Yami smirked, finding grim satisfaction in appealing to Jounouchi's penchant for revenge. Yuugi was just happy that their friend was accepting of their weird situation, and relieved that Jounouchi did not think they did something bad.

"The first thing you could do," Yami explained, "is help us design a Shadow Game that will both make the Director want to play, and also be forced to lose, or cheat if cheating is made a losing condition. As losing a Shadow Game is the only way another to be inflicted with a Penalty Game."

Jounouchi considered that for a moment. "You mean something like casino games? 'House always wins' and all that."

"Possibly," Yami allowed.

"Well, what game did ya play with Ushio?"

Yuugi hesitated. I don't think he'll like what happened. I don't want him to get too worked up or he'll hurt himself.

That is fine. We can admit to being reckless before we explain. That should lessen whatever reaction Jounouchi may have. "Admittedly, the game we designed was for Ushio was not the safest thing we could have done."

He raised an eyebrow. "Yeah?"

"Yuugi's Grandfather was able to give us some money behind our back, and we wagered it in a test of courage."

Yuugi positioned a fist over the back of their other hand. "With Ushio's knife, we had to stab as many ten-thousand-yen bills as we could without stabbing the back of our hands."

"Woah, what?! Why would you do that?! Are you okay?!"

"We're fine Jounouchi."

"But you have healing powers, now! How do I know ya didn't stab your hand and just let it heal?"

Yami blinked. "We had not thought of that. Either way, we didn't play to win, we were trying to make Ushio cheat. I promise you we were fine." Despite the close call.

Jounouchi deflated as he sighed. "Yuugi... and Yami, I guess. Ya gotta stop it with all these crazy reveals. Next thing I know, you'll be telling me the sky is pink."

"Uh, Sorry," said Yuugi meekly.

"Nah, don't worry. Nothing you can do about it, can ya? Anyway," he shook himself back into a more upright posture. "How'd you get Ushio to cheat then?"

Yami explained. "The interesting thing about a Shadow Game is that it brings the basest desires of a person to the forefront. We knew that Ushio was both greedy and selfish, and we used that to our advantage. Eventually, the game reached a point so that Ushio's greed for the money would contradict his self-worth. Due to the magic of the Shadow Game, he physically could not stab enough bills to satiate his greed without stabbing his hand in the process. Thus, he took his only option and cheated, and then we won."

Jounouchi looked up at the ceiling for a moment. "Yeah, I can see that." He stroked his chin and hummed. "Why don't just use the same game, since it worked the first time?"

Both Yuugi and Yami grimaced.

I absolutely will not put you through that again, said Yami.

We both didn't cope well with the knife, didn't we? But even then, "I don't know. The director probably doesn't care much for money, so there's no guarantee the same thing will happen again. And besides, the money has already been stabbed, so we couldn't play that game if we tried."

Jounouchi nodded. "Ah, yeah. Fair point. So, what about the director guy, is there anything about him that will make him wanna cheat at something?"

Yuugi crossed their arms. "He's violent, and he's sure of his power. He kicked you just because he could."

Jounouchi cursed under his breath. "I don't think I wanna play a game where he might choose ta beat us up instead. 'Specially if we can't fight back. What's even worse is that he's a damn lazy fighter."

Yuugi tilted their head, while Yami crossed their arms. "What do you mean by that?"

"When he, uh..." his face scrunched up, "kicked me, it was with his knee. Not a foot, or fist or anything. His hands were in his pockets as well. He chose the laziest way to hit me."

"That is a good observation," said Yami.

"Wait, really?"

"Think of it this way. If the director had something in his hand and wanted to hurt someone, what would he do."

"Well, he'd either smack 'em up the head with it or throw it at them."

"We may be able to use it to our advantage. He could provoke his violence while using relatively light items. Chess pieces or dice, as an example."

Jounouchi snorted. "Yeah, I'd rather get pelted with dice and stuff then get decked." Suddenly his face brightened. "What about some of the broken game pieces in the classroom? Like, that cracked dice we played with. If he threw it hard enough and it and broke it, could we use that as a way to win?"

"That," they said, "might work." They gave Jounouchi a blank look, and Jounouchi gave them an equally blank look, and then in the next moment, they were running through the halls at an almost breakneck pace. They would have been faster but getting kicked in the solar plexus twice in three days would naturally make a person slower than normal.

When they reached the classroom cupboards, Jounouchi leaned down to grab the Snakes & Ladders set, but only to flinch back with a hiss and mumbled a curse over his injuries. "Can you grab it, Yuugi? And Yami as well, I guess. Actually, now that I think about it, what do I call you when I want to talk to ya both?"

They pulled out the set and turned to Jounouchi. "What do you mean?" Yuugi asked.

"I mean, obviously I can't just keep calling you Yuugi and Yami, it'd be weird in public, and it sounds like I'm forgetting Yami until halfway through a sentence."

Their face reddened. "Um." Yami stuttered. "That is very kind of you, Jounouchi. However, I think it would be more," Yami hesitated, "inconspicuous if you were to call the both of us in tandem, 'Yuugi.' We should be able to understand if you mean the both of us through context."

Jounouchi hummed in dissatisfaction, then clicked his fingers. "Tell ya what, Yami. I'll come up with a nickname for you two," he said with a smile. "No one'll be able to tell anythin's weird at all!"

Yuugi was overcome with a sudden strong desire to hug their friend.

Yami smiled. "Thank you. You are a good friend, Jounouchi."

"Don't mention it." Jounouchi scratched his nose. "So, dice."

"Right, dice." Yuugi opened the box and took the die into his fingers to examine. It was a standard six-sided die, it was white with black dots representing the dots except for the one side which had a large red dot. It had a crack that ran perpendicular to the edge of the two and three sides. Neither end of the crack ran further than the middle of either face. Do you think it could break?

Looks can be deceiving, I think it would take more than a stiff throw to break it any further. But before that, we need to design the Shadow Game.

"If it's possible to break the dice," Yuugi thought out loud, "how can we use that in a Shadow Game."

Jounouchi had his fingers on his chin in a classic thinking pose as he leaned down to peer closer at the dice. "With a crack like that, if it broke, it'd probably be in two halves."

"The 'one' half and the 'six' half," said Yuugi.

Yami continued. "So, it could land on both one and six, making a seven."

"Yeah, but isn't that a bad thing?" Jounouchi asked. "If we're expectin' the director to break the dice, we'd want him to roll lower, not higher, right?"

Yami smirked. "Not if we design the game so that you have to aim for the lowest dice roll possible."

Jounouchi's jaw dropped before he covered his mouth with a fist. "Then it wouldn't matter what you rolled as long as the director rolled the seven!"

"That's it," exclaimed Yuugi, vibrating in excitement.

Yami forced him to calm down with a deep breath. "Yet we still run into the problem of guaranteeing the dice will break when and if the director throws it. Furthermore, we still need a way to convince him to play it."

All three boys turned silent and contemplative. Jounouchi took the die from Yuugi and Yami and took a closer look at it. He turned it this way and that, eyes squinted. Then he suggested, "What if we broke it now?"

Yami shook their head. "We would not be able to roll the die without showing that it is already in two halves."

"Yeah, but what if we glued it back together? It'd be easier to break then."

They perked up. "That might work. Though we would have to practice rolling without making the dice come apart."

"Perfect!" Jounouchi said with a grin. "You guys get some glue, I'm gonna try breaking this thing."

Yuugi and Yami searched through the cupboards in search of the adhesive, they managed to find sticky tape which would be difficult to work with and an unmelted tube of hot glue but without the glue gun to use it.

These cupboards are a mess.

Do the teachers have no care for organisation?

Wait, said Yuugi with furrowed eyebrows. Have we ever seen a teacher look through classroom cupboards?

Now that you mention it, I do not think so.

They both sighed. Then the mess is the students' fault.

After a bit more thorough digging, they managed to find some PVA glue. Perfect! They stood up to see Jounouchi pitching the die as hard as he could at the classroom wall. The dice landed on the floor with a series of clacks, still in one piece.

Jounouchi shrugged. "No dice."

Yami gave him a flat look, but the effect was ruined with Yuugi trying desperately not to laugh. "T-that was terrible," Yami struggled to say through Yuugi's convulses, "and you should be ashamed of yourself."

He pointed at them, "You're laughin' though."

"Yuugi is the one laughing at your pitiful attempt at humour," said Yami with a smile not his own. Yuugi, seriously?

But Yami, it was funny.

Jounouchi pouted. "At least someone likes my jokes." He picked up his dice and walked over to his desk. "I think I got a better idea." He rummaged through his bag and pulled out a flathead screwdriver.

"Why do have that," Yuugi asked.

"Door to my apartment's locked sometimes," he offered as an explanation.

"Okay...?"

Jounouchi chose not to elaborate as he set the die on his desk on its edge with the crack facing up. He placed the screwdriver just above the crack and then pushed. The screwdriver managed to embed itself into the die but showed no sign of breaking further. That was until Jounouchi lifted the screwdriver, lifting the die along with it, and then stabbed it all against the desk with a bang. One half of the desk flew across the classroom and landed near Anzu's desk while the other fell flat on Jounouchi's. He turned to them with an excitable grin. "See!"

Yami gave a wide-eyed nod.

"Nice one, Jounouchi!" Yuugi said.

Fortunately, the gluing process was a lot less complicated. They both practiced rolling dice after the glue dried, and it was easy to roll without breaking the die in half again when Yuugi showed them a technique he figured out which involved tilting the die off of their hand and onto the desk, instead of throwing the die across it.

"We keep rolling low, though," Yuugi commented after he rolled another one.

Jounouchi opened his mouth, but then pouted his lips in thought. "I was gonna say that I wasn't rolling low, but then I realised you meant the two of you." He shrugged. "Does it really matter though?"

"We want to make it look like that it would be easy for the director to win," Yami explained. "That way he'll be unfocused when it is his turn to roll, making it more likely that he will throw it. So, the higher we roll the better."

Jounouchi rolled the dice again, landing on a five. "Welp, I guess I'll be the one playin' then. Unless..." He looked back up at Yuugi and Yami. "Do you have to be the one playin' to make it a Shadow Game?"

Yami crossed their arms. "Technically, yes," he said tentatively.

"Well," Jounouchi sighed, "damn."

"However, the solution is simple enough; we elect you as our champion."

Yuugi elaborated. "So that way, you're playing for us instead of your own."

"Which should satisfy the prerequisite for initiating a Shadow Game."

Jounouchi nodded his head continuously. "Yeah, I'm liking the sound of that." He brought his arms up into a strongman pose and contorted his face into a demented smile that frankly should not even be possible. "Jounouchi the Champion!" He changed his pose. "King o' the dice," and changed it again. "The Meister of Rollin'!"

Not even Yami could not help but chuckle at their friend's antics. "Yes, all hail King Jounouchi. May his reign be long and prosperous." He shook their head. "Nevertheless, we have a suitable Shadow Game. Now we need a way to convince the Director to play it."

Jounouchi released his pose with a groan and rubbed his stomach. "Well, that's easy, just make it look like there's no way he could lose. He'll wanna play just to assert his dominance or whatever."

"And we could say that if there's a tie, he wins anyway as a part of the rules!" Yuugi added excitedly.

With that, they were finally ready to take down the director and inflict upon him a Penalty Game.

"I suppose," Yami said with a smirk, "you could say that the Shadow Game game plan is planned out."

Jounouchi frowned heavily. "Boo," he called out, jerking his hand in a thumbs down motion.

Yuugi could not help but agree. Yeah, that wasn't very funny.

Yami huffed and crossed their arms. "Heathens. The both of you."