The Millennium Heart I: The Lost Soul

A vast wasteland of nothing but ice and water stretched out in all directions. The temperature had dropped considerably to match the surroundings, and clouds blanketed the sky, making the whole scene looked shadowed and mysterious. As Rose and Yugi walked out onto the frozen land, having managed to escape the door maze, they thought that these new surroundings looked anything but virtual. Soon these thoughts were thrown to the side though, as Yugi caught sight of his brunette friend, appearing to have just reigned victorious in her duel.

“Tea!” Yugi called out in relief, almost slipping on the ice as he moved to run over to her. Rose followed suit, running after her new friend as he made his way over to the girl who must have been Tea.

“Yugi!” The brunette’s eyes lit up as she turned around, and embraced him happily once he reached her. “I almost became a human ice-pop!” she exclaimed, letting him go. Her eyes then landed on the girl who had followed Yugi over, and an uncertain feeling settled in the bottom of her stomach. “Hi there.” Rose gave Tea a friendly smile, and Yugi instantly jumped into the introductions.

“Oh! Tea, this is Rose. I came across her just after I defeated Gansley; she helped me find you,” Yugi explained in his usual light tone.

Tea turned to the girl, giving her a friendly smile despite her slight suspicion. “Nice to meet you.”

Rose returned the smile, “The feeling is mutual.” She then turned back to Yugi, “So what’s the go now?”

Yugi took a moment to look around, an unsure look on his face, “Now we have to find Joey, Tristan, Duke, Serenity and the Kaiba brothers.”

Rose raised her eyebrows, “Wow, you have more friends than I thought,” she joked.

Tea then stepped in, eager to find the rest of the gang, “So which direction should me go in?”

Yugi turned back to her and shrugged, “It probably doesn’t matter,” he said. “Noah is controlling this world, so where we end up will be his decision.”

The boy in question was watching this all unfold from his seat, a smirk plastered on his face. "Right you are, Yugi. Now as for our newest guest..." he thought for a moment, before a brilliant idea came to mind, and his eyes lit up with mischief. "This gives me an opportunity to test out my new virtual duelists that I created…"

...

Just as Yugi thought, the ice waste land seemed to go on forever, just like everything else in this god forsaken virtual environment. The three teens must have been walking for close to an hour, and still there was no sign of anything new. As well as this, despite their moving at a decent pace, the temperature was much too low for the attire they were all wearing, and Rose felt like her dark jeans were giving her no warmth whatsoever. For all she knew, they could have been walking along the north pole for real.

Yugi had his arms folded across his chest in an attempt to keep in his minimal body heat. "I'd give anything for a hot chocolate," he said, shivering.

Rose was in a similar position, as she held her leather jacket tight around her shoulders. "Just think of a nice warm bubble bath," she said, her teeth chattering as she walked.

Tea sighed, wishing that she had at least worn long pants, "That's kind of hard to imagine when I can’t feel my toes," she muttered, looking down at her open sandals with regret.

Yugi breathed into his hands, before crossing them over his chest once more, “We just have to keep moving,” he said, “hopefully we’ll be able to find refuge somewhere.”

Tea seemed to be at the end of her tolerance for the ice wasteland. "I'd rather that I was standing over a pit of fire than this," she whined, throwing her head back momentarily. When she looked back in front of her though, she almost jumped in surprise. A moment ago, there had been nothing but ice in front of her, but now there was a door.

"That looks the same as the door that lead us here," Rose noted, turning to Yugi as they stopped in front of it.

“Finally,” Yugi said in relief. "Let's hope this leads to the others," He carefully walked up to the door and opened it, but all they could see was a blinding light. When they walked through, the temperature changed drastically. It was too bright to know where they were, but it was very hot. Tea could feel her toes thawing and she hummed her delight with the new temperature.

As the bright light dimmed, the three teens heard a voice echo around them, a deep, menacing sound. “Did someone say, ‘pit of fire’?” Rose, Yugi and Tea noticed that the ice wasteland had been replaced with another wasteland comprised of rock, but they couldn’t figure out why it felt like they were in the middle of a volcano.

"I don't see a-" Tea had started to say, but she was interrupted when the ground started to split right between Rose and the other two. Rose let out a startled noise as the ground moved below her, and by the time she had regained her balance, she was already too far away from Yugi and Tea to be able to jump the gap.

"Rose!" Yugi called out, but as soon as he reached his hand out, flames erupted from the split in the ground, roaring to life and as if they were cackling with laughter. Yugi instantly drew his hand back, narrowly missing getting burnt.

"What's going on?" Rose called out as the earth around her crumbled even more, revealing more flames. Where they had come from however, nobody knew. Rose backed away from the inferno only to find the ground crumbling behind her as well. She jumped back and realised she was now surrounded on all sides by the blaze, and had her own chunk of land only a few meters wide. She shielded her eyes as the flames licked up above her head, before settling down once more and sitting comfortably just below the ground.

"This isn't good," Rose muttered as she looked around her. "Which is worse, death by fire or frostbite?" she asked herself.

"Don't worry Rose!" Yugi called out, "We'll find a way to get you off of there!"

"She won't be going anywhere!" A loud booming voice sounded from somewhere in the distance. Everyone looked around to try and find where it came from, but the fire had created a considerable amount of smoke, and thus it was hard to see who was talking.

"It's that voice from before," Yami said, "But where is it coming from?"

Another chunk of earth emerged from the flames, about ten meters away from Rose. The first thing they noticed was that a man was standing on top of it, his features disguised by the smoke surrounding him. A laugh burst from his lips as he stood across from Rose, his arms folded over his chest. The smoke soon cleared to reveal a man much unlike the group that Yugi had seen just before they were thrown into this virtual abyss. He didn’t look anything like a businessman, and he had a more rugged look about him, sporting dark hair and a small amount of stubble, while wearing jeans and a casual shirt.

"I am Rostrever." He was very tall and well built, with striking green eyes and a mischievous smirk. And nobody had a clue who he was.

"You aren't part of the Big 5," Tea said, crossing her arms.

"Very observant little girl,” Rostrevor began, “No I may not be part of the big 5, but we have a common agenda: that being making sure you brats don’t make it out of here with your bodies." He laughed again, and the flames burst up around him, but did not seem to faze him. "And I'm going to start with you, Rose!" He pointed across the chasm of fire, a devious smirk on his face.

"You leave her out of this!" Yugi called out, "It's us you want, not her!"

"Actually little boy, you are quite wrong," Rostrevor pointed out, "anybody who crosses my path here is subject to my wrath, so I suggest you pipe down.”

Yugi balled his hands into fists at his side, "I'm not a little boy!" he yelled, and Rose watched on in awe as the millennium puzzle started glowing, and the person standing there changed. It was only very slight, but as Yami opened his eyes and glared across the chasm to Rostrevor, Rose was amazed that such an item existed. That’s when she realised why she had recognised the boy in the first place.

Yugi, as in Yugi Mutou, the King of games!

"Now you listen here, Rostrevor," Yami's voice boomed, "If you want to pick a fight, then pick a fight with me." Rose remembered watching the finals for Duelist Kingdom, where Yugi had gone up against his best friend, and won. Hearing Yami’s strong baritone voice echo across the vast space only confirmed her thoughts. It sounded just like the man she had watched on the TV in the orphanage, as he was crowned King of games. How did I miss that?! She thought to herself. She would have thought that she’d be familiar enough with the figure head to know him when she met him, but it appeared not. Then again, she had been quite disoriented and her thoughts had recently been occupied with the events of the last few hours before she woke up in this virtual world.

"It's cute how you're trying to protect Rose and all, but she has no choice in the matter, now let's get this over with!" Rostrever let out another laugh as a duel disk appeared on Rose's arm, and she turned to face the man across from her.

"Alright, Rostrevor," she said, raising her voice, "Let's duel."

"Wait a second Rose," Yami grabbed her attention.

"You don't have to do this," Yugi said, his spirit now hovering beside Yami.

Rose looked down at the duel disk on her arm, "Yugi," she said, "I appreciate you standing up for me, but I can handle this myself. Besides, I had to show you my mad dueling skills at some point," she then smiled at him, and Yami nodded.

"Alright, be careful," he said.

"Always am," Rose turned back to Rostrevor, "Are you ready to get your ass handed to you?"

Rostrevor laughed at her, "I’d be more worried about my own defeat if I were you, as the steaks of this duel are no different to the others. If I win, you shall be trapped in this virtual world forever!" Rose was beginning to think that this was some lame video game with the amount of evil laughter coming from this man.

She sighed to herself, before deciding to join in on the banter. "Shame that that's not going to happen," she said, narrowing her eyes at him as a duel disk appeared on his own arm.

Yugi looked over at Rose, who seemed to be astonishingly confident, and the duel hadn’t even started yet. "Hey look, that heart thing on her chest is glowing again," he said.

"It looks like a tattoo," Yami observed, seeing the intricate design only slightly hidden beneath the neckline of her shirt. "but tattoos shouldn't glow like that..."

"I’ll say, but I hope her over confidence doesn’t hinder her game," Yugi commented. "We don't know anything about this guy or his dueling tactics."

Yami glanced down at the boy beside him, “I think she’ll be just fine. Trust me Yugi, I can sense almost an ageless intelligence about her. Besides, we don't know anything about her dueling strategies either... "