Ryou nodded, drawing five cards from his deck to form his hand. He glanced over at his yami. This would be the most important game he ever played. If he won, he would be able to save his yami from a second death, and bring him back to life, in his own body. It would be the ultimate gift, a chance to be together with the only person he believed ever cared about him. And if he lost, he would die right along with him.
Ryou Bakura tried to shake the fear of failure from his mind.
"I can't think like that…" he whispered to himself. "I have to concentrate… to win…"
The thief Bakura could do nothing but watch, astonished that someone had the gall to challenge Osiris, lord of the dead, on his behalf. What astonished him even more was that it was his hikari.
"Draw your cards, then, mortal." Osiris ordered, as a golden dueling disk appeared on his left arm. He pulled five cards from his deck, carefully studying each one. "I will allow you to take the first turn."
"Okay…" Ryou whispered, and drew a sixth card. He glanced through his hand. There were some powerful monsters, ones he recognized from all his yami's duels. But he didn't have the means of summoning them to the field so early in the game. "I will play one card face down, and summon my Archfiend Soldier to the field in attack mode."
Ryou inserted the cards in his duel disk, and watched as mystical monsters appeared the chamber.
"A deck of demons." Anubis stared at the fiend as it arched its back and drew its sword. Its green cloak billowed in the surrounding fog. Ryou coughed a little. The air reeked of sulfur. "I should have expected as much. Lord Osiris, destroy him quickly! He shall pay for breaching the sanctity of this tribunal."
The lord of the dead nodded, and studied his hand again.
"Very few have managed to challenge me." He added, standing proudly over the other forty-two deities. "And none of them survive to tell the tale."
"Well… let this be the first, I guess… I end my turn…" Ryou whispered. "It's… it's your move, Osiris."
The thief Bakura could only watch.
"Ryou, do you even know what the hell you're doing!" he whispered under his breath. Challenging the master of the underworld to a card game was probably the most ludicrous thing he could possibly think of. No more ludicrous, however, than marching into the pharaoh's court with the former king's mummy on one's back… but that, of course, was a different story.
Osiris drew a card from the top of his deck.
"We will see how strong you are, mortal."
The god laid a trap card face down on the field.
"Now, I play Tribute to the Doomed." He declared. "A fitting first card. All I need to do is discard one card, and I can destroy this monstrosity."
Osiris pointed scornfully to the archfiend soldier, who withered and died on his command.
"And I play Soul Eater in attack mode."
A fish jumped from the floor of the chamber as though it were a vast ocean. Bearing its teeth, the monster lunged at Ryou. He could feel its teeth bearing into his heart as it passed through him. His life points fell to 6800.
"And I will play one more card face down. It is your turn." Osiris nodded, looking at the three other cards in his hand.
Ryou studied his cards as well, glancing over at his yami every few moments. That was, of course, the very reason he was having this duel.
"Right. My move…" Ryou drew another card, a giant germ. "This could come in handy later…"
He pulled a card from his hand and displayed it confidently to Osiris.
"I play Manju of the Ten Thousand Hands."
Another massive creature appeared in front of him, a nightmarish fairy constructed completely out of decapitated hands.
"And this monster has a special effect. It… It allows me to draw a ritual card from my deck when it is summoned. And I know just the card I want."
Ryou searched through his yami's deck, and pulled out one of the most frightening cards – a ritual magic card entitled Contract with the Dark Master. The card depicted the thief's entire reason for existence, to put it frankly. It was based on the dark ritual that would summon the God of Darkness from the shadows into the real world. It was a ritual that Ryou had often tried to stop, and yet, here he was, holding the cards in his hand that would make such a ritual happen right here and now.
"My creature… fillets your fish…" he pointed, as the beast attacked.
Osiris rocked forward, feeling the life points draining from his spirit. Although it was a weak attack, the god's life points only decreasing from 8000 to 7800, Ryou still felt it was a great success.
"And that's only the beginning… I… I will free my yami."
He then flipped over his face down card, revealing the first letter in the Ouija board combination his yami had so famously attempted in the Battle City Finals.
"That's… that's the Ouija board…" the thief whispered, watching Ryou duel. Still chained, he struggled to sit upright. "He really is using my deck."
Bakura silently wished his hikari had chosen a different deck. Somehow, he knew Osiris would likely have the saint dragon bearing his own name hidden somewhere in that deck. Bakura also knew his deck had faced the mighty god card before, and it had failed.
"That's the deck that got him into all that trouble." Bakura whispered to himself, this time, loud enough to catch Ryou's attention. "It got him put in the hospital, it almost got him killed by the pharaoh when that tombkeeper pulled me out of his mind."
"Yami…" Ryou glanced down at him. Even though the thief had tried to muffle his voice, Ryou still heard him clearly. "When you used this deck, you… you saved my life."
Bakura just blinked.
"I'm returning the favor… And… and more…" he smiled, but quickly returned his attention to the duel at hand. "I end my turn."
"Sentimentality will get you nowhere." Osiris exclaimed.
The deity drew a card, and held it in the air.
"I summon a Man with Wdjat!" he added, as a man appeared in front of the grotesque fairy creature. "I also flip this face down card. Allow me to explain it to you."
Ryou strained to see through the summoning fog.
"It is called the coffin seller. According to this card, each time your opponent's monster cards are sent to the graveyard, 300 points of damage is done to your life points." He added. "Now, my servant, attack this Manju of the ten thousand hands, and put it where it belongs."
The man did so. The eye of Wdjat opened, allowing beams of white light shooting from his fingertips. The monster on Ryou's side of the field exploded, taking some of Ryou's life points along with it.
And with the trap card, Coffin Seller, in play, his life points dropped even lower, to 6300.
"I end my turn." Osiris added, pleased with his most recent move.
"Good. That allows me to play the next letter of my Ouija board…" Ryou whispered timidly.
He knew this was a difficult combination to play. He had watched his yami attempt it, but only with the extra power afforded by Dark Sanctuary. He didn't have such a luxury yet, and he knew it was only a matter of time until Osiris drew a card that could wipe out one of the letters. Once one letter was destroyed, Ryou thought to himself, all of them go straight to the graveyard.
He pulled the letter E from his deck, and added it to the field. The demonic letters glistened over his head, reminding the mighty deity that he only had three more turns to go before Ryou won the duel by default.
"Now, the first thing I'm… I'm going to do is to use a… one of my Mystical Space Typhoon magic cards. It allows me to destroy one magic or trap card on the field. And I choose your Coffin Seller."
The trap vanished. Ryou wouldn't lose any more life points that way.
"I also play a monster face down, in defense mode. And I end my turn…"
Osiris studied the back of the face down card for several minutes before returning his gaze to his hand.
"Very well." The lord of the dead cleared his throat. Anubis looked on from his right side with much anticipation. The king of thieves looked on from his left, with just as much anticipation.
"I summon the Hand of Nephthys." Osiris commanded, and a proud woman rose from beneath the chamber floor. Clad completely in red and gold, she sprouted the fiery wings of a phoenix. They were, however, quite faint, compared to the rest of her armor. "But she will not remain on my side of the field for long. I sacrifice her, along with my other creature, to bring out something far more powerful!"
The woman fell, revealing a giant gold creature. Its wings stretched across half of the tribunal seats, and its claws dug at least two feet into the chamber floor.
"Behold, the Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys!"
Ryou's knees quaked with fear. The beast had 2400 attack points, far more than his face-down monster.
"And with that I end my turn." Osiris added.
Ryou blinked. He was surprised that the deity did not attack that turn.
"What are you waiting for, my lord?" the jackal-headed Anubis called out from the sidelines of the duel.
"Why didn't he attack?" the thief wondered aloud as well.
"He must be afraid of my face down monster…" Ryou whispered to himself. "… That could be good, or it could be bad…"
The former host of the millennium ring shuffled through his deck, pulling out the next letter of the Ouija board combination. The A was added to the array of letters that glistened behind his head.
Ryou drew another card, and studied it. It was the H, the final card in the combination, something he couldn't play just yet. He had no other monsters he could summon, so he was forced to end his turn.
"Your move, Osiris."
He took a deep breath. There were only two more turns before the Ouija board would be complete. If he could finish the word, his yami would be free to return to life, in his own body. They would be together.
Ryou glanced over at his yami, who stared back. His yami's face covered several emotions all at once. Shock and disbelief, anticipation, even what looked like fright. "Could he honestly be concerned about what could happen to me… if… if I lose?" Ryou whispered under his breath. "… Yami?"
The thief shook his head, snapping out of the duel-induced trance.
"Don't take your eyes off him for a second!" he shouted back. He was tired of sitting idly by while someone else dueled for his life. The least he could do was scream a little advice. "Not until he's dead! Gods are all alike – they'll trick you and kill you! "
"Silence, thief!" Anubis bellowed, striking his staff against the stone floor.
Ryou only nodded.
"Your move… I'm… I'm waiting…"
Osiris drew a card from his deck, and placed it face down on the field.
"I play this monster in defense mode." He added. Osiris watched his opponent carefully. It seemed as though Ryou wanted him to attack. As long as that intention was clear, Osiris would keep his opponent waiting.
The right card was close at hand. It was only a matter of time until he drew it into his hand. Fate would see to that.
"And now I end my turn."
Again, Ryou only blinked.
"That's fine… fine with me." He nervously shouted. Searching through his deck, he drew the T, the second to last letter in the combination. "You have… You have one more turn before the Ouija board is complete. And as soon as it is, I will win this duel."
He must be biding his time, Ryou thought to himself. But for what?
The deity didn't answer.
"Then my move."
Ryou picked up the next card from the top of his deck. It was the Dark Necrofear. Ryou gazed at the card for what felt like an eternity. This was his yami's most precious card. He knew it wasn't the strongest card in the deck. That was likely his Invader of Darkness, with 2900 attack points. This card only had 2200 attack points. But its strength was in its effect. It could steal more powerful monsters, much like Ryou's favorite card, the Change of Heart.
"Wow… he… he isn't that different from me, I guess…" Ryou looked down at the card in his hand. The blue-skinned fiend was clutching the remains of a decapitated baby, the only thing she had left in the world. "We do the same things… We just call them by a different name…"
"Make your move, mortal!" Osiris called out, standing proudly behind his podium. "If I have but one more turn, I would like to go ahead and draw the card necessary to destroy your Ouija board."
Ryou quickly looked through his hand. With so few fiend cards in his graveyard, there was nothing else he could do.
"I… I end my turn." Ryou whispered. "This one… will be your last."