and Yami did the same. This was his dream, dueling against the best and brightest in the dueling world. But, for some odd reason, it just wasn't the same as he had pictured it.
Next time: The duels between Shisei and Yami and Kou and Shadow are more than stressful for the boys, but Kou's is truly stretching. Dealing with the deadly influence of the Shadow Depths, he focuses as hard as he can to contain whatever evils are buried inside of himself,. Meanwhile, Shisei is all duel and no talk… And he's shockingly winning with a new strategy that not many have seen act so perfectly. But when Yugi brings an Egyptian God card to the field, Sei's in for it. Can the best of friends prevail in their duels when they aren't together? Find out next time on Duel Monsters: Maximum.
