Rock Bottom: Season Two

Revelation

"Seto, what's wrong with Ryou?" Mokuba reached out to clasp his brother's hand, frightened confusion playing across his features.

"He's... not himself right now," Seto began, a little uncertain how best to phrase this.

"Someone else is controlling him," Ishizu interjected gently, giving Mokuba a look of sympathy. "Someone evil. But the real him is still there, deep inside."

"How can we make the evil one go away?" Mokuba asked quietly.

"By beating him at his own game." The answer was provided by Seto this time, whose expression was so serious that Mokuba could barely recall seeing him look like that before.

On Seto's other side, Duke was frowning, eyes fixed on the duel in concentration, but his eyes betrayed his dissatisfaction with Seto's explanation. He'd have to ask Seto for more details later.

Mai fought hard, but the duel was as good as lost the moment it became a Shadow Game. Part of her strategy was to fill her side of the field with monsters that supported each other through card effects, but when each monster was fueled through her own life energy, she began to tire just from the effort of keeping them on the field for as long as she did. Not that they were doing her much good with Dark Door on her opponent's side of the field, limiting her ability to attack. Meanwhile, Bakura was filling his graveyard with Skull Servants and Wight monsters, boosting the strength of his King of the Skull Servants cards. Mai could destroy some of his monsters, but his clever strategy, which utilized card effects and spell cards more than anything else, allowed to cycle cards out of his deck to the graveyard to banishment to his hand to the field. His undead deck refused to be vanquished. When the Spirit of the Millennium Ring drew Dark Hole, it was truly over. Without Mai's Amazoness monsters to protect her, and without any of her trap cards remaining after he'd nullified and destroyed them all, she was left completely vulnerable to his attack.

Mai's piercing scream of pain rang in the spectators' ears. None of them would forget that sound anytime soon.

When the smoke and shadows from the duel arena were cleared, swept away by the wind, it was clear to all that Mai was laying unconscious on the floor, her life-point counter at zero.

"Ryou Bakura is the winner! Mai Kujaku has been eliminated!" Roland announced, the Spirit of the Millennium Ring standing cool and collected with his arms crossed, a misplaced smirk on his face.

"Mai!" Joey was the first one to recover himself enough to call her name. He rushed towards the platform and hauled himself onto it first, Marik, Yugi, and Anzu right behind him, Ishizu hanging back with a hand on Mokuba's shoulder. Marik had rushed forward too, but he'd approached Bakura, stopping a little ways in front of him. They didn't speak to each other as far as Seto could tell, but when Bakura turned around to return inside, Marik followed after him. Ishizu let out a quiet sigh beside the brunette, as if she'd expected that.

"Is this what you wanted, Noah?" Seto accused, glaring daggers at his adversary who'd watched the grim duel play out with apathetic curiosity at best and sadistic glee at worst.

"I wanted the strongest duelists in Japan to gather and compete to see who was the best," was Noah's snidely insincere response. "Anyone who loses isn't worthy of moving forward in the competition."

"You know that's not what I'm talking about," Seto muttered, his voice low and angry as Joey lifted Mai off the ground, holding her securely in his arms. The blond cast a venomous glare in the CEO's direction before turning to re-enter the blimp with his friends. First things first, they needed to take care of Mai. He'd kick Noah Kaiba's ass later.

"Duke, can you please take Mokuba inside with the others?" Seto asked his friend without breaking eye contact with Noah.

"Sure thing. C'mon kiddo." Duke used a purposefully cheerful tone for Mokuba's sake as they left the open-air arena, leaving Noah, Seto, and Ishizu behind.