Winning Without Gods (A Yu-Gi-Oh Fanfiction)DONE!

Chapter 25: Hard Prizes

The Game Shop

Jounouchi darted into the shop, demanding the code. Yuugi still dazed, let him in. Jounouchi shouted for Mai, while everyone else was . . . slow.

Destiny, their pet cat, walked past them and jumped on the game counter, while someone who never would have let her on there. Stood. As a spirit, yet clear enough for them to see.

"G-?" Yuugi closed his eyes a second and opened them again. The man who raised him. The man who spent the most time with him. The one who share with him everything he knew about life and games. "Grandpa."

"Yuugi." He nodded toward him, and Atem. "And Yuugi." He smiled. "Everything is fine now, what you did, the kingdom was freed. When you and Yuugi return much later on, you'll have a new kingdom waiting for you. No worries. Thank you."

Atem nodded. "I'm glad your back."

"I'm sorry for the circumstances. There was a nice cat god that thought this time was hard enough, and it should be shared with someone once cared for." He moved from the counter. On it, was a long box of red velvet and gold trim. On top were the engravings everyone could read as God's Game- Mankind's Last Chance. "Open it. They are the wins and losses for the god game, written out by Thoth himself I've been told. I am here for questions needing answers and support."

"Grandpa," almost everyone said at once.

"Where's Honda?" Jounouchi asked right away. "Is he okay? Will Mai be okay?"

"Read this first, Jounouchi, and then we can talk," Grandpa insisted. "This is more than a shadow game."

Atem took one side of the latched box while Yuugi took the other. They opened it and looked in. There were now two boxes, one in black and one in red. The black had the name Winnings on it, while the red had the name Losings.

Atem opened the black box and there were small black envelopes with the word winnings. Inside of them felt like memo-sized cards. He took it out and waited for Yuugi to open the red box to take out his small red enveloped memo cards.

"Don't open the little envelopes. Read off the names in full first," Grandpa insisted. "There's a small list between the boxes. Every written player has been forced into this game. If the one written down doesn't play, the game is forfeited."

Atem nodded as he reached for the small list between. It was the only thing below the box. "Players: Nameless Spirit Trapped In Man." He sighed lightly after reading that. "Nameless Spirit Trapped in Woman, Yuugi of the Mutoh family, Katsuya and Shizuka of the Jounouchi family, Anzu of the Mazaki family, Seto of the Kaiba family, and Bakura The Bandit King."

"Yep. Now, pass out everyone's cards and leave the others there," Grandpa said. "You can choose to tell what your cards are, or not. Just sign the card inside, and put it back in it's box in the envelope." He smiled at Yuugi. "I promise, we'll all get to talk a little bit soon, okay?"

Yuugi shook his head. He had to do his duty first.

"What?!" Jounouchi shot upstairs after looking at his card, only to shoot back downstairs to relook at it. "This contract is shit. It's giving him Mai?" He read his part out loud. "Set will be awarded a new wife, Mai Kujaku, with a special child, Mana, that was once a sorceress. She'll enable him to leave wherever he wants." He slammed his fist into the wall. "Those cats want to give my family away!" He grabbed at his neck where Sekhmet bit him.

"Jounouchi." Atem tried to be as delicate as possible. "If you don't. This is the end of humanity. I don't . . . have any tricks up my sleeve. I don't have any power. I don't have the puzzle."

"Man." Jounouchi looked at the lists. He looked at the winnings. "I don't care if I get powers bestowed upon me with a guaranteed good afterlife. That's nothing to me. Not compared to what I can lose."