Hellooooooooo there! Welcome back! I actually hadn't planned for this chapter to go this way originally, but writing the end of the last chapter, especially Mokuba finding out scene, this came to me. Now enough of me rambling… on with the show!

Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!

Seriously, what the fuck is going on here?

No way, under any circumstances, were any of Yugi's little friends supposed to be involved in this. I don't want them finding out and telling him anything, whether it be on purpose or not, and now 2 of them might possibly know.

I was seething walking off the helicopter, Yugi thought it was because of the mind slave thing, but it was because of Marik pulling some shit we never discussed. If this was running things behind the scenes, so help me when finals start. Anzu had a cyanide pill in her mouth and walking down the stair of a ship. Jounouchi was at the dock, leading me over. I could see they both had the contacts in as well as the ear pieces. Thankfully Yugi never seemed to notice these, even though they are a bit obvious. Jounouchi lead us over to the arena of sorts which was fixed up with a giant anchor and a timer with 2 chains coming down from either end. I was forced to put one around my wrist as Jounouchi explained how the duel would work. I on the other hand was deciding whether or not I should put Yugi to sleep to get some answers. I decided that answers were far more important here so I did just that.

"Marik drop the act we're alone."

"Oh are we? What's wrong?"

"You know damn well what's wrong. What the hell are Yugi's friends doing here?" At this both Jounouchi and Anzu were looking at me in shock, but I would deal with them later.

"Well I did say I had a surprise for you."

"There's a difference between surprises and shit that compromises our plans."

"Who said this compromises anything?"

"Well you picked the blonde who can't shut his mouth and the girl who would tell Yugi anything. Gee I wonder what the fuck could go wrong here." Jounouchi got an indignant look on his face at this and Anzu looked hurt that I thought she couldn't keep a secret. I honestly didn't care, Kaiba however looked thoroughly amused by the situation dawning a smirk on his face.

"Hey man I can keep a secret." Jounouchi said.

"And I know when and when not to tell things to Yugi." Anzu said

At this I glared at them. They backed up a bit in shock, but I still kept my gaze. "Jounouchi I know that's what you think, but trust me you are sorely mistaken trust me on that. As for you Anzu, that may be true, but I know that you would consider this one of those times to tell him something, and Yugi must never find out about this."

"Look what's your deal? We're your friends right?" Jounouchi said.

"Correction. You are Yugi's friends, not mine. The only reason I keep you around is because he wants you there, trust me if he didn't I would've let you get your ass kicked back in Duelist Kingdom."

"What's that supposed to mean?!" He shouted.

"Oh I don't know, maybe the fact that I had to give you hints through every fucking duel because you were too stupid to see through some of the oldest tricks in the book. Why do you think I called our duel pointless right before Pegasus, it wasn't because I knew Pegasus was no real threat, no, it was because I saw no point in dueling someone who wasn't even in my skill league."

Jounouchi just stood there like a gaping fish opening and closing his mouth, kinda of like how he looked when he couldn't retort Kaiba on something. I can see why Kaiba get such amusement off of this. Anzu then glared at me herself and said to me:

"Look, just because you may not like us doesn't mean you can just say whatever you want and hurt other's feelings. Whether you like it or not Yug-"

"Don't you dare call me Yugi." I snarled "That hasn't been my name for a long time. The boy you know is Yugi now and he has nothing to do with this, so don't refer to me as if I were him. You guys seemed just fine calling me pharaoh not that long ago and you can stick to it. Leave Yugi out of this."

"Whatever that still doesn't give you the right to say things like that."

"I really don't care Anzu, I said what I feel is the truth, and sense you guys are being clued in to the truth of what is really going on during Battle City, then you get to hear everything including my personal opinions of you. Now I'm assuming Marik has told you everything."

"Yeah, pharaoh they know everything. Think of it this way, less people to hypnotize and fuck with their memories of the events going on."

"Oh that is so comforting Marik. So where is Honda?"

"Who knows we got kidnapped and lost him." Joey said

"Hey!" Kaiba suddenly shouted

"Yeah Kaiba?" I said

"Are you letting Honda in on this or not, because him, Shizuka, and Otogi are heading this way along with Mai."

"Oh hell no! These two are more than enough! Let's just get this over with and be done with it."

I then walked over to Jounouchi and grabbed him by the collar to drag him down to my level. "Now that you know, you're going to play your part. Yugi does not ever find out about this and nothing bad happens to you. Am I clear Katsuya?" I said to him threateningly still holding him by the collar.

"C-crystal sir." He said with wide eyes that held worry in them. Good at least he knows who's boss around here.

"Alright then, let's get this show on the road." I dropped Jounouchi at this point and walked back to my side of the dock. I saw Jounouchi doing the same intensely listening to something, most likely Marik. Anzu was headed over to some chair on a separate dock. Well at least over there I won't have to hear her. Lastly Kaiba just stood over in the same spot with Mokuba. I allowed Yugi to wake up after one last threatening glare to Jounouchi and let the duel begin. Yugi spent half of it pleading to Jounouchi to break free from Marik's control. Another reason I didn't want them involved, I knew it would break the kid. His strategies were sub-par compared to normal which did not bode well for the anchor, Jounouchi was planned to lose this duel after all meaning he had a key for his chain.

All of a sudden Yugi got the idea that he needed to do this on his own and gave Jounouchi his puzzle as a sign of friendship. I wanted to enjoy watching Jounouchi pull a piece out of the puzzle, I really did, but I was worried about the outcome of the duel without my influence. Honda and the others showed up a while ago, but they stayed over to the side with Kaiba.

The duel was nearing its end, I could tell. Life points were low and the best monsters were being pulled out now. I couldn't tell what Yugi's plan was, I don't think he knew it himself, but something was off. I should have known this from the start though, this duel was far too big of a choice for him. The choice of killing his best friend or himself, and I know how Yugi is, the choice will of course be himself. Jounouchi sent out his last attack, the meteor of destruction, and sent it to Yugi, which was enough to wipe out the his life points. Yugi activated spirit mirror to save himself, which allowed him to redirect the attack to wherever he pleased. He could take out Jounouchi if he sent it towards him or himself. I wasn't able to tell until the last second that he chose himself. Jounouchi now pretending to be free of the mind control told Yugi not to do it, but he didn't listen. There was nothing I could do even if I interfered now, all I could hope is that Marik came up with a plan for this situation.

The anchor dropped and a rush out air was forced out of Yugi's lungs. He was passing out quickly and nothing was happening. Suddenly though, I could see Jounouchi swimming down towards us with a key in his hand, presumably ours. I allowed relief to flood my system for a moment, glad that this outcome was thought of. Yugi was still passing out though, but at least now he was floating towards the top. He popped above the water catching his breath and Honda pulls him out along with Anzu. I saw Shizuka dive in after Jounouchi, I knew he had a key on him, but they didn't, plus it didn't look like he was smart enough to take a bigger breath and would probably need help anyways. A few seconds later we all saw Jounouchi and Shizuka pop out of the water as well. Everyone was safe and sound for now, but I'm not letting a close call like this happen again,I won't make the mistake of letting Yugi decide because I'm not waiting for him to sign his own death sentence.

Yugi and Jounouchi had some sort of brothership or whatever you want to call it type of moment. I was too busy gagging at it to pay attention, I mean this was beyond cheesy even for their standards. Jounouchi then went on a "I'm not good enough tangent" which I gave no shit about, but I will admit getting to watch Mai slap Jounouchi across the face was hilarious. Then another cheesy moment with his sister happened and Jounouchi gave the puzzle back to Yugi. He used our "mind link" to thank me for trusting him. If only my naive little other self knew, trusting him wasn't what I did, I trusted Marik to have a plan B that's all. Nonetheless, I told him he showed bravery and that he would surpass me. You know to keep adding to the already too cheesy moment and make him happy. Kaiba was walking away at this point, probably hitting his limit of how much of this he could take, not that I blame him since if I were him I would've walked off 10 minutes ago. He told me he would meet me at the finals, reminding Yugi that we were still indeed in the middle of a tournament.

We all decided we would head off to the finals now that this fiasco was done and every duelist here, that being Yugi, Jounouchi, and Mai having all their locator cards. It turned out the mysterious location of the finals was one of the biggest buildings in the city, go figure. Surprisingly Ryou showed up with his own set of locator cards, I wasn't aware Bakura was doing this too, although knowing Marik, it was just another "surprise" to piss me off with, at least this one was bearable though. Marik along with his older brother came in as well, finally meeting face to face, but it was priceless tricking Yugi and his friends that Marik was really his brother. Do Jounouchi and Anzu really not notice the obvious voice difference? Whatever, they have proven to me countless times that I shouldn't have too high of hopes for them. We were still down one duelist though, and I had no idea who it was supposed to be, I really couldn't think of anyone else that we had run into that Kaiba would plan to be in the finals. Before I was allowed to muse on this thought though Kaiba revealed the real location of the finals, that being the giant blimp behind us, and that we were going to have the rest of the tournament while flying. A little over the top in my opinion, but at least this way everything was private to the group, less of a hassle to deal with. We all gathered on to the blimp without the 8th contestant arriving and were shown to our rooms. Jounouchi got the short end of the stick on this one because Kaiba only put enough rooms for the 8 finalists and no one else, so he got stuck with Honda, Otogi, and Shizuka in his room and I think Anzu bunked with Mai. I didn't really care as long as there was nobody in my room.

We were getting ready for the for everything to start by basically musing over things nobody had the answers to like who the 8th duelist was, where everyone was going to sleep, and how this tournament would turn out In short, useless worrying that standing around thinking about wasn't going to solve. Kaiba announced over the intercom that the finals were about to begin and that all contestants were needed in the drawing room. Yugi grabbed his duel disk and I took over. It was about time this tournament's show got on the road. It was time for all the puzzle pieces to fall into place and this whole charade to start finally coming to an end. Let's see what you got Marik.

Dun, dun, dun… Now Jou and Anzu know too! Yeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah… yeah like I said, this chapter went differently in my head before, but then I got this idea and I was like why not? Anyways, sorry this chapter was a little late I got really sick and a sick person and writing just don't mix. It seems to world just refuses to allow me to keep a bi-weekly update schedule. Nevertheless, see you next time for Bakura v. Yugi!