((heavy sigh))
Chem lab, Chem lecture, Chem discussion...three hard classes for the price of one! Not to mention higher math...my head hurts. I'm tired.
So in other words, the semester's off to a flying start. Yippee.
And now, with all due apologies for the delay, I bring you the next chapter for my fic!
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Disclaimer: Authoress does not own Yu-Gi-Oh
Claimer: Everything in this fic that was not made up by someone else belongs to the authoress! No stealing!
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As he drifted back up to consciousness, Yuugi slowly became aware of his surroundings. It felt like he was lying on weird metal floor. He could feel it bouncing a bit, and a noise that sounded like a trapped animal...or maybe a car engine.
Yuugi was still sluggishly processing this thought when the jolts and bumps stopped. Yuugi could feel a flood of bright light on his closed eyes. Someone grabbed him then, lifting Yuugi off the floor and carrying him somewhere as if he were the sack of balls from gym class.
While this was going on, Yuugi's synapses started firing more rapidly, attempting to get his thought processes back up to their normal speed.
"Just put him with the other one for now," a voice said out of nowhere.
There was more of the 'being carried' sensation, before it ended courtesy of the sudden shock of being dropped onto the floor. This was a different one, it felt like wood, not metal. Yuugi heard a door close and footsteps walk away, and wondered whether or not it would be a good idea to try to open his eyes and sit up yet.
Where was he? Yuugi couldn't remember what had happened to him. It must have been bad if his head hurt so much...Yuugi cast his mind back, trying to recall what was starting to make him feel a sense of distress. Yuugi thought about home, and the Shop...Grandpa was going to see a friend on a dig, which was good since then he wouldn't have to explain Yami -
That was the keyword that triggered an explosion inside his head, as Yuugi's memories rushed back in an instant: YamidemonsMaipendentmuseumsomethingsmashingintothebac ofhishead...
Once the memory rush began to settle down, Yuugi was able to take notice that he wasn't alone, where it was he was now. In fact, there was someone shaking him, urging Yuugi to get up.
"C'mon, they couldn't have hit you that hard," the voice said, its' owner obviously worried.
Yuugi responded to the demands of the urging voice. He opened his eyes and sat up, wincing at how his head sharply protested that. Mokuba, sitting beside him on the floor, looked immensely relieved.
"Yuugi, don't scare me like that! I almost thought you were dead or something!" Mokuba exclaimed.
Yuugi's hands twitched. He wanted to say something to reassure Mokuba, but Mokuba couldn't understand sign language. Yuugi had to settle for an exaggerated head-grabbing motion and an inquisitive look, which thankfully Mokuba managed to interpret.
"I'm okay," Mokuba said, "My headache's going away, really. I can't believe those idiots hit us so hard, they could have really hurt us doing that! That would have been a big surprise for these idiots...what the hell did they think they were doing, no one is stupid enough do to that..."
Yuugi wondered at Mokuba's apparent familiarity with the correct procedures involved in being knocked out and abducted. Unable to ask such a complicated thing through gesture alone, Yuugi chose to take a look around the room. It wasn't very large. There was a window, with light streaming through the glass. Otherwise, the room was minimally furnished; it had a cot, a chair, and nothing else. The floor, walls, and ceiling were all made of the same undecorated wood.
Mokuba blinked when Yuugi pointed at his wrist. Did the mute teen want to know what time it was? Why would Yuugi want to know what time it was...unless - oh!
"'How long have we been in here'?" Mokuba asked.
Yuugi nodded, relieved that he was able to get this question across. It was tricker than he preferred, but Yuugi had had plenty of experience teaching Honda and Jonouchi sign language, as well as learning it himself, to understand how to talk to someone who didn't know the exact shapes of the words. At least when it came to dealing with simple concepts like this. Complicated matters, on the other hand...unfortunately, Yuugi didn't think that their captors had left them pens or paper.
"I think it's been a day since we were at the museum," Mokuba said, "It was kind of late in the afternoon when we were taken, and it looks more like morning outside now to me."
Yuugi nodded thoughtfully at that. Then he clambered to his feet, and went to check out the window.
"I tried the window already," Mokuba spoke up, getting to his feet as well, "It's locked shut with a padlock."
Even so, Yuugi pulled the chair over and stood on it to get a look at the window. The window was indeed locked tightly shut. Yuugi looked out the window to see if he could get any idea of where they were. There was grass outside, even with the bottom of the window - this room must be mostly underground. Yuugi agreed with Mokuba that it was morning outside; all the grass he could see sparkled with dew in the sunlight. It wasn't a bad sight, really.
Yuugi got off the chair, pushed it away from the window, and sat down on it. There was nothing to do but wait for the people holding them to act, Yuugi knew.
They didn't have to wait long. A minute or two later, the door opened. Some men in black suits and sunglasses were standing there. Mokuba bolted to put Yuugi and the chair in between himself and the suits.
"What do you bastards want now?" Mokuba demanded from his safe perch.
The suits ignored the question. Someone standing behind the suits - another suit - gave the others an order.
"Take Mokuba to the dining hall," was the order, which the three other suits immediately proceeded to do.
Yuugi and Mokuba struggled, fighting against being separated while in this situation, but the odds were not in their favor. Three large men against a small boy and a teenager of the same height didn't make for much of a fight. Mokuba was dragged out kicking and swearing between two of the suits, while the third kept a thrashing Yuugi painfully pinned against the wall.
Once Mokuba was out of the room, the suit holding Yuugi dropped him and walked out. The suits closed the door behind them and relocked it, while Yuugi pulled himself off the floor again, rubbing the many sore and aching spots he seemed to be accumulating these days.
Yuugi wondered why suits had taken Mokuba to the dining hall of wherever this was. He also wondered why this kidnapping had happened in the first place, and what Mai and Jonouchi were doing right now, and if Yami was doing alright wherever he was now...
The little room suddenly seemed so much more confining then it had been a minute ago. Unable to shake off the worrisome thoughts, Yuugi decided to take another look outside. The view might be able to distract him from thinking about the situation he and Mokuba were in.
Pushing the chair back and climbing on top of it, Yuugi discovered something was waiting for him when he looked outside this time. A little bird - Yuugi thought it was a sparrow, or something like that - was pecking at the grass and dirt by the window. The bird took no notice whatsoever of its' silent observer as it hopped around, moving from spot to spot and searching for whatever it was pecking for...probably looking for some food, was Yuugi's thought.
Seeing that little bit of normalcy actually made Yuugi feel better. It was a reminder that the rest of the world wasn't completely insane. Yuugi let his mind drift a bit, watching as the bird hopped closer to the window, chirping as it went.
That was when Yuugi heard the sound.
((Food good food good! Where food has gone? Found food! Food!))
Yuugi jerked out of his inattentive doze at the sound of the voice. Where was that little voice coming from?
((Food!)) continued the little voice, ((Food good, good food! Yeah food good food!))
Starting to worry for his sanity a bit - had that blow to the head done more damage than he'd thought? - Yuugi looked around, trying to discover the source of the voice. When he finally figured it out, it was probably the most bizarre moment of Yuugi's entire life - and he was including the large portions that hadn't happened yet in that idea.
The bird was chirping. Yuugi could hear the chirps perfectly well. But inside his head, the chirps translated themselves into words.
'Oh no,' Yuugi groaned mentally, 'I got hit so hard in the head that I've started to hallucinate!'
Then Yuugi shook his head. No, he wasn't hallucinating. Yuugi wasn't certain how he knew this, but somehow he was completely sure that this was not a fabrication of an unraveling mind. And that had been a dumb idea to think of anyway. But what other explanation for this sudden comprehension of bird lingo was there?
The bird hopped a little closer to the window as Yuugi tried to figure it out. Coming out with nothing, Yuugi pressed his fists against his head in frustration. On top of that, Yuugi let his normally unflappable control over himself slip, just for a moment, and released a shrill, angry noise from the depths of his throat.
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Something Yuugi had never bothered to tell anyone - not even Grandpa - was that he wasn't really all that mute: at least, in the traditional sense of not being able to make any sounds when he was trying to talk.
Yuugi could indeed make sounds with his throat. They even sounded like words to him when he listened to himself speak. The actual noises Yuugi made were always strange and shrill, practically inhuman. No one else could ever understand him like that, so Yuugi had long ago stopped trying to talk out loud to other people, learning sign language in order to communicate.
Occasionally, and at only at times that he was certain he was alone, Yuugi would sometimes try to practice talking normally. But not matter how hard he tried to force himself to make normal sounds, only the weird noises ever came out of his mouth. It was very discouraging, really...
Now, if the weird noise he had just made could be translated, Yuugi knew, it would probably mean something along the lines of 'Damn it! I hate this!'. It was certainly an appropriate sentiment for the situation...
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((Hate what? What hate where?))
Yuugi blinked. The little voice he heard coming from the bird had stopped its' sing-song commentary.
((I heard you!)) went the little voice, ((I heard you, hate what? Who there?))
Turning back to face the window, Yuugi was astonished to see the bird was looking straight at him, a confused look in its beady little eyes. Spotting Yuugi behind the glass of the window, the bird scooted closer and chirped ((You there? Dirt! Who there in dirt-place?))
Suddenly, Yuugi was actually glad he was alone right now. That meant no one would be around to see him do something freakish, stupid, and non-helpful towards his and Mokuba's escape. Yuugi took a deep breath, tried to remember what it felt like to talk out loud, and gave it a shot.
(((Hello?)))
The bird tilted its head, looking very puzzled. Just when Yuugi was starting to believe that making that sound really had been pointless, the bird replied with a cheerful ((Hello!))
'Oh my god...' Yuugi thought, 'I can't believe it!'
((Me no see you!)) the bird suddenly protested, tilting its' head this way and that, ((Why you behind human-dirt?))
'Huh? Oh, it must think its' talking to another bird,' Yuugi realized.
(((I'm the one talking,))) Yuugi said, slowly gesturing at himself, (((My name is Yuugi. I'm a human, but I never realized I could talk like this before.)))
The bird seemed utterly shocked.
((Human-dirt speaking flyertongue! What next, walking flowers?))
The bird preened itself for a moment, clearly trying to resolve this conflict in its mind. It seemed to think very quickly, because a moment later, the bird turned back to Yuugi and calmly asked ((You say hate this? Why you in there if no like?))
(((I can't get out,))) Yuugi explained, (((Those men put me in here and locked the door. I'm trapped in here.)))
((Human-dirt puts human-dirt in cage?)) the bird seemed astounded. ((Human-dirts are all for crazy beaking! Crazy beaking! Now me wanna help you out of cage.))
(((You do?))) Yuugi asked, (((That would be wonderful! Thank you!)))
((Me like helping flyer,)) the bird replied, sounding pleased, ((You is flyer, you speak flyertongue. Even if you no fly.))
The bird chirped laughter for a moment - it seemed to think this concept was vastly entertaining - and then fluttered away, presumably in order to get help. Trying not to wonder about the sort of help a small bird like that could acquire, Yuugi massaged his throat, which was starting to feel sore and scratchy. He hadn't used it so much since...actually Yuugi couldn't really remember using his voice so much at all.
The bird returned fairly quickly.
((Big bad mess for you,)) it said, ((Wall good for stopping dirts when you no fly. Straight from here, wall has perch-place. Here you wall-walk. You know wall-walk, Yuugi-Flyer-No-Fly?))
(((What is wall-walking?))) Yuugi asked.
((Human-dirt walk with four feet up wall. I see human-dirt do this.))
Picturing this image inside his head, Yuugi realized what the bird meant. 'Wall-walking' could only mean climbing, which was not something that birds did. Birds seemed to use very odd terms to describe things that they didn't normally do...and the addition of 'Flyer-No-Fly' to his name was probably significant as well. Yuugi wanted to remember these little details, in case he ever found himself talking to birds again. Not that that was likely to happen.
(((I can do that,))) Yuugi told the bird.
((Is good! From wall-walk, straight through human-forest. There is human-black-river, and many human-stone-nest. Is good, Yuugi-Flyer-No-Fly?))
(((That's great! Thank you so much!)))
The bird chirped happily and flew away. Yuugi really was thankful that he knew a way out of this place. The only problem now was that there was no way for himself or Mokuba to get outside to follow the bird's directions. On top of that, Yuugi decided that even if Mokuba could understand sign language, he wouldn't tell Mokuba about getting directions from a bird. He was already questioning his sanity enough for the moment, no need to have other people help out with that...
Sitting down on the chair, Yuugi was momentarily started when the door to the room suddenly opened. Mokuba was shoved inside, before the door was closed and loudly locked again. Yuugi sprang to his feet and went to see if Mokuba was okay.
"I'm fine," Mokuba said, even though he took the chair when it was offered, "Those jerks had my brother on the phone. They want him to pay a ransom for me, but of course he wouldn't deal unless he knew I was alright."
Mokuba's expression darkened as the black-haired boy let his anger show.
"The idiots and my brother ended up agreeing that they're gonna exchange me for the ransom money tonight. I don't think my brother knows about you being stuck here too, Yuugi, but knowing the stupid idiots here, they'll probably try to sneak you in and then demand even more money from him to get me. Stupid bastards..."
Yuugi perched himself on the cot and waited for Mokuba to run out of curses for the men that were holding them. Once he was slightly calmer, Mokuba explained why this sort of thing tended to happen frequently to him and his brother. Mokuba's brother Seto was a multi-billionaire - how that was so didn't come up - but because Seto was a teenager, people thought it would be easy to take all his money away.
While Mokuba gave abbreviated explanations of other instances where he had been kidnapped and Seto's fortune had been demanded as a ransom - as well as what Seto had done to the kidnappers instead of paying - Yuugi let himself sprawl out on the cot. It was a pretty big cot, actually, with enough room for both of them if they didn't mind sharing or touching each other.
Yuugi tried to lie face-down, but doing so made something poke his chest. Suddenly remembering the only thing that could be causing that, Yuugi rolled over and pulled out his necklace. It wasn't much of a necklace, since Yuugi had just tied Yami's feather to a loop of string. Yuugi patted his chest and sighed in relief - it would be pretty stupid to hurt himself just because he wanted to keep Yami's feather with him.
Mokuba had stopped talking. When Yuugi looked over, concerned, he saw that Mokuba was staring at the long, stiff feather in Yuugi's hand.
"...Yuugi, is that a...feather?"
Mokuba looked fairly dubious, but came for a closer look after Yuugi nodded.
"Why is it glowing?" Mokuba blurted out after another moment, "I mean...it might be - be radioactive, or something! Are you sure you should be holding it without lead gloves?"
Yuugi gave Mokuba a look, and the boy flushed in embarrassment.
"C'mon, I've never such a weird feather before," Mokuba mumbled, "Cut me a break, will you?"
Nodding, Yuugi held the feather out, offering to let Mokuba hold it if he wanted. Gingerly, Mokuba did so, cautiously running his finger up and down the silvery-bright feather.
"Where did you get this thing, anyway? This has got to be the weirdest OW!"
Mokuba dropped the feather. It drifted down towards the floorboards, but Yuugi reached out and caught it before it got away from them. Mokuba had other concerns at the moment.
"It bit me!"
He showed Yuugi the small cut on the tip of his finger, before shoving the finger back into his mouth to suck on it. Yuugi very carefully tested the edge with one of his own fingers. The feather's edge was still unnaturally razor sharp, like a piece of broken glass.
"You could use that thing as a weapon or something," Mokuba said, taking his finger back out of his mouth, "Or to cut through stuff. That thing is seriously weird..."
Mokuba trailed off as Yuugi leaned over, pressed the feather's edge against the nearest bit of wood - the wall - and experimented with cutting into it using the feather. Much to both their surprises, the feather cut through with alarming ease.
"...Hey," Mokuba said slowly, "...Hey! Yuugi, I have an idea! This feather might be just what we're needing!"
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The guards outside opened the door and peered into the room. Both boys were curled up on the cot, asleep in the darkness of the unlit room. Relocking the door, the guards went to take a much-needed break. There was over an hour before Kaiba would be delivering the ransom, and both kids were asleep...what could possibly happen?
Inside the darkened room, the not-so-asleep boys opened their eyes and sat up.
"We should have a while," Mokuba said, "Try not to cut yourself up, Yuugi."
Mokuba moved to sit quietly next to the locked door, listening for the return of the guards. Yuugi went to stand on the chair by the window. He reached for the padlock, then went to work. They had tested the feather on the metal of the padlock before, and it had worked, but sawing away like that had made noise. Now that there were no guards listening for strange noises, Yuugi could saw away at the only thing keeping himself and Mokuba from escaping through the little window, which was just the right size for the two of them to fit through.
It took ten minutes for Yuugi to saw all the way through the ring of the padlock, and another ten to make the hole wide enough to pull the padlock free altogether. Slipping the little metal padlock absently into a pocket, Yuugi tugged on the window. The hinges were in pretty good shape, but it still jammed up once it was open.
One right after the other, Yuugi and Mokuba climbed out the window and crouched in the shadows that draped over the wide lawn this close to dusk.
"Now where do we go?" Mokuba muttered.
Remembering the bird's instructions, Yuugi pointed straight ahead. Yuugi tried to act like he had chosen the direction at random, and Mokuba shrugged, apparently believing just that.
"A good a place as any, I guess."
And off they ran, trying to keep low to the ground as they moved. Yuugi put a hand on his head, attempting to keep his distinctively pointy hairstyle from giving them away. It seemed like ages before they finally reached the wall.
"Oh, good call Yuugi," Mokuba exclaimed, pointing excitedly, "Look, this part's got a really good place to climb over!"
The wall was made of large stone blocks, but in one area, the wall's builders seemed to have run out of those large blocks. Instead, they seemingly chose to pile a lot of smaller blocks that stuck out of the wall at random. This left more than enough room for anyone who wanted to climb this otherwise impassible wall to get good handholds and footholds.
Mokuba went first, Yuugi following him up. When he got stale bird droppings on his hands, Yuugi absently realized that this was why this was called the 'perch-place' - birds had been using it to hang around on, and they certainly didn't care what they went to the bathroom on...
They got over the wall easily, and once they were on the other side, it felt like they were in a forest...or maybe a park.
'I guess 'Human-forest' must mean a place like a park,' Yuugi thought, 'So that means that a 'human-black-river' is...a road, maybe? And the 'human-stone-nests' are buildings, probably houses? I wish bird language came with some definitions!'
Yuugi's thoughts were derailed when an alarm began wailing shrilly.
"That's it! We gotta go, now!" Mokuba exclaimed.
The two of them started running through the trees, away from the wall.
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After a great deal of arguing, Seto Kaiba had agreed to bring Mai and Jonouchi with him when he made the exchange.
It was pathetically obvious that those lousy crooks would try to pass Yuugi off as Mokuba, just to get more money out of Kaiba. Mai and Jonouchi planned to keep that from happening as best they knew; Jonouchi planned to beat people the old-fashioned way, and Mai had more than a few tricks up her sleeves.
The two of them were worried that the crooks might hurt Yuugi and Mokuba to get what they wanted from Kaiba...Jonouchi was especially concerned that Kaiba would go through Yuugi to save his brother, which would be just as bad.
However, it looked as if things had settled themselves without any assistance from the three of them. Just as Kaiba's limo was pulling past a small park that lay across the road from an apartment complex - their destination none too far ahead of them - an alarm went off somewhere in the depths of the trees.
"What's going on now?" Jonouchi grumbled.
Kaiba signaled his driver to stop the limo, a smirk starting to grow on his face. As the limo slowed to a halt, two short figures emerged from the park and bolted across the room in front of them, ignoring the immediate danger of being hit by the limo.
One of the figures had crazily spiked hair. Jonouchi slapped at the window controls. When the window was down, Jonouchi yelled at the figures, who might have kept going otherwise.
"Oi! You wanna a lift or what!"
Yuugi and Mokuba screeched to a halt, panting for air. Jonouchi opened the door, stuck his head out, and waved cheerfully at them. The pair stumbled over to the limo and Jonouchi slammed the door shut behind them.
"No wonder you didn't care about the trade," Mai said, watching with carefully concealed amusement as Mokuba hugged his brother as if he never planned to let go again.
Kaiba's smug smirk only grew wider and smugger.
"I did take into consideration the fact that your little friend might not have been able to escape on his own," Kaiba replied condescendingly.
Yuugi was too busy breathing hard to pay attention to what Kaiba was saying, but Jonouchi eagerly glared at Kaiba on his friend's behalf. Something about Kaiba just rubbed Jonouchi the wrong way...
Even as he was finally catching his breath, Yuugi hurriedly signed something at the other people in the limo.
"They're following you guys?"
Jonouchi growled, before attempting to get out and deal with the problem personally. The door clicked and locked itself under his fingertips. Kaiba was still smirking, his hand on a control panel.
"Why you -"
The limo started moving with a lurch that cut off the rest of Jonouchi's words.
"I informed the driver to take us back to our mansion," Kaiba sneered, "I doubt it would occur to you to be grateful that I didn't let you jump out and stay behind."
"You..." Jonouchi growled.
"Se-to," Mokuba whined, changing the subject abruptly, "I'm sick of being stuck at home!"
Kaiba lost his smug look as soon as he turned to his little brother.
"You'll just have to live with it, Mokuba. It's only until I find and crush every single one of the pathetic fools in their pathetic organization..."
"You said that last month!"
"It's been over a month and you still haven't gotten these people yet?" Mai asked, sounding honestly amazed.
Kaiba shot her a withering look, which Mai ignored. Mokuba, however, nodded in response to her words.
"These guys are weird. Normally my brother gets them easily, right as soon as they try something," the younger Kaiba explained, "But I think these guys know about the last bunch of times that this happened, because they're being a real pain to track down. Right, big brother?"
Kaiba nodded, not about to verbally admit this sort of failure inside a car full of people he didn't like or trust as much as he did Mokuba. It was a quiet ride after that, until they passed through a pair of wide gates and pulled up to an enormous mansion.
Jonouchi managed to forget that it belonged to someone he didn't like, and stared out the window at it. Yuugi stared as well, having never seen a house that big before. Mokuba and Mai both seemed to think it was no big deal.
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