Yugioh: Walk With Fate

23: Valley

Hapu's POV

"I'll place a card face down just in case and with one direct attack, I'll wipe your life points off the board with my Valkyrie Erste!" My crazed laugh returns.

"Not this time." Seto places a quick play spell card. "I activate Enemy Controller. Left, right, A, B! I switch your Valkyrie to defense position."

"Or not!" I wink. "Presenting.... my face down card, Magic Drain! It negates your spell effect unless you discard a spell card. I'm willing to bet on my stars that you don't have one."

Seto grinds his teeth together. "I don't."

"It's over."

My Valkyrie Erste devastates Seto's life points with one strike of 4500. A wicked laugh escapes my lips with my victory against Seto Kaiba. Standing across from him with the wind whipping past us, even I can tell he's somewhat impressed with me. The high of winning a duel is exhilarating but it slips away from me as quickly as it washes over.

My necklace glows and I'm shown a flash of the future. Maximillion Pegasus is shouting at me in his expensive suit, terror covering his face. The flash is gone in a millisecond, leaving me dazed. I fall on my hands and knees as I'm hit with another flash.

Bakura extends his open hand to me. He's offering his hand with a sly grin. Cruel eyes stare me down with no sign of his host being able to take over. I shake my head, trying to clear it from these flashes. My head hurts and I blame it on the strange feeling I get when I've been dueling recently.

When I'm finally aware of my surroundings, I notice Seto has made his way to me and his hand rests on my back. "Can you hear me?"

I think he asked me something else before that. "I.. I'm fine." I press the palm of my hand to my forehead. "Ugh. I think that the weird form I go into drains me. You aren't hurt, are you?"

I raise my eyes to meet Seto's. We connect for a second but he brushes our cosmic moment off by standing up. I have half a mind to smack him for all it would be worth.

"I'm impressed with your dueling skill. You may just stand a chance in this tournament." Seto looks out at Pegasus' castle.

"A chance?" I dust off my pants even though it won't do much good. "I just beat you, the previous World Champion, and I only stand a chance?"

He ignores my comment, "You're in luck, I just so happen to hold 5 star chips. They're yours."

"What?" I check my disk and sure enough, 5 more stars are registered. "But I thought--"

"Had you lost, I wouldn't have taken your star chips. I didn't even think I should bother to bring stars on my disk for testing, but you've earned those from me." He turns and a helicopter appears out of nowhere.

I don't know how I didn't hear it coming. The deafening sound grows louder as it hovers overhead. The air that it blows our direction has me protecting my face with my arms.

The sound of the propellers is so loud, I have to shout to be heard. "Seto! Wait!"

"See you at the finals, pinky." He waves out his hand once as he walks to the helicopter without looking back at me.

And just like that, he leaves me. He leaves me stranded on the top of a mountain. The only way down is the path I came up from. Not as easy as it sounds when you're clumsy. I peer down the edge of the mountain and groan when I see how far up I am. He could have at least given me a ride down. Even halfway down would have been great.

It takes me about half the day to get to the bottom. Here, below the mountains, is a valley. Everything is lush and green and there's a cute little stream cutting through the middle. It's easy to see duelists here and I have no problem obtaining my last 10 stars to make 50 total.