The Millennium Heart I: The Lost Soul

Chest heaving and throat begging for water, Yugi hunched over, placing his hands on his knees to try and catch his breath. He had spent the last-twenty minutes? He wasn't sure-running through this never ending tunnel, and seemingly getting nowhere. He wondered how he could be making no progress but still feel exhausted, that was one mystery of this virtual world. He had just defeated his opponent Gansley, and upon walking through a mysterious door this is where he had ended up. Maybe I shouldn't have gone this way...he thought. Dwelling on his decisions wasn't going to get him anywhere though, so he decided to persist at finding his friends. Hopefully if he made it to Tea and Tristan before they had to duel, they would have more of a chance of winning and therefore keep their earthly bodies. Of course Noah would split them up, he thought to himself, Serenity must be terrified. He hoped that Joey would be able to find her before she had to do any dueling either, because he was sure the poor girl hadn't even picked up a deck in her life.

"Will this tunnel ever end?" he asked, having now gained his breath back as he looked behind him and saw the exact same sight as in front.

"It might," Yami replied, his spirit appearing beside the boy, "But only when Noah wants it to. You mustn't forget Yugi, he's controlling everything around us."

Yugi didn't care that Noah had the upper hand, and he stood up straight again, determination shining in his eyes, "Noah can try to stop us if he wants to but we're gonna find our friends, no matter what." He clenched his fist, before setting his eyes at the path in front, and set off at a run once more down the tunnel. Yami smiled at Yugi's enthusiasm as he continued to run down the tunnel, before an odd sound reached their ears. Yugi slowed down to a walk so he could listen to it more carefully, "What is that?" he asked. Yami listened with him, and noticed that the feint sound was getting louder, and his eyes widened when he realised it was someone screaming. When he turned to look at Yugi, he knew the other had just noticed that exact fact, and just as Yugi burst from his place to run down the tunnel once more, the scream cut off abruptly, but it was definitely in front of them somewhere. He didn't have to run very far before he eventually saw someone lying unconscious on the ground just ahead of him.

"It's a girl," Yami said, watching curiously as Yugi ran towards her. Something poked at the back of Yami's mind as he looked down at her, but he brushed it aside as they approached the girl.

Yugi finally reached the person and as he knelt down beside her, he guessed that she must have only been a couple years older than him. She had long dark hair, and a tattoo shaped like a heart on her chest, which Yugi found quite intriguing. "Hello? Can you hear me?" he asked carefully, not wanting to startle her. There was no response however, and he bit his lip. "Are you okay?" he asked again, carefully nudging her arm. Nothing again, not even a twitch. "What do you think happened to her?" he asked Yami, sounding worried as he looked up at the spirit.

"I'm not sure," Yami shook his head, "Anything is possible in here." Yami was currently trying to figure out what it was about this girl that had his mind suddenly alert. Something about her seemed strange, mysterious even. As he thought this over in his head, Yugi noticed his sudden concentration, and because their minds were linked, the boy picked up why it was Yami was suddenly acting strangely.

"Do you recognise her from somewhere?" Yugi asked, sitting back as he curiously looked at the person in front of him.

"I'm not sure," Yami murmued, "But don't you feel that?"

Yugi looked up at the spirit with a puzzled expression, "Feel what?" he asked, his eyebrows furrowed.

Yami seemed quite confused that Yugi wasn't on the same page as him, and he decided it was probably nothing. "Never mind," he sighed, "I'm probably just delusional."

Yugi chuckled, before moving to lean over the girl once more. "Hello?" He asked again, nudging her a little more.

"Give her some time," Yami urged, "She may have gone through some trauma." Yugi sat and waited patiently, and that's when something strange happened, the Millennium Puzzle lit up.

"Huh?" Yugi looked down at it with furrowed eyebrows, "What's going on?" He didn't have time to wonder over what the puzzle was doing however, because the girl suddenly groaned and shifted where she was.

"Hm?" Yugi sat up and watched as she slowly opened her eyes, looking quite disoriented as she looked up at him, confusion clear in her brown irises.

"Wh-where am I?" she rasped, rubbing her head gingerly.

"Hey, she's alright!" Yugi cheered as he looked up at Yami, before realising that the girl would probably think he was crazy, and he turned back to her.

The girl blinked a few times, before speaking again. "Who are you? And where are we?" She sat up, and looked around with a puzzled expression. She didn't look too happy about her surroundings either.

"My name is Yugi," he said with a friendly smile, causing the girl to turn back to him.

"Rose," she replied, forcing a smile but still looking very confused.

"Are you alright?" Yugi asked her. She took a moment to look herself over, and concluded that she didn't sport any unknown injuries.

"I'm a bit freaked out," she admitted, "But apart from that I'm fine." Yugi gave her an encouraging smile. "So where are we?" she asked.

Yugi sighed and scratched his head, "Well it's kind of hard to explain," he began, "But we're trapped inside a virtual world run by a kid named Noah."

"A virtual world?" Rose asked, as her eyebrows disappeared under her bangs. "Well I guess that explains the weird tunnel..."

"Do you know how you got here?" Yugi asked.

"The last thing I remember is falling down a swirling vortex..." Rose said, her eyes distant as she searched her memory.

Yugi nodded, "Yeah that's how we got here, too," he said.

"We?" Rose looked down the tunnel, confused, as there was no one else around.

"Uh-" Yugi looked to Yami for a second who let out an amused chuckle, before the boy managed to redeem himself, "Me and my friends," he said, "We've been separated though and I'm trying to find them." Yugi went on to explain how he and his friends had been in the middle of a duel monsters tournament when they were pulled into Noah's virtual world and split up. He then mentioned how the big 5 were wanting to duel them all to gain their bodies to go back to the real world, so they needed to find them as soon as possible.

"That's nuts," Rose said once Yugi was finished. "But you've already defeated your opponent?"

Yugi nodded, "Yes, but it's Tea and Serenity that I'm worried about, they've barely dueled at all." They were suddenly caught off guard when a voice echoed down the tunnel, sounding painfully familiar to Yugi.

"It's s-s-so c-cold!"

"That's Tea!" Yugi said, alarmed. "Come on, let's go find her!" he helped Rose up, who nodded in agreement.

"Don't worry Yugi, we'll find your friends," she said with an encouraging smile. He returned the smile, before they both turned and darted off down the tunnel, running towards where they had heard the echo of Tea's voice.

...

Rose opened her eyes to see she was still surrounded by darkness, but this time instead of a tunnel it was a square room. She sat up, and saw Yugi next to her rubbing his head.

"Where are we?" he asked. Only a moment ago they had been running down the tunnel, when the floor had suddenly disappeared and they fell into blackness. Rose was already getting sick of being unconscious, and she shook the cobwebs out of her head as she looked around; on each of the four walls of the room was a door, and that was it.

"I don't know," she murmured "But I guess we have to go through one of these doors," Rose stood up, looking around at the four doors curiously. She swore she could faintly hear another voice speaking nearby, but there was nobody else there, so it couldn't have been logical. She shook her head, guessing it was the virtual world messing with her.

"Which door to choose?" Yugi asked himself, turning in cirlces. "If we don't pick one we're stuck here." Yugi picked a door and started off towards it.

"Don't touch it," Yami said to him, and Yugi stopped. There's that muffled voice again, Rose thought, but where is it coming from? And what is it saying?

"Did you hear that, too?" Rose asked Yugi. The boy seemed to be caught by surprise by her sudden question.

"Hear what?" Yugi asked, turning around to give her a confused look.

Rose started to regret asking at all, but no point in giving up now. "That voice, that's why you stopped, isn't it?" Rose hoped she wasn't going crazy, because Yugi was giving her quite an odd expression. Bad idea, she thought.

Yami was surprised, "Does she mean me?" he asked Yugi, who had an incredulous look on his face.

Yugi looked from Yami to Rose carefully, "…Can you hear another voice?" he asked her.

Rose found herself playing with the hem of her shirt, something she did when she was nervous or unsure. "I think so, unless I'm going crazy," Rose looked around, trying to find the owner of the mysterious voice, her eyebrows creased in worry.

"Could it be possible that she can hear me even though I'm in the puzzle?" Yami asked Yugi.

Rose concentrated on the sound of the voice, and suddenly her tattoo started glowing. Either that or she was definitely going crazy. What the...? When she looked up, she could see Yami's spirit standing there next to Yugi.

"Oh my," Rose gasped, jumping back in surprise, "There are two of you!"

Yami's eyes widened in surprise, "You can SEE me?"

"That's incredible," Yugi said, looking between the two of them with wide eyes. "Could it have something to do with that glow that came from her chest?" he asked Yami.

"How come you weren't there before, but now...oh wow this is hurting my head," Rose took a moment to sit down, "Am I going crazy?"

"You're not going crazy," Yugi said with a chuckle as he knelt down next to her. "It's kind of a long story that's hard to explain at the moment, but Rose this is Yami, he lives in my Millennium Puzzle."

"Milennium Puzzle?" The word sounded familiar, but she wasn't sure she'd ever heard of it. She guessed it was the ancient-looking item that hung around his neck.

"I'm sorry if I startled you," Yami said, giving her an apologetic smile, "Nobody else has been able to see me unless I've swapped places with Yugi."

"No it's alright," Rose said getting up, "Lots of crazy things have happened to me in the past day or so anyway. We should be focusing on finding Tea."

"Well we have to test all these doors for traps first," Yami said. Yugi pulled out a coin and flicked it at the door he was facing. It bounced off and the shadow of a monster appeared before fading and disappearing.

"Testing doors is definitely smart," Yugi said, looking at the coin that now sat at his feet.

"It's true," Yami said, "We won our duel, but I sense a whole new game has just begun…"

"It's s-s-so cold!"

Apon hearing Tea's voice, Yugi called out to her as he spun around in circles, trying to figure out where it was coming from.

"How do we know where to find her?" Rose asked.

"We need to find out what part of this virtual world Noah sent her to," Yugi said, clearly frustrated that they had no idea where she was.

"Noah's letting us hear her just to torture us," Yami added, crossing his arms.

"What a cruel trick," Rose said, already quite disliking this Noah kid. What on earth could he have against these people to trap them here? From what she'd experienced so far, Yugi was a good kid. She couldn't imagine someone like him angering anybody to this extent. Maybe it had something to do with one of his friends maybe...

"We have to break out of here and find her!" Yugi announced. In his impatience, he ran towards a door, but when he reached it, he was pushed back and he fell back onto the floor.

"Yugi! Are you alright?" Rose said, alarmed.

"Don't panic, that's just what Noah wants you to do," Yami said, kneeling next to Yugi. They looked up and discovered that there were stars above the doors, so Yugi summoned the Winged Dragon, Guardian of the Fortress and defeated the monster behind the one star door. After repeating this a few times and getting absolutely nowhere, they discovered they needed to defeat all the one, two, three and four star monsters before they could get anywhere. They just hoped they were going in the right direction.