Lion's Mouth: Part I (Yu-Gi-Oh)

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

The dining table stretched from one end of the long room to the other. It was bare other than two portraits hanging above the door. One of them was a painting of an Egyptian man and the other was a beautiful young woman. I wondered what those were about, but my hunger took over, and I dug into the feast.

Croquet then walked into the room and stood at the end of the table. "On behalf of Mr. Maximillion Pegasus, I'd like to congratulate the four finalists and welcome them to this final phase of the Duelist Kingdom Competition. I trust you all have your playoff entry cards." Everyone was surprised at this statement. "In your invitation to the Duelist Kingdom, you received these two cards, Glory of the King's hand and Glory of the King's Opposite Hand." He held up two cards, one with shining light and the other with treasure. "You must have one of these to participate in the final tournament. Those without them are disqualified. Each card provides unique prizes. The Glory of the King's hand card is needed to claim the $3 million cash prize. The Opposite Hand card allows the winner to challenge Pegasus for the championship. To make tomorrow's tournament interesting, your host has added a special ingredient to your soup."

I stared into my soup but saw nothing. Then I glanced into Yugi's. His soup held a small eyeball – the same eye on the Millennium Items. Looking around, I could tell that only the finalists had such an eye.

"Hey, this is worse than having a fly in my soup!" Joey said indignantly.

"Open up the eye and look inside it if you will," said Croquet. "Each of you has been randomly assigned a letter." The finalists opened their eyes to reveal a piece of paper with a letter A – D on them. "And now the island's computer will pair up the letters to determine tomorrow's duel matchups." A projection screen descended from the ceiling and stopped above Croquet's head. Then a bracket with letters appeared on the screen. "Tomorrow's duels are as follows: A vs. B, C vs. D."

Joey leapt up from his chair and exclaimed: "Who has C?"

"Me, runt," Bandit Keith said with a smirk.

Joey immediately turned on him. "Alright! It's payback for trapping us in that cave!"

"Once I crush you, you'll wish you were still in that cave."

I rolled my eyes at the two of them. Joey's emotions were bothering me, so I focused on Yugi beside me.

"It looks like it's you and me, Mai," he said to his opponent, who sat across from him.

"I'm looking forward to this one," said Mai.

"Yeah, me too. And may the best duelist win."

"The duels are set," said Croquet. "Yugi Muto versus Mai Valentine and bandit Keith versus Joey Wheeler. Please enjoy the rest of this feast because, for three of you tomorrow, your long journey will end in failure." He bowed and exited the room.

"That was ominous," Bakura said from my left.

"I just want to get this all over with," I mumbled. I was glad Pegasus was not dining with us, for I did not know if I would have an appetite. For that matter, I was not sure how well I would sleep. I had to try at least in case I needed to help Yugi.

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The meal turned out to be much better than I thought. Even though I had not been on the island for that long, all that had happened made it seem like weeks. I was glad to be eating at a real table, and I was looking forward to a shower later on.