Artificial Souls
by TAFKAE

Part One

Chapter Three: Error Triplicate

~~~

Pain.

If anyone bothered to look, they would see Yugi running down a back street, the jacket sleeves on his school uniform rolled up even in the awful October cold. A closer inspection would reveal something heavy in his inside pocket, and closer still, that his face was sweating – not heavily, but more than lightly.

His eyes had changed slightly in their appearance, having taken on a slightly more cobalt hue, and also in that Yugi was no longer the one seeing through them.

Pain.

Seto would never have guessed it so hard to keep in control of a vessel that wasn't naturally his own. But he couldn't give up now, not now that he was so close to his goal. He'd already gotten two-thirds of the way through it. He couldn't blow it now – he owed his brother that much.

But at every breath, every step, every borrowed nerve ending ignited again…!

It wouldn't matter for much longer now. He was at the front door of the house. Quickly and quietly he decided on the details, and reached up to ring the doorbell.

The man who answered it was pretty big, gruff, and with an expression on his face that made plain the fact he was still mostly asleep. His name was Jim Osbourne, but that wouldn't matter for much longer either. "Who the hell are you?" he asked hoarsely.

Seto reached into his inside jacket pocket and produced the heavy thing from therein, one end of it pointed at the man's head. "Good evening, murderer," he said quietly.

Osbourne backed up in surprise, now very much awake. "What – ?! What're you doing?!" he asked in disbelief as Seto advanced on him, matching step for step to let no distance open between them.

"Something that should have been done years ago," said the boy calmly, but with his voice tinted with rage. "You do remember Seto and Mokuba, don't you? You should," he added. "You're the one who cut Mokuba up like that – after what you did to him it's a wonder he survived as long as he did. But honestly, you didn't think you'd just get away with it, did you? Hm?"

There was a brief silence, and then a clunk sound that could only be the telephone receiver. Seto chuckled. "You can't see the numbers back there, you idiot. I know what you're trying to do." He didn't move and might have been a statue, had he not been speaking. "Before I do this, I just want you to know – I am Seto."

For a moment another pause manifested, and then Seto continued to the speechless older man. "Now die."

He fired. Jim Osbourne was dead before he hit the floor.

He turned to go, then noticed a Magic Marker on the table nearby. He picked it up, scrawled a message on a scrap of paper, tossed it down onto the corpse, and left. It was starting to rain as the boy headed home, but he didn't notice, or didn't care. The pain was excruciating now, literally unbearable, but he had to fulfill his end of the bargain to get this kid away from him for good.

And he couldn't very well do that if he left him out in the rain all alone, could he?

~~~

"How much further is it?"

Jou sighed. Satoshi had received a crutch from the emergency room people, and it was slowing both of them up considerably to their goal. "Not much, okay? Just chill. We'll be there soon."

They were going to the arcade. Jou wasn't sure what they would do once they got there, but however they were going to get back Yugi and Satoshi to the right places, step one was almost undeniably to be found in the Forsaken Lands of the Duel Monsters game. He didn't know how they'd find Yugi, or how they'd get him back to the real world, or what would end up happening to Satoshi when they did. Of course, Satoshi had been afraid to go back for fear of ending up in the hands of the Faerie of Lost Dreams again, but Jou had given his word to protect him. And protect him he would.

But it was too late to mull anything over now; they'd arrived.

The bell over the doorframe jingled slightly as Jou pushed the door open and Satoshi limped inside. The former reached into his pocket and found the two 500-yen bills his father had given him. He'd said it was for lunch. He'd lied. The two boys walked through the mostly empty arcade as quickly as Satoshi's condition would allow, towards the virtuapods. Both were empty, so Jou paid, and with very little further ado, they both got in.

The pod lids didn't close, though. A man walked out, seemingly from nowhere, and frowned. "Shouldn't you two be in school?"

"We got the day off today," said Jou. "But just our school," he added quickly.

"Then why's the arcade still empty?"

Jou was caught off guard and tried hard to think of a response, but Satoshi came up with one instantly. "Maybe the 'Closed' sign is kind of misleading. We saw the hours and figured you must be open," he explained.

The guy gave him an odd look, but apparently bought it. "Are you sure you should be playing that one? You don't really look so good…"

Satoshi displayed his newly casted wrist. "Try playing Tekken 3 with this. Forsaken Lands is about the only game I can play."

For a moment nothing was said, and almost for the first time since he'd met him, Jou got to see Satoshi actually smile. Just as the latter was about to ask the man whether he wanted their business or not (as he was obviously some kind of manager), he got a reply. "Point taken. All right boys, have fun."

Jou stared at Satoshi in disbelief as the pod lids slowly started to close. Satoshi grinned confidently – almost cockily, perhaps even a little Tasuki-ly – back and gave him a thumbs-up.

He was still smiling, despite his anxiety about his uncertain fate, when he and Jou logged on.

~~~

The place was a dark and dreary expanse of nothingness, coated with a dark grey fog or mist thick enough that, looking down, Yugi could barely see the outlines of his own feet. He looked back up to see the mist ahead of him had parted somewhat to reveal…

"Yami?!" he shouted with glee. "Where were you? Why weren't you talking to me? I was really worried there for a while!"

To his surprise, Yami just glared at him. "Why are you trying to go to the real world?"

"Wh… what?"

"You heard me. You know there's nothing for you there," he snapped, "that there's nothing for you to come back to."

"No, Yami, there's you!" Yugi shouted, shaking his head. "They could duplicate everything here except you, that's why I have to go back!"

Yami nodded. "Yes, they could duplicate everything… even you. You know it's true; Fold told you himself," he added, seeing the boy's denial make itself obvious on his face. "You're a copy. You're not really Yugi; Satoshi is. You're just a backup copy of his memories that took on a personality of its own somehow, even though it wasn't supposed to."

"But – " he sputtered as the Puzzle-spirit turned as if to leave.

"But what?" said Yami harshly, not turning back.

"But… you're supposed to be… to be my aibou-niisan! Not – not Satoshi's! We're partners…!" he tried, and after a pause, "We're friends…!"

There was another moment of silence broken only by the pounding of Yugi's heartbeat in his ears, and then Yami spoke again. "No. Not us. I am bound to the real Yugi – his dark side, not that of some facsimile. You are just a facsimile, and I bid you goodbye." With that, he walked off and began to vanish into the mist.

Yugi jumped a bit, and tried to run after him. "N-no! Yami, wait! Yami!" As he was running, though, his foot caught on something unseen, and he found himself falling, and Yami disappeared – betrayed him, abandoned him, left him alone to instead help someone who wasn't technically supposed to be real at all! – but he didn't stop falling, falling, falling…

It seemed like forever, and he really didn't feel an impact; one second he was falling, and the next he was lying on the surface, with his eyes closed, and a subtle warmth resting on his face. It occurred to him that he was no longer in the dark, dank, misty place.

At the same time he remembered the dream and once again just how alone he was. "Aibou…"

"Well, it's about time you got up," said a harsh voice from beside him. "I was starting to wonder if you'd be joining us."

His eyes snapped open and then squinted at the sunlight he found they were gazing into. It had to be around midmorning, and he was ghastly tired and a bit sore all over. Trying to adjust to his surroundings, he sat up and blinked a few times. Where…? Oh yes, now he recognized the place. It was the old Kaiba mansion. He was at the bottom of the main staircase, and sitting on the banister nearby was none other than the young ghost of Seto.

"I never knew you had a sense of humor," Yugi said simply.

"I would never have guessed, though," Seto continued, ignoring him completely. "How much strain it is on the host, not just the user." Seeing he'd piqued Yugi's curiosity, he added, "I couldn't move for close to two hours. You've been out cold for almost twelve."

"Twelve?" asked Yugi in disbelief.

"Yeah, it gave me plenty of time to program you back where you need to be," said Seto almost casually. "But I had to wait until you woke up to say the proverbial 'Energize.' If I transferred you asleep there would be no guarantee your code would ever allow you to wake up again. Oh, the possibilities…"

"So, does that mean that you could send me back anytime now?"

Seto nodded. "Absolutely, though there's no actual proof that you'll get there in one piece. The gun made it, but all the Magic Marker made was a mess…"

Yugi got to his feet, his muscles seeming to squeal in protest. "Then why are we waiting?!" he asked more impatiently than was allowed by his normal, unharried demeanor.

Seto turned his head to the top of the stairs, and indicated this with another nod. "Ototochan wanted to say goodbye."

As if on cue, the echoing little footsteps pattered down the hallway upstairs toward them like so many hailstones on a rooftop, and at the head of the staircase appeared the tiny figure of Mokuba. The boy dashed eagerly down the flight of steps, in his haste occasionally running his foot through a stair a living person would have tripped over, and stopped upon reaching Yugi. "Yugi-san, you're okay, right?" he gushed almost before his arrival, concern plainly pulling at the fringes of his voice.

Yugi blinked, then smiled. "Well, yeah! Why wouldn't I be?"

Mokuba giggled. "You're silly."

"And you're Mokuba," said Yugi, ruffling the boy's hair, which, in its nonexistence, produced little more than a distinct tingle in the hand he used.

"I hope you come back again," said Mokuba longingly and perhaps a little mournfully.

Yugi thought for a moment. He wasn't sure he wanted to ever return to this strange-but-familiar unreality, but Mokuba wanted him to… Even if he decided to, though, how could he? Oh well – "If I ever find a way to, I will," he replied.

"Yay!"

All this time Seto had remained patiently silent, but now he spoke. "Just say goodbye already, you two, I haven't got all day." Of course, this wasn't true, as he most certainly did have all day and quite probably a very long time afterwards, but it was the principle of the thing that counted.

Mokuba smiled in a way that could melt just about anything, and raised his hand shyly to wave. "Okay, bye-bye Yugi-san," he chirped.

"Bye, Mokuba," said Yugi, waving back, though not as fervently.

"Oh, Yugi – " Seto added in, seemingly as an afterthought, "– thanks for everything." And before Yugi could respond, he'd said "Energize" half-jokingly to his computer, and the logon process was underway, and then the false Domino City was gone.

~~~

LOGON ERROR.

Satoshi tensed – he remembered being in a place like this before – right before he'd last run into the Faerie four days prior – floating vacantly in a black piece of nothing, clinging then to existence and now to sanity – and he was afraid.

DATA TOO SIMILAR. ATTEMPTING TO COMPENSATE.

Yugi tensed – Seto had said the Magic Marker he'd tested this transfer protocol on, had been atomized – he had no idea what it would do to living creatures – that there was no guarantee he'd make it there at all – maybe he'd be lost in cyberspace forever – he shouldn't have risked it all on a dead gambit! – oh, he was afraid.

THIS WILL ALL BE SORTED OUT IN A FEW SECONDS.

And suddenly Satoshi felt himself pulled away from wherever he was, across time and space, perhaps, and perhaps out of the darkness and perhaps into it further, but with a target, that much he could discern.

PLEASE WAIT.

And then Yugi also felt himself being pulled toward something, or, if he had been concentrating harder he would have known, somethings, and all he knew was that something bad was going to happen – but that was all he could discern.

PLEASE WAIT.

So if computer data could be thrown, that was what was done to the two boys at that moment. The logon system tossed them rather roughly next to each other, trying to make out any sort of difference between them, and then it stopped and thought. And in the next two or three seconds, which seemed drastically slowed to them, Yugi Mutou and his almost-twin Satoshi finally met.

Satoshi, awestruck, was the first to speak after he saw his double. "You're the player character! You're Yugi!"

"You're Satoshi," Yugi breathed, not at all as enthusiastically. "But – but I'm not the real Yugi, you are."

"Wh…what?" Satoshi blinked. "No way. Then who does that make you?"

Yugi hung his head. "A copy."

Satoshi shook his own. "No… no, that can't be right," he said quietly, uncertainty causing his voice to waver. "I'm the copy. I'm just a guy who looks like Yug- like you. I don't have my act together at all – all I've got is a head full of mumbles. I don't belong in the real world at all. I can't make it there!"

"Fold showed up himself and told me exactly what happened to us two weeks ago – and he's the one who caused it all!" Yugi glared pleadingly into the other boy's eyes. "I'm just memories, Satoshi! I wasn't supposed to be a person in the first place!"

"Neither was I! I'm supposed to be a soulless drone!"

"Quiet, you two, this arguing is getting us nowhere."

The arrival startled everyone, including the system.

Both boys looked up, and at that moment it was a simple thing to tell them apart; one paled considerably and the other shrank slightly back and gritted his teeth, his eyes remaining sad, betrayed. But the cold, sharp eyes distinguished the new arrival from either of the other two – though they were the only things that did.

ERROR TRIPLICATE –

"It's you!" they both shouted at once, Satoshi in fear and anger and Yugi in just anger.

Yami was surprised at Yugi's reaction to his being there, but he tried not to show it. "Yes," he said quickly, acknowledging both of them simultaneously. "We need to resolve this soon; it won't take the computer long to sort the data out."

"No argument there," said Satoshi, regaining both his color and his composure.

"I think the answer to your problem is simple," Yami said, trying to keep his voice even, though the hostility he could feel from Yugi was almost overwhelming in its strength. What could have happened to the poor kid to make him feel this way? he wondered vaguely, then decided to ask later. For now he continued with what he had to say. "I say that I both am and am not Yugi, but more not; perhaps something along those lines…?"

PROCESSING TERNARY DATA SCHEME. A THIRD AVATAR MAY NOT BE POSSIBLE. CURRENT ASSOCIATION WITH AVATAR ONE.

"You, Satoshi, are more not, and Yugi is more so."

This made no sense whatsoever to Satoshi, and he shrank back a little. "That's not simple at all," he murmured. "You can't be something and not be something at the same time."

"And thus, the reason I rarely use myself as a metaphor," Yami sighed. "But who are you? If someone would have asked you to introduce yourself two days ago, what would you have said?"

WARNING: DOUBLE ATTACHMENT MAY NOT BE SEPARABLE. PROCEED?

"Yugi," said one hesitantly, and the other, "Satoshi," almost contemporaneously.

Yami nodded. "And there you are."

"But that would have been two days ago," Yugi protested. "Things are different now!"

DATA CHANGE HAS OCCURRED. ASSOCIATION NO LONGER KNOWN. PLEASE SPECIFY ASSOCIATION.

"That's true, but not in the way you mean, Yugi." Yami glanced at Satoshi. "Things are indeed quite different, but – "

Yugi shook his head. "Don't… you don't need to explain. If you'd rather go with him…" he lowered his head so his eyes were invisible beneath his golden bangs "… I understand."

Yami stared at him in disbelief for a moment. "That wasn't what I was saying at all!"

"You can have him," Satoshi mumbled.

"Yugi…"

PLEASE SPECIFY ASSOCIATION!

Yugi was surprised to find Yami holding him by the shoulders with both hands. "Aibou…" the latter said quietly, and he looked up at him, and found maybe… was it apology in his eyes?

Satoshi suddenly looked up, startled by something. "There's no time –!" he shouted.

ASSOCIATION ESTABLISHED TO AVATAR TWO. WARNING: DOUBLE ATTACHMENT MAY NOT BE SEPARABLE. PROCEED?

"I… Yami, don't…"

"Don't what? Yugi, you are who you think you are, and it is to you that I am bound. You." He glanced at Satoshi for a second, and Satoshi smiled and gave him a thumbs-up, so he turned his head back. "Let's go home."

Yugi nodded slightly after a pause, his eyes threatening to overflow.

LOGON PROCESS REINITIATED. STAND BY.

And too fast for anyone to react, he jumped up and took Yami in a great hug.

WARNING: DATA UNSTABLE.

Satoshi's eyes widened again. He had just realized something: he could die – they could all die – right here if the computer screwed up badly enough…

LOGON ABORTED.

And then they were torn away from each other, all of them; into the terrible darkness, none knowing where they'd end up but each hoping it wasn't where they'd just come from.

Mere milliseconds later it was quiet in the void once again.

~~~

Yugi woke up, gasping for breath, to find himself back once again in a virtuapod. It didn't open automatically, at least not just yet, as though unsure of what to do about its error. He pressed a small key labeled "Open" and the lid did just that. Then he tried to stand –

Whoops. Bad idea.

He did manage to get up, marginally; or rather, just enough to fall out but catch his good leg on something and land on his side. Grunting, he sat up and looked around, cradling his suddenly throbbing wrist. The arcade – he was back at the arcade. He wasn't wearing his school uniform anymore but instead what he remembered having worn on Saturday. He gently pulled his hand down and grasped the Sennen Puzzle…

Yes, I'm here.

His eyes brightened a little bit, though the pain he was in didn't allow him to smile. That's good, he said silently. As he pulled himself to an unsteady stand, leaning on a machine for support, he chuckled. 'It's in good hands,' he said… He frowned. But then again, he –

Don't you even think about going off on that track again.

Yugi sighed. I'm just so confused…

He waited, unnoticed, for a few minutes by the machine, and then the other pod opened and Jou hopped out. "Hey, what's wrong? I got kind of worried when you didn't log in…"

"I – I'm okay," said Yugi hesitantly. "Pretty much. I think."

"Oh, that's good." Jou pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. "Well, you wanna try again?"

Yugi blinked. "Try what again? Did – " A brief thought crossed his mind. "How can I be sure this is real?" he ventured.

Jou stopped in his tracks. "Dear God, I am not getting in this conversation again."

"Again?" Then he realized something. "Wait – you – you think I'm Satoshi, don't you?"

"You mean you're not?" asked Jou, lowering his voice to avoid their awkward conversation being overheard. "Then… Yugi?" His assumption not refuted, he continued. "But how –?"

"I don't know. Everything that's happened lately – it's all so puzzling. I thought Satoshi was the real one, but he and Yami both thought it was me… I don't know who's which who anymore." He hugged himself a little tighter. "And my arm hurts."

"Well – hm." Jou thought for a second, then leaned forward and took his smaller friend by the arms. "If they said so, then why not?" He shrugged. "I certainly can't see any differences. As far as I'm concerned – as far as anybody's concerned – you are real. It really doesn't matter how much you deny it – you are what you are and that's that."

Yugi sighed and bowed his head a bit. "I…"

If you won't believe me, aibou, will you at least trust him on this one?

"…I'll think about it," he whispered at last.

"Oh, good. Come on, let's go get you home," said Jou, handing Yugi his crutch, and Yugi smiled a little. It could be kind of funny sometimes when people thought he was talking to them.

Either way, he decided there was no way he was ever touching one of those pods again.

~~~

Fold smiled. A total success. Both of the boys involved were completely intact, and he had gotten what he needed. Or, what he needed this time around, anyway. He cracked his knuckles and began typing furiously. Phase Two of the master plan would begin as soon as this task was completed.

Harder? Definitely. But he was always up to a good challenge.

Which reminded him – he would have to keep half an eye on that ghost-Kaiba. The child was dangerous.

Funny how many of his protégés were turning out that way lately. Well, this time he wasn't about to take chances. This time Satoshi would not interfere.

"It won't be long now, my little friend," he mumbled to his absent adversary. "You won't get away with what you did to me. I'll make sure of it."

*OWARI DESU KA?*

Author's note: That's it! "The Fellowship of the Virtuapod" is finished! … Oh, that's not the title? … I knew that. I was just testing you, because I'm working on part two and already have part three going on in my wittle cwanium… "The Two Midgets" and "The Return of the Game King" are in progress!

My God, do I ever need a life.

JAPANESE FOR THOSE WHO CAN'T FIND A DICTIONARY (OR ARE TOO LAZY TO):

gaijin: I got a question regarding this, and realized I forgot to define it in chapter 1. It means "foreigner."
Tasuki: The redhead from Fushigi Yuugi, in case you didn't know. I know next to nothing about the show, but I do know he's a dork.
ototochan: "little brother"

SUBTLETIES AND INSIDE JOKES:

– The note that Seto made is unimportant, really, that's why I didn't include it. All it said was "Seto and Mokuba have been avenged".
– As Jou and Satoshi entered the arcade, Satoshi flipped the sign so it said "Closed." The clever little dickens…
– When Seto said "I was starting to wonder if you'd be joining us," it's a joke on the fact that he and Mokuba are dead.
– For those of you who haven't watched Star Trek ever, "Energize" is what they say to make the transporter transport.

I know you're out there! Please read my story! Review it! Recommend it to someone else! FLOOD KVAEDI WITH EMAILS AND MAKE HER FINISH CHAPTER ELEVEN FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!!

Okay, I think that's everything. Ready for the finish? I've corrected it now… ANATA GA DAISUKI DESU YO!!!

(o^.^o) The Artist Formerly Known As Ed