A full hour passed before Lumina peered back around the corner to give Phil the all-clear signal. A full hour of camping in the dumpster with nothing to show. Though Phil considered, as he hoisted himself out of the metal hellhole, a boring stakeout was much more preferable than anyone else getting hurt.

  “They took the side door out. I don’t see any cops around.” Lumina said. Her nose wrinkled slightly as Phil drew near. “You have a rotten banana peel on your shoulder.”

  Phil absentmindedly brushed away the offending piece of garbage.

  “Which side door?”

  But Lumina merely beckoned for him to follow her. They rounded the corner, and the answer was immediately made clear.

  “Ah. That’s convenient.”

  Walking out of the side door of the Domino City Hospital in view of the alley was a young girl with her arm in a thick cast, followed closely by a gentle-looking old man. Phil gave a loud ‘cawcaw’ to catch their attention, causing both of their heads to jerk up in surprise as he waved them over.

  "Nice cast." Phil motioned with his head toward Rebecca's arm. She began to reply, but as soon as she got close to Phil, she wrinkled her nose and let out a noise of disgust.

  “Eww… did you roll around in a landfill?”

  Phil glanced over his shoulder at the overflowing dumpster behind him.

  “More like raw sewage. Had to lose the coppers somehow. I tell ya… once I get back to the house, I don’t even know if five showers will do the trick. They really were persistent.”

  Rebecca’s nose wrinkled further, but any more complaints she had about the situation were cut short as Solomon moved between them, fixing Phil with a grave expression.

  “We shouldn’t tarry for long.” Solomon spoke. His voice did not contain any of his usual kindly tone or ‘ohohohohos’. A look in his eyes showed only a wellspring of concern.

  “But… what about the police?” Rebecca worriedly questioned.

  At that, both of the men shared a knowing look.

  “I’ll have to apologize later.” Phil grumbled.

  Solomon nodded along. “Don’t worry. We can leave some money behind. The greater concern is how long it might take to find.”

  Rebecca’s other questions were left unanswered as Phil and Solomon cautiously walked out of the alley, away from the hospital. Their eyes darted around as they moved, looking for something in particular that only left more and more invisible question marks forming over Rebecca’s head. It was not until Solomon stopped and called out that her curiosity was answered.

  “You’re gonna steal?!?!?” Rebecca shouted. Then, as if realizing her mistake, she clapped a hand over her mouth. “Sorry…”

  Phil made a calming gesture with his hands. “Shout a bit louder next time, I think the next city over didn’t hear you. Yeah, we’re gonna steal. Desperate times call for desperate measures.” Then he hopped over the short picket fence Solomon had halted at. Behind the fence was a small yard, one that was sandwiched between two larger brick buildings and situated behind what appeared to be a two-story apartment building. All of the greenery within the yard was dead, other than one small shrub still desperately reaching toward what little bits of sunlight that weren’t being outright blocked by the surrounding buildings.

  Within that yard, however, was the real prize. A clothesline. Humming to himself, Phil snatched a baseball cap, a blue T-shirt with a white New York Yankees logo emblazoned on the front, and a pair of olive-green cargo pants while Solomon clipped a small handful of Yen notes to a clothespin on the line.

  “What I learned about evading pursuit by watching movies,” Phil explained to Rebecca as he replaced his slime-covered shirt with the new T-shirt and slipped the cargo pants over his own pants, “is that changing your appearance makes it a hell of a lot harder to be recognized. Simple concept, isn’t it? But not everyone thinks of that. Something as simple as a different-colored shirt, or switching from jeans to cargo pants, or tugging the brim of a baseball cap low over your eyes.”

  “Uh-huh…” Rebecca slowly nodded. What she didn’t put into words was clearly etched onto her face – she definitely thought Phil was a complete weirdo.

  -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

  The rest of the walk back to Kame Game was uneventful. Though Phil could be smelled up to a block away, the change in his appearance was enough to ensure none of the cop cars screaming past on the streets gave him a second glance, even if every pedestrian they encountered immediately moved to walk on the other side of the road.

  The door to Kame Game opened with a chime. Rebecca was the first to run in, followed shortly by Solomon and Phil, who had fallen into a deep discussion once the store was in sight.

  “So, did you find out why the cops are after me?” Phil asked. He glanced around at the surroundings, only turning his attention back to the storefront once he was certain that everything looked normal. But… what was that strange feeling in his gut? Anticipation? Wariness? Concern over how easy this had been?

  Solomon let out a deep sigh and spoke in a grave voice.

  “Phil… they think you’re a cop killer.”

  Phil paused mid-step.

  “Yeah okay that’s a new one.”

  Of course, Phil had not failed to notice Solomon’s phrasing, using the word ‘think’ instead of something more certain.

  “Thanks for believing in me.” Phil eventually muttered.

  Solomon nodded along. “You’re a good man.” He replied as if saying so was natural.

  Phil shut the door to the store. Clattering sounds could be heard behind the counter as Rebecca did something or another out of sight.

  “Got any details?”

  Solomon pulled out a chair from the table Phil had dueled at earlier, sitting down with a slight groan, while Phil leaned against a shelving unit.

  "Not much. They think you killed a cop outside the city park. You handcuffed him to a pole…" Solomon glanced around and lowered his voice so that Rebecca could not overhear, "Then, while he was still alive, you gouged his eyes out, slit his stomach open, neatly arranged his internal organs onto the sidewalk, bit off his fingers, and watched the man bleed to death. There are a few other murders they want to pin on you, too. You need to be careful going forward. Even more careful than we first feared.”

  Phil fell silent as he processed Solomon’s words.

  “Sounds like some ‘friends’ of ours.”

  “I would imagine so,” Solomon nodded.

  Both men lapsed into another bout of silence, one that was only broken once Rebecca emerged triumphantly from behind the counter with a duffel bag half her size.

  “Found it!”

  Phil ambled over to the counter, deftly grabbing the straps of the bag as Rebecca, having hoisted it with her good arm, threatened to overbalance.

  “Found what?”

  Rebecca held her head high with a smug look, but Phil was able to tell her true feelings with just a look. Her eyes were still dispirited, almost a second away from being filled with tears, even as the girl tried to put on a brave front.

  “My spare sleepover stuff! Gra-“ Rebecca’s voice faltered midway through saying Grandpa. Her eyes dimmed, and then she continued to speak while skipping the word she’d stumbled on. “I visit here a lot, so I keep extra sleepover stuff just in case I forget my bags at home!”

  Phil arced a brow. “Okay? So… I'll bring this upstairs for you, I suppose. Solomon, what room do you want to toss the squirt in?"

  “Nope!” Rebecca crossed her good arm against her cast to make an X gesture. “Nuh-uh. I already said I’m sticking with you, baldie!”

  Phil’s face turned blank as he tried to process the situation. A glance at Solomon showed the old man was as helpless as he was.

  “Rebe-“

  Rebecca stuck out her tongue, only for her mask of confidence to crack slightly as a tear ran down her cheek. "NO! I want my grandpa back, and if I stay here with an old fuddy-duddy like granduncle, we'll just be twiddling our thumbs or playing dominoes or something stupid! Don’t you dare leave me out of this! If you do, I'll just go out by myself! Old man! Baldie baldie baldie!"

  Phil pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand in an attempt to ward off his growing headache. This really… damn it, he couldn't think of a good option here. If only Bastion were around… he was the smart one. He'd figure out something to do.

  Finally, as Rebecca’s voice began to shudder, he hoisted the duffel bag over his shoulder and spoke with a resigned tone.

  “Fine. You’re with me, shortie.”

  Rebecca stopped mid-rant with a hiccup. “R-really?” Her eyes, wide and speckled with tears, peered up at him from where she stood, her head barely level with his knees. Phil flinched away from her look.

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  “What a softie!” Lumina smiled mischievously. "Acting all tough outside, but look at you now!"

  “I'm actively planning several murders. Not fake ones like what the cops are trying to pin on me, but actual premeditated homicides. And Rebecca wants me to take her along. Arthur’s going to strangle me.” Phil muttered to Solomon softly enough for Rebecca not to hear. The old man looked at the girl with a conflicting gaze.

  “At this point, he’d be more concerned about her safety above all else. Sending her back to America when her only family is here is too dangerous. Locking her away in a windowless room would be a terrible fate, and she's resourceful enough to escape given enough time. At least this way you can keep a close eye on her."

  "Two eyes, if I can manage," Phil said. Then, speaking louder, he motioned toward Rebecca. "Short stuff, let's book it back to Reiko's place. I need to fill Tilla in."

  Rebecca sprang up and dashed over to Phil's side. "Who's Tilla?”

  “My sister-in-law.” Phil rubbed his chin and adjusted the duffel bag from where it casually hung over his shoulder. He started walking out of the shop. “She’s in this the same as we are.”

  Rebecca’s brows furrowed, and then her eyes widened. “You have a brother? And he’s married?!?!?”

  Phil let out a soft sigh. “Had. He passed away recently.”

  Rebecca’s eyes dimmed. Her face fell, looking as crestfallen as Phil felt in the moment.

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  Phil ruffled her hair, causing her to leap away with a catlike hiss, her previous sorrow forgotten, if only for a moment.

  “Naw. It’s cool. Jean would be sad to see me moping around when there’s ass to kick.”

  "Ass to kick!" Rebecca raised both hands high, a gesture made awkward by the cast around her left arm. “Wait, what does ‘ass’ mean?”

  “Language!” Solomon sternly shouted as the door closed behind them.

  Lumina snickered as Phil shot an apologetic look toward Solomon. Internally, however, Phil did feel some measure of gratefulness that Rebecca had regained some of her former sass.

  “It’s… uh… I really don’t know how to approach this, oh child of small size. Just uh… don’t say it. Solomon might beat me up next time.”

  It was too late. As the unlikely duo walked down the sidewalk, Rebecca skipped alongside Phil with an extraordinarily smug look while chanting “Ass ass ass ass Phil’s a baldie, an old man, a gambling addict, quick someone give him the gambling addiction helpline number~, ass ass ass ass!”

  “You have to admit,” Lumina mused, “Even if by accident, you are doing a remarkable job distracting the traumatized eight-year-old from everything she’s been through.”

  Phil burst into laughter, causing Lumina to quickly join him.

  “I’m just glad she’s saying all that in English!” Phil choked out.

  “Yeah, you might get the cops called on you again!” Lumina wheezed.

  -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

  It was not until several minutes after leaving Kame Game that the growing feeling of anticipation Phil had felt in his bones earlier was answered. At first, it was nothing but the barest of suspicions causing his hackles to rise – a cold breeze against his skin in the middle of Springtime, an ominous sense to the air, and a feeling that not all was quite right. However, as Phil warily glanced around, his pupils constricted.

  A man was walking into an inconspicuous building down the street.

  Ordinarily that would have been no cause for alarm. Men had been walking into both inconspicuous and conspicuous buildings ever since the dawn of organized society itself, regardless of whether the men were conspicuous or inconspicuous. To be alarmed by that action would be conspicuous in itself, or as Lumina preferred to put it, a sign that Phil was becoming irrationally paranoid and should probably seek professional help.

  However, the man walking into the inconspicuous building was not all that inconspicuous himself. He, as a conspicuous man, was swathed from head to toe in deep blue robes, with a hood pulled over his head that had its brow decorated by a gold-stitched Eye of Horus.

  That final detail was the most conspicuous of all.

  Phil tugged the brim of his baseball cap even lower over his eyes than it had been before, the action causing Rebecca to stop her skipping to direct a questioning gaze toward Phil.

  “Strange man up ahead. Act natural.” Phil muttered to her. Rebecca’s spine stiffened, and her eyes moved to glare at the man with such care that he could almost hear a ‘creak’ coming from them.

  Phil slowed his pace. The man was halfway through the open door, his body obscuring the interior of the building enough so that not even a single detail of the inside could be clearly made out.

  “It could be nothing… hm…”

  His gaze flicked across the rest of the street until Phil determined that nothing else appeared to be out of the ordinary.

  “To hell with it. That’s definitely some Egyptian symbology. I call that weird enough to investigate. Rebecca… I’m taking you back to Kame Game. I’ll pick you back up after I check this out.”

  “NO!” Rebecca shouted with a stomp of her foot. “You don’t get to get rid of me that easy!”

  “Rebecca…” Phil’s voice trailed off. He looked at her helplessly. His mouth opened and then closed again. Each time his words died in his mouth before he could speak.

  Then he crouched down to bring his eyes level with hers.

  “Look. I know I said I’d let you tag along, but I’m worried about you. Last time I checked out something weird, it ended with my group separated and my brother murdered. I… don’t want that to happen to you. Just let me take you back. I swear I’ll return as soon as I’m done here.”

  Rebecca glared back at him with a frosty look. “And I want my gramps back. I've seen how you and granduncle look at each other. You're scared to find Gramps d-dead." The last word was said with a stutter and accompanied by a flash of fear across her face.

  Then Rebecca stomped her foot again, as if daring Phil to deny her. “If you ditch me, I’ll escape and follow you anyway. Stop trying to keep me out of this!”

  Phil put his head into his hands. What could he even do? What could he say to convince her to go back? He was clueless. No, more than clueless. Phil felt like he was about to vomit. No matter how fast his mind spun, he simply could not think of any clear way out of this.

  Rebecca’s hand clasped his shoulder. He lifted his head from his hands to see her face inches away from his. Her eyes stared at him.

  “Please…”

  The way she looked, the words that were left unsaid, all of that only served to remind Phil of what Tilla had mentioned to him recently.

  “I think if I stop… if I sit down to rest … I don’t know if I can start back up again.”

  “Yeah. I feel the same, Tilla.” Phil muttered in response to the words ringing in his mind. He reached into his back pocket to pull out a stack of 40 cards. “Here,” Phil spoke louder, “You lost your deck, so here’s my old Yata-Jar one. You remember how I played it against you, right? Just go for the same strategy I used. Should be strong enough to deal with most bad guys.”

  Rebecca’s face brightened like it was made from the sun itself. She began to stutter out her thanks, but now it was Phil’s turn to place a hand on her shoulder.

  "Rebecca," Phil said in a deadly serious voice. "There is a condition. You need to promise me two things.”

  “Yeah.” Rebecca firmly nodded.

  Phil extended his index finger to mark the first promise. “One. Follow my orders always. If I tell you to let me handle something, I expect you to do that. Same if I tell you to run and save yourself, or any other order I give.”

  “But-“

  Phil’s gaze turned flinty.

  “Okay…” Rebecca said with a crestfallen look.

  “Two.” Phil held out a second finger. “These guys aren’t some mooks you see in the movies who’ll just tie you up and leave you alone. They will try to kill you if they get the chance. Or worse. Kill them before they get that chance.”

  He held out his pinkie finger.

  “Pinky promise?”

  Rebecca stared at him from where she’d taken a half-step backwards in fear. Then she held out her pinkie finger.

  “Pinkie promise.”

  Phil stood and brushed the dirt off his knees. Considering he was in an anime world, this honestly wasn’t too far off from the norm. How many life and death duels had Yugi gone through before he’d even graduated from school? Hell, even in those cutesy magical girl shows his sister liked to watch, it was always some small child getting sent out by a talking cat to commit war crimes. At least here, Phil planned to do most, if not all, of the dueling if he was given the option.

  “Cheers, I believe they call this child endangerment. Now, how about we do some light trespassing? Stick close to me.”

  Rebecca followed in his shadow, clutching the Duel Monsters deck in her hands as they approached the building that the conspicuous man had disappeared into. Phil tested the door handle with his hand. It clicked open.

  “Not worried about security, huh?” He muttered.

  Phil held out his palm behind his back, motioning for Rebecca to be as quiet as possible. He nudged the door fully open to reveal a steel hallway. Not even an inch of it was painted, giving the hallway a rather depressing industrial look. Phil’s brows furrowed as he looked down.

  His breath was billowing out of his mouth in the form of a cloud of fog.

  “C-cold.” Rebecca shivered as the pair made their way inside.

  That was true. Compared to the Spring weather of the outdoors, the inside of the building felt like it belonged to the depths of Winter. Phil carefully stalked down the hallway. There were no doors to be seen, other than one at the end that was large enough for two grown men to walk through side-by-side.

  “Shh.” Phil quietly shushed her. No matter if this was nothing or something, remaining undetected until that could be established was key.

  The door at the end of the hallway slid open on well-oiled hinges with only a mere touch of Phil's hand. Footsteps could be heard near the end of the room, but those went momentarily unnoticed in the face of what the room contained. Phil’s eyes widened, while Rebecca let out an involuntary gasp of horror.

  The room behind the door was like a giant walk-in freezer as big as a parking lot. From the ceiling hung countless rows of meat hooks, and dangling from each of the meat hooks was a human body, silent and unmoving, their faces serene in death. It was terrifyingly similar to the room Phil and Jean had spied hidden within the depths of the underground duel arena, but whereas in the prior room each of the corpses had images of the Millennium Items carved into their skin, the bodies in this room had unblemished flesh, other than for the area in their chests where the meat hooks had pierced through.

  Phil frowned. An ominous sight.

  Liquid splattered against the frozen floor as Rebecca doubled over and vomited. The footsteps in the distance paused, and then started back up again to eventually reveal the blue-cloaked man.

  Phil’s breath billowed out into the frigid air as he let out a string of hoarse swears.

  "Now what," The blue-cloaked man said in a sinister tone, "could two little rats be doing in this building of mine?”

  Phil slid a deck of cards out of his pocket. The robed man did the same. The Eye of Horus on his hood, which was still pulled low over his face, began to glow with a reddish-golden light. In an instant, a flood of shadows spilled in to cover the floor in what looked like a liquid carpet of ink. A cry of fear tore its way from Rebecca’s lips, causing Phil to hold out his hand and ruffle her hair. Unlike before, she did not spring away with a hiss.

  “Stay close. Let me handle this.” He whispered. He casually let her duffel bag plop to the ground, freeing up his other hand for the impending duel. Rebecca nodded and hid behind him. Then, Phil directed his attention to the robed man, who had stopped his approach roughly twenty feet away from Phil.

  Though the robes obscured most of his features, he could see a slight rise and fall of the man’s chest. He was breathing. The voice sounded more… alive than the Sons generally did. A mercenary, then? Or a servant of another faction? The Eye of Horus suggested he had ties to Egypt. A Rare Hunter? A Gravekeeper? No, other than Odion, all of the Gravekeepers were loyal to Ishizu. And Odion was tall with dark skin, while the guy in the robes was perhaps five or so feet, and if the hands poking out of the man’s robes were any paler, they’d be see-through.

  “Oh, you know, just on a stroll. Taking a nice little walk. What’s with the bodies?”

  The man tilted his head.

  "I don't think I need to tell you that. Instead, you should be cursing your curiosity." The man spoke with a gravelly tone. He pulled out a stack of cards, and the air in front of the two duelists solidified slightly. "Curse your curiosity, for that is the reason for your doom."

  The air became even colder, enough so that frost began to gather on Phil’s arms. But… despite the grim sight of countless corpses hanging from meat hooks, Phil could only sneer.

  "Right," Phil said in a voice laden with mockery. “Doom. Mate, I don't know who the fuck you're with, but I've been having a really shitty week, and you seem like a good target for some stress relief. You're gonna lose. Then I'm gonna squeeze you for info. And when that's all done? I'm gonna feed you alive to a very good froggy friend of mine.”

  The man in the blue robes let out a burst of mocking laughter that rang throughout the room for several minutes. Then the laughter abruptly cut short. The man swept off his hood to reveal an entirely ordinary face, other than the thick, bushy brows perched above his eyes like fuzzy black caterpillars.

  “A comedian.” The man purred. “How amusing. My name is Hajime.”

  “Phil.”

  Hajime’s lips contorted into a contemptuous smirk. “Hm. I’ve heard of you.”

  Red text scrawled its way across the floor, the living shadows darting around to avoid the touch of its light as two life point counters revealed themselves. The frost-touched corpses remained silent except for the creaks of the chains they hung from, serving as quiet witnesses to the duel that was about to begin.

  Phil: 4000 Hajime: 4000

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