Chapter 19: To the Castle

                                    

                                          
"Nice one, Mai-san!" Akia cheered.
Mai smiled triumphantly when her Harpie Lady Sisters shredded her opponent's monster with their claws, "your Life Points are now down to 0. Your Star Chips are mine."
After she took the Star Chips from the Duelist she was against, she went back to Akia.
"Now we both have ten Star Chips. Let's get to the castle," Akia replied.
"Already? Don't you want to have some more fun, Akia-chan? We could go around dueling some more," Mai said.
"Oh come on, that's all we've been doing for almost two days. Besides, we have to be at the castle by sunset."
"You got a point."
They both then started heading towards Pegasus' castle.
"I wonder if it was a good idea to eliminate that girl when I didn't even need any more Star Chips," Akia commented as she took out five Star Chips out of her pocket and looked at them.
"Why not? The less competition, the better it is for the final round. If you hadn't eliminated her, someone else would've instead; she wasn't exactly the most skilled of duelists. I mean, come on, it took you only two turns to win..." Mai answered.
Akia closed her hand on the Star Chips and smiled, "I guess you're right! I mean, maybe those Star Chips will come in handy for Yugi or Jounouchi."
"Doubt it. Those two can handle themselves pretty well."
"Then, should I just throw them out?"
"No! Keep them! I said I doubted it, but I didn't say that for sure they wouldn't need it. Especially Jounouchi..."
"Jounouchi? Even though he beat you...?"
"Hey! He just got lucky."
Akia knew that Mai was mentioning Jounouchi because she was just more fond of him. That was why she felt like teasing her a lot about it.
"Sure... Don't you think he's actually quite handsome when he gets all serious?" Akia teased Mai some more.
"W-W-What are you talking about? That kid? No way! He's just stubborn and rude!" A slight blush showed up on Mai's cheeks as she stuttered. She didn't know why Akia was mentioning these kinds of things.
"Hehe she's blushing! I didn't know it would be so much fun to tease her!" The red-eyed girl giggled internally.
"Whatever you say..." Akia grinned at Mai and gave her a teasing look.
They had finally reached the bottom of the dreaded staircase leading to the castle. They both sighed as they started climbing.
After a few minutes of nonstop climbing, they were both breathing heavily. 
"We're almost there! Only a few stairs to climb..." Akia let out.
 "This thing is a real workout... What was Pegasus thinking? He could've at least added some kind of elevator or something. I'm sure it wouldn't cost him much with his kind of money," Mai complained.
They kept climbing until they finally reached the top. There, the scene that unfolded in front of them left the two girls in a state of confused shock. Jounouchi was holding Yugi by his collar.
"Dammit Yugi! Snap out of it!" He yelled out.
"What are you guys doing here?" Mai interrupted them.
"Mai-san, Akia-chan!" Anzu called out to her friends.
"What's happening? Why does Yugi look so down?" Akia asked. She felt that her brother wasn't all there. She went up to him. He didn't even acknowledge her presence. She then turned to Jounouchi.