"Breaking News! Seto Kaiba is at it again! Three weeks from now, Kaiba is hosting a tournament that'll hit national all over Japan. Rumors say it may go global again for another Grand Prix tournament like the one seven months before. However this time, Mr. Kaiba agrees to collaborate with Mr. Maximillion Pegasus…"
The television set in the living room blasted at high volume out at the elderly Mutou, who stood with his arms cross, staring intently at the news broadcast prating about another Duel Monsters tournament. Yuugi, with of course the Pharaoh close by in his apparition form, stopped dead in his tracks before entering the kitchen, and motioned his way slowly towards the living room. His large orbs looked curiously at the television screen, glancing at his grandfather briefly before returning his gaze towards the television.
"Another tournament? Already?" Yuugi inquired in shock. He saw his grandpa nod his head.
"Yes. And apparently Kaiba is going to work with Pegasus this time."
Yuugi thought back on the encounter with Kaiba at the Game Shop. He wondered if meeting with him had anything to do with the tournament that just declared itself to the public.
"More information on the tournament will be notified later tonight. You may visit our news website or call the Kaiba Corporation's number for further details."
"Well, lucky you, Yuugi. Another tournament just for fun. With Pegasus to make things more interesting, who knows the possibilities this tournament may bring!" Grandpa Mutou exclaimed with an optimistic smile forming in his old features. He approached his grandson, patting his shoulder before making his way to the kitchen.
"More like the possibilities of more danger, if you ask me," Yuugi thought to himself, scratching the back of his head as he watched his grandpa walk off to the other section of the house. He knew this for certain: whenever a tournament was made known to him (and especially him), weird things coincide with the tournament. The Grand Prix tournament was close to being normal, but not quite when Kaiba's personal issues crossed paths with him. Who would've thought that he had to save the day yet again? When this thought was made clearly in his mind, he can hear the spirit laughing in their mind link. Not long after, the Pharaoh made his presence known as he stood before the smaller tri-colored haired male.
"Fear not, Yuugi. Don't let our destiny get in the way of what you want to do. If something does happen, let it. We can always take care of it," the Pharaoh assured.
"Yeah but…"
The Pharaoh stopped Yuugi with a wag of his finger. "Where was that optimism of yours earlier? I thought we had agreed to let things happen as they should."
Yuugi nodded his head, smiling. "Yeah, I know Pharaoh. But I don't want you to feel like you're responsible for everything."
The Pharaoh chuckled lightly, approaching the younger Yuugi and placing his hand on the other's shoulder gently. "I appreciate your concern, but you do realize that I am not alone, right?"
Yuugi grinned. "Right! We're doing this together!"
"Alright! That's what I wanted to hear," the Pharaoh returned the enthusiasm with a confident smile of his own. "And like you stated: who knows? It may actually be fun this time."
"Right!" Yuugi chimed in with an excited expression. "Whoa! I gotta call the others. They have to hear this!" and with that, the young teen dashed up the stairs to find his cell phone; he had to go through a hassle of his cluttered belongings to find his cell phone buried underneath his clothes. "Geez…I really need to clean my room," he muttered to himself. When he finally got a hold of it, he dialed the number and the phone began to ring.
"Heeello," drawled the familiar voice with a strange accent.
"Hey Jounouchi! Did you hear about the…"—
"Yeah! I sure did!" interrupted the blonde. "I'm actually right in front of your Game Shop. Along with Anzu, Honda, and Ryou. Come on out, little bud."
Yuugi flustered a bit, seemingly caught up short. He should've known that his friends would be right on top as he was. "R-Right…of course."
"Well? Get going, Yuge!"
Yuugi immediately hung up the phone, threw his clothes together on him and speeded down the stairs, yelling a brief farewell to his grandfather and went outside to meet his friends standing there with smiles on their faces. Yuugi had to smile back; he was always glad to be with his friends.
"Hey guys!"
"Heya Yuge, we were waitin' for ya," Jounouchi spoke first, holding up the cell phone in his hand that was utilized for their conversation minutes ago, obviously as an instrument of tease.
"Don't listen to him, Yuugi," Honda said, shaking his head. "We just got here."
"Yeah, and we would have been here sooner if Jounouchi didn't act so rudely to an elderly woman along the way," chimed in Ryou, who gave a disappointed look at the blonde male. His eyebrows were crooked, altering his features to look uneasy.
"Elderly woman?" Yuugi uttered, staring at Jounouchi curiously who turned away a bit, muttering to himself. "What happened?"
"Well, she was coming at our direction and we were moving her direction. So as soon as we were close enough, the woman approached us and seemed like she was asking us directions," Anzu explained, her face growing more irritated as she thought about the situation.
Yuugi wasn't quite catching on. "Seemed?"
"Well, she was foreign. She was speaking in another language. But we could tell she was lost because she was holding a map to us," Honda clarified, Anzu nodding her head as if to agree with him. "So we were kind of at a loss of what to do."
"And then this big-mouth over here rudely got angry with the woman and told her in our native tongue that we didn't understand and we can't help her. I mean, it was true, but he was so rude. Then the lady was mad at us and began yelling at us in her native tongue…" Anzu continued, shaking her head with a heavy sigh.
"And things just escalated from there," Ryou finished.
It was kind of comical that Yuugi's friends ran into this, but what else was there to say about it? All he could do was laugh at them. "Well, there's another odd story to tell to others, right?" he said.
"I suppose," Anzu turned her gaze to Jounouchi, then approached him giving him a smack on the forehead. "If you weren't so rude, we would have not been delayed for a good fifteen minutes."
"What? I said I was sorry! What else do you want me to do?" Jounouchi cried irritably.
"To never act that way again."
"Well I don't see anymore more old ladies to redeem myself, Anzu."
"I'm just saying…in the near future, don't do something like that."
"Alright, alright. Sheesh," the blonde looked to Yuugi with a pleading look in his eyes. This was typically what happens. Anzu was like the mother figure to Jounouchi, especially when the blonde got himself into trouble. It was actually very amusing to watch them both go at it. Not that Yuugi never been victimized of Anzu's nagging; there were times when Anzu was upset with Yuugi's poor decisions and would nag him about how he shouldn't have done this, to act more responsible, and etc. He supposed being the only girl in the group can do that.
"Yuugi, do something. Make her shut up. She'll listen to you," Jounouchi said, receiving a deadly look from the tomboy.
"I have a suggestion!" Ryou said loudly, grabbing the attention of the group. "Why don't we move along and attend to our business…which by the way…what is it that we're going to do?"
The gang had their lips parted slightly, but all of them closed their mouths slowly as they all began to ponder on it. They never really thought it through. They just thought about getting together.
"Well…information on the tournament is not until tonight," Yuugi mused. "Maybe we should go and check things out for ourselves?" he continued with a questioning tone of voice.
"You mean go visit Kaiba?" Honda pitched in, receiving a nasty look from his close blonde friend adjacent to him. They all had to laugh at him already, before Jounouchi can make a crass remark about the CEO of Kaiba Corporation. Those two always had a long history of hiss and bark, but what can they do? With Jounouchi's stubborn attitude and Kaiba's willingness to prolong the argument, especially by means of humiliating the blonde male, there was no stopping their rivalry.
"How about we simply walk around? Wondering aimlessly may get us somewhere in the long run," Ryou simply suggested.
"Yeah, I agree with Ryou!" Yuugi chirped brightly, beginning a head start as he power-walked towards the inner city of Domino, receiving calls from his friends behind him to wait up. The teen didn't want to admit it, but he has been feeling strange auras for the past couple of days, none that he ever mentioned to the Pharaoh especially. It would only make him worry, as if the ancient spirit was not worried enough. And as host, he did his hardest to block some of his mind off from the spirit. He wondered if this was to the Pharaoh's knowledge. He sure hoped not. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt the spirit.
"Yuugi? What are you doing just standing there? We're going now!" Anzu called out to the petite male, waving her one hand in the air to catch Yuugi's attention. Apparently having lost himself in thought, Yuugi snapped back to reality, his large violet orbs veering up to the scene before him, where his friends stood about a good distance ahead of him now. Chuckling awkwardly to himself, scratching his chin lightly, he called out in response:
"Coming!"
He immediately caught up to them, receiving a tight embrace around his neck from Jounouchi, laughing teasingly when Yuugi reacted struggling to break from his strong grasp. The whole gang laughed; this was a typical way they hung out and little by little, it constantly fuels their bond. This day was just a small piece of the larger scope of their close relationship, and a small fragment of the big picture on which they spend so much time together. Sometimes, in these kinds of moments, the Pharaoh stands by with a warm smile on his face, receiving a subtle spark of bliss from watching this. It was a beautiful thing to see something so simple as friends having a good time together. He found this a great privilege to be a part of their lives.
He will never forget them.
His thoughts were disturbed when Yuugi, as he was about to presume walking, tripped over his own feet and collided with the hard ground beneath him, leaving the gang too stunned to say anything for a good five seconds. The Pharaoh stood there in shock as well, eyes widened, and his lips parted but no words came, for he was at a loss of words.
"Dude! Are you alright?" was Jounouchi's first utterance before a flush of pink reached his cheeks, his head thrown back as he began to laugh loudly. Then the blonde felt a sharp pain on his calf, almost causing him to fall on his knee, immediately averting to the source of his pain. He wasn't surprised to see a fuming Anzu standing adjacent to him, giving a deadly glare before approaching Yuugi's side.
"Hey, Yuugi. You okay?" she asked, reaching out to the short male's shoulders to help him stand on his feet. Yuugi responded with a groan, lifting himself to his hands and knees at first, face scrunched to indicate the pain he was feeling and with the help of Anzu, stood up again on his feet.
"I-I'm fine," he assured, but the cross-eyed look on his features suggested that he was a little dizzy.
"Whoa, Yuugi, you really should be careful," Ryou chimed in, reaching over to brush off some of the dust from his clothes. "Oh! Yuugi, a piece of your puzzle is out of place…" as the white-haired male reached over to push the piece back in place, he felt a sharp jolt surge through his entire body, causing him to yelp and back away a good five feet. The whole gang saw this and they turned to Ryou, again dumbfounded of what just occurred. Yuugi, with his nerves regaining composure, noticed this sudden act by Ryou and arched an eyebrow in bewilderment.
"Bakura, are you okay?" Honda inquired, approaching the white-haired male curiously. "Is it because of the connection with Yuugi…maybe like…you felt the pain that he felt?"
"Whoa now, you're just becoming complicated, Honda. There's no way it can work like dat. I mean, sure they have their Sennen item thingy…" Jounouchi said, rubbing the back of his head as he looked from Ryou to Yuugi and then back to Ryou.
"I-It's nothing," Ryou lied with a weak smile, not very convincing to the most observant of persons, referring to the Pharaoh who stood idly by. He examined Ryou carefully; when the boy touched the Sennen Puzzle, he saw a spark between the ring and the puzzle. It was the aura of the ring's spirit's desires. The desire, the hatred, the darkness inside of the thief is so strong that it can actually be seen in its definite form as an aura, like energy. The thought of Bakura again reminded the Pharaoh of the dream the other night. He remembered the familiar laughter he heard in that particular chamber that apparently belonged to a clouded memory of his, holding a mysterious and powerful creature. There were connections; he knows this. But it was difficult to put the pieces together, especially since he did not have any to begin with.
Of course, he kept it to himself. This was something only he can deal with alone. His own personal memories. But now he knows that whenever it is most necessary, he will ask Yuugi for assistance. He recalled how the two of them had ventured into the world of the monster spirits within his puzzle. They can most certainly venture again through the intricate maze.
Yuugi blinked, seeing that Ryou was rubbing his hand soothingly, as if the touch of the puzzle had burned him. He wondered if it really had anything to do with the connection the two of them have, especially being hosts of spirits of the items. But he decided against prolonging this situation. "I'm fine guys, really," Yuugi spoke out, making it seem that they were still in the topic of him being clumsy enough to trip. Despite the past situation, Yuugi began running again, yelling back at his friends saying: "Last one to the pizza place has to buy us all pizza!"
"OH! You're ON!!!" Jounouchi exclaimed in a determined voice as he sprinted after Yuugi, followed by the rest of the group, laughing along the way. It was moments like these where danger subtly creeps along with them, and destiny was definitely making its move.