The rest of the week passed swiftly on by once the matter of Chazz’s deck was sorted out. Classes were surprisingly quiet, in part due to the calming influence that Bastion and Alexis had on Phil, if calming influence meant that they were getting rather good at predicting the actions of their local madman, and in part due to the fact that all three participants of the tournament were quite excited for it, even though they would likely deny it if asked. Except for Jaden, who wouldn’t deny his excitement if asked. Or if he wasn’t asked, either. Hell, even the mention of the International School Duel in front of the Slifer Red was enough to get the boy trembling in excited anticipation for all the ‘sweet duels’ and ‘rad tricks those guys will have up their sleeves’, which would then set off the chain reaction of Syrus nervously questioning what types of ‘scary strong’ people would be showing up, Phil cackling over the mysterious deck he was going to be using, and Chazz proudly boasting the he alone would be enough to handle all challengers. Of course, all the while in the background Bastion consumed sheets upon sheets of paper in his endless calculations and notes, a habit that was only made worse with the rapid-fire conversations he would spring up with Phil at almost random times.

Yes, quiet indeed.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Finally, Saturday morning arrived, with Phil continuing his unwilling habit of rising with the morning sun. By now he had almost become used to it, or at least used enough to it that the rapid barrage of knocks on his door was not mistaken for some sort of hallucination or mistake caused by the haze of sleep.

I fucking swear if it’s Jaden knocking at my door this early, before I’ve even had a chance to have a cup of coffee, there’s gonna be reckoni-

Phil blinked in surprise. For, instead of who he assumed was Jaden knocking on his door even though Ms. Hibiki said they weren’t leaving until eight in the morning, it was a rather strange-looking man dressed in a tattered blue mailman uniform. The man towered over Phil by a good four feet, and the five eyes on his face blinked down at the boy with a bored gaze.

“Package for Ms. Lumina?” The man rumbled through a mouth that opened to reveal far too many teeth for any one mouth to comfortably contain. “Package for Ms. Lumina.” The man’s short sleeves rippled as several human mouths opened on his forearms to repeat those same words.

Phil stared back, speechless. “Uh… right. This is her roommate, Phil.” He looked back into the room, noting with annoyance that Lumina was still snoozing away. “Want me to wake her up or somethi-“

“No need.” The mailman’s shirt pulsed and wriggled aside to reveal another, larger mouth on his stomach, a mouth that had lips decorated with bright red lipstick. It opened and a coarse, grey tongue rolled out to offer Phil a clipboard with a pen helpfully attached to the top.

“Sign here, here, and here.” The mailman pointed towards several parts of the form. Phil nodded and wrote out his atrociously clumsy cursive signature on the requested fields.

“As required by the pacts of old, invoked by names far too terrible to utter in this mortal world, the package has been signed for by a responsible party. Let it be known that the warranty is an hour long, and complaints must be filed with the Dark World Delivery Service, located two doors to the right of the main office behind the Gates of the Dark World. Complaints are valid only in written form, and any verbal complaints shall be answered by the issuer being an addition to our dark lord Grapha’s nutritional plan as a protein supplement. I wish you a fortuitous day.”

Each word from the mailman was uttered with thunderous volume, making Phil wince as a headache began to form.

“Thanks?” Phil questioned as he accepted the ratty cardboard box with the address of his dorm room on the side. The mailman nodded, turning without a word to stalk away menacingly through the halls to his next delivery.

Phil looked at the box, looked at Lumina, and glanced down the hall that the mailman had disappeared down. “Damn it’s too early for this shit. LUM-“ Phil caught himself mid yell, closing his door with a sheepish grin before continuing. “LUMINA! WAKE THE FUCK UP! SOME WEIRDO JUST GAVE ME A PACKAGE FOR YOU!”

Phil grinned to himself, patting his own back for being loud enough that he didn’t have to waste money on a megaphone.

“Holy moly Phil, can’t you let a girl get her beauty sleep?” Lumina grumbled from the spare bed she had claimed as her own.

“Normally? Yes. But some weirdo with mouths all over gave me a suspicious cardboard box for you. I don’t hear any ticking sounds, so it’s probably not a bomb, but it’s still hella shady.” Lumina yawned and stretched. For all Lumina’s talk of interrupting her beauty sleep, she was still looking rather immaculate in her simple white dress, even after just rolling out of bed. “Oh. Sorry, Phil. I forgot to tell you about Gunther. He’s a decent sort, one of the spirits who doesn’t have their own card yet. He’s been doing odd jobs for the Dark World company for a few thousand years by now. You know, stuff like mailing packages, delivering prophecies, assassinations, and standard anti-terrorist operations. Simple stuff, but apparently it pays the bills and keeps his kids in school. Anyways, gimme the package.”

Phil raised his eyebrows, not even budging until Lumina added ‘please’ to the end of her request, which she did with an annoyed tone. “What’s in the package? Some sort of cool spirit-only thing?”

Lumina shook her head, opening the flaps of the battered cardboard box to reveal an envelope. “Not this time. Orders from the boss. Usually I get them by phone or email, but that asshole Judgement Dragon likes sending his orders through certified mail. Something about wanting a paper trail but not understanding that emails have that too. Let’s see…” Lumina quickly read through the handful of words on the paper, annoyance clearly written across her face as she brought her free hand up to her face to massage her glabella. “What a waste of paper and money. ‘Oh, just keep assisting the subject,’ yeah no really boss. Keep doing what I’m already doing. Sometimes I wonder if those suits Judgement Dragon stuffs himself into are cutting off the circulation of blood going to his brain, making him go senile a few millennium early.”

“Right…” Phil blinked slowly. He wasn’t even sure what to think at this point. “Welp, I’m gonna go to the cafeteria to score me a cup of joe, you coming with?”

Lumina sighed, still exasperated over the bureaucratic nonsense. “Might as well. I’m too angry to go back to sleep until it’s time for you to leave, anyways. Maybe if I’m lucky, one of the handful of spirits on this island that can hold a proper conversation with a lady will be there.”

“Oh. There are other spirits on the island? Well, I guess there’s Winged Kuriboh and Light and Darkness Dragon. I probably shouldn’t be too surprised if there are more at this point.

“Yes, but most of them have been loitering around on this island for so long that they’ve gotten all weird in the head. It doesn’t help that some asshole threw a bunch of their cards down a well at some point, too. Not that the condition of their card matters too much, but it does hurt a spirit’s self-esteem.”

Phil pondered over that new bit of info. “Huh. What a dick move from whoever did that. I guess I’ll add that to my list… unless that’s something Jaden ends up helping with in the anime? Hell if I know at this point.”

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

The cafeteria was quite empty by the time Phil moseyed over to it, as was expected for that early in the morning on a weekend. This fact suited Phil quite nicely, as he was able to have his choice of seating while leisurely enjoying multiple cups of coffee, a habit he had picked up after college when he had joined the unholy legion of evil known as the ‘full-time workforce’. It was almost nice, in a way, even though Phil had never quite transitioned to actually liking that his body would usually wake him up as the sun rose. The way the warm rays of sun would filter through the glass windows of the cafeteria, the pointless small talk between him and Lumina as he leaned back in his seat to savor his drink and she kicked her feet up onto the empty table. The way the room would gradually fill up as time ticked closer to eight o’ clock, but never completely filling up as many students simply preferred to sleep right through breakfast in favor of having a large lunch on the weekend. Soon enough, even Phil’s table had begun to see its own regular visitors as Alexis sat down with a cheery wave with Jasmine and Mindy, closely followed by the ever-calm Bastion. Then only a few more minutes were needed to see the amusing spectacle of Jaden, Syrus, and Chumley dragging their sleep-deprived bodies over to plop onto the closest empty seats they could find. Even Chazz had begun to join them, a sight that even now continued to surprise Phil, as Chazz had previously preferred to sit only with fellow Obelisk Blues.

“So, are you guys ready to rumble today?” Jaden asked, the cheer in his voice almost managing to disguise the undercurrent of exhaustion in it. Almost.

Phil nodded. “Yup. Here’s hoping there will be some interesting decks at the tournament. It gets kinda boring seeing the usual ‘unga bunga’ strategies that are so common around the island.”

“Well, those types of strategies are common because the work quite well most of the time.” Bastion pointed to from beside Phil. “It also helps that the aggressive beatdown style was popularized by Seto Kaiba himself. Even though I don’t fully agree with the strategy, it’s difficult to ignore the actions of one of the few men who can duel the King of Games on even ground.”

“Woah woah woah!” Phil raised his hands and immediately began to tick names off of his fingers. “The Crush Card Virus strategy. La Jinn and his stupid-ass lamp. I could go on a bit more, but I think you get the point. The guy ain’t against shoving a Blue-Eyes in your face, but he had a few strategies that didn’t purely rely on overwhelming attack points.”

Bastion hummed in thought. “Yes, you do make a point, Phil. Those cards are certainly an aspect of his school, or style, of dueling that is often forgotten. However, it remains the fact that the main focus of his deck is to beat opponents into submission with Blue-Eyes White Dragon.”

Phil shrugged his shoulder, accepting the point but unwilling to fully let the argument go. However, before he could open his mouth and bring into full force another one of their legendary, hours-long debates, Ms. Hibiki’s hand descended on his shoulder.

“Philip, Chazz, Jaden, are you three ready to go? The ferry leaves in a few minutes. Finish your breakfasts quickly, make sure you get a fruit in there, and follow me to the docks.”

Phil looked towards Jaden and Chazz, with the former visibly grinning in excitement and the latter with a stoic, serious look on his face. He drained the last dregs of his coffee, made sure his duel disk was nice and tight, and nodded.

“You got it boss, let’s rock and roll.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Phil, Jaden, and Chazz sat on the deck of the ferry, one that felt strangely empty after how full it had been when it had initially brought all the students to the island at the beginning of the year. Where the decks had once been crowded with new students, excited to start their schooling at one of the most prestigious duel academies in the world, there were now just three boys, one from each dorm. Above them, almost out of sight in the captain’s cabin, the faint figures of Ms. Hibiki, Professor Crowler, and Professor Bernardello appeared to be locked in heated discussion. But, even though the deck was absent of the usual wall of sound produced by large amounts of students, none of that discussion could be heard.

“Check it out, Domino City up ahead!” Jaden’s cheery voice snapped Phil out of his thoughts, and he looked towards where the boy was pointing.

Indeed, it was as Jaden saw. Domino City, which even in the morning had bustling streets among the high-rise buildings that were like giants reaching high into the sky. And, above it all, sat the headquarters of Kaiba Corporation, a behemoth among giants. Phil raised his arms, arcing his back in stretching motions that were not unlike that of a lazy cat. Already on the edge of the pier that the ferry was pulling up towards, a black limousine could be seen, with a single man wearing a black suit and sunglasses waiting solemnly in front of it.

Chazz finally broke his silence upon seeing it. “Heh. Looks like they know how to treat the future champion team, all right.”

The ferry bumped against the docks and the formerly quiet deck instantly became a small flurry of activity as several crewmen laid down a plank connecting to the docks and tied many complicated knots that Phil didn’t even attempt to understand.

“Three kids, three adults?” The man in the suit questioned Professor Crowler once they had made it off the ferry.

“Yes, all accounted for. I assume you know where to go, Roland?” Professor Crowler replied, obviously familiar with the man.

Roland nodded. “Indeed. Straight to the arena. Mr. Kaiba wishes to give a small speech and then immediately begin the preliminaries.” Roland glanced towards the three students, his sunglasses hiding any tells of what he might be thinking. “Kids in the back. Professors, if you would kindly join me in the front? Mr. Kaiba requested that you were to be given a rundown of the schedule before we arrive.”

Phil began to open his mouth with a sarcastic air already beginning to form around him, but with one sharp glare from Ms. Hibiki it snapped close of its own violation and he meekly climbed in the back part of the limo with Jaden and Chazz.

“Shit. I was gonna claim shotgun.” Phil muttered rebelliously, kicking his feet up onto an empty seat in front of him.

Still… I wonder what they were talking about up in the captain’s cabin. I wonder if…

Almost as if she had read Phil’s mind, Lumina’s tanned arm came into view as she tapped Phil’s shoulder to get his attention.

“They’d probably think you’re crazy for talking into thin air, so don’t respond to me, Phil. Chazz can’t see me, and Jaden can only partially see me unless I wish it so otherwise. Until then I’m nothing more than something he would see in the corner of his eye.” Lumina warned.

I wasn’t gonna do that anyways. Phil mutinously replied in his head. He wouldn’t voice those thoughts, of course, as even he could tell that she was trying to help him.

“I took the liberty of enjoying a stroll around the ferry. It was quite interesting, especially the engine room. Who knew that a machine so covered in rust would still be capable of running. Anyways, I also happened to overhear the majority of the conversation those professors were having with the captain.”

Oh now here’s where it get’s interesting. Phil thought to himself before nodding to her to continue.

“It’s about the professor that was murdered earlier. You know, the one they found on the beach? It seems that Kaiba heard about it, and boy was he pissed. That’s the whole reason why the tournament is happening off-island. Originally part of it was indeed going to be in Domino City, but the finals were supposed to happen on the island to get more publicity towards the academy so enrollment numbers would be boosted next year. But with the murder, Kaiba decided to move it all to Domino City, in one of the arenas that he once dueled that Yugi kid. Apparently, it’s a move to remind people that the academy is very much still under his watchful gaze. I don’t know if you could call it a power play, politics, or simply a way to soothe his ego after a teacher at his precious academy got himself killed. Crowler’s not too happy about it himself. Something about the chancellor taking his anger out on Crowler because of the move. Hibiki’s favorable towards the move, she made herself quite clear that she saw it as Kaiba warning away anyone else who would try and make a move like that again. Bernardello… I’m not sure what his stance is on it all. He mostly just smiled and nodded his head noncommittally.”

Phil nodded in thought. Interesting. So this whole event’s got Kaiba’s eyes glued right to it. I wonder if that is what the murderer wanted, or if it’s unwanted attention? Honestly, I couldn’t even tell at this point, especially since I still can’t completely figure out why someone would want to ice a random teacher from one of Kaiba’s schools. But still, an event under Kaiba’s direct scrutiny. I wonder if… Phil’s eyes widened as the realization hit him like a sock full of heavy rocks. Yeah if the two American students show up, which they would because assuming the manga had some amount of accuracy, those two are some of the strongest students in the American branch, and if they act obviously evil or possessed like they usually do… Kaiba might get suspicious about them. Hell, even if they whip out their ‘Planet’ series cards Kaiba might start looking their way since those things are rare if memory serves me right. At best that might mean Kaiba moves directly to deal with the eldritch abomination that is the headmaster of the American branch, at worst that might mean that their movements are limited at least. Either way it’s a win for Phil if I’m right about this.