*CHAPTER 6*

~Yuugi's POV~

   The docks were a very different place by night.  The strip of beach seemed to have become no more than a deserted bit of sand and the constant hum of voices and activity was replaced by the eerie cry of seagulls.  A cool breeze had picked up since our last visit, turning the salty ocean spray icy-cold.  The only light for as far as I could see came from the moon and stars.  It was the kind of place that makes your skin crawl and your stomach churn.

   True to her word, Jezebel was there, waiting for us at the point where land meets sea.  She signaled us to her with a dark lantern and irritably demanded: "What took you so long?  I was about ready to leave" in a fierce whisper.

            "Why did you bring us out here?" replied Ryou, shivering a bit as the mist began to settle on his face and in his hair.

            "Not so loud!" Jezebel hissed back, eyes flashing.  "We need a boat if we're ever going to set foot on the same country as the ruler, let alone get close enough to kill him.  Now, I don't happen to own a boat and I'm assuming none of you do, either, so we're going to have to borrow one."

   Jou quietly began to snicker and Jezebel whipped around to face him with an angry hiss.  "Why doncha cut da sweet-talk crap and say it straight?  Either way it means we're stealin' a boat, right?" he asked.

            "Because we're not going to steal it!" she snapped.  She cut herself off with a short, soundless gasp and nervously scanned the beach before lowering her voice back to a breathy whisper and adding: "We're going to bring it back when we're finished."

   Jou snorted under his breath at this statement and Jezebel narrowed her eyes to dangerous slits.  The next thing we knew, those awful claws of hers were out and at Jou's neck.  "We are going to bring it back when we are finished," Jezebel slowly repeated.  "Is that really such a humorous statement?"

   Eyes wide, Jou hastily shook his head.  Jezebel smiled and nodded.  "Good," she said as she retracted the claws.  "It's always refreshing to know I'm not in the company of complete idiots."

   The four of us trudged off across the beach in stony silence until we came within sight of a long, wooden pier that stretched just past the shallows in the torpidly calm water.  Although I wasn't crazy about the idea of stealing (or "borrowing") a ship, I couldn't help but feel a little excited as I caught sight of the various boats moored up and down the long walkway.  I wonder which one we'll be using? I thought to myself, allowing my eyes to wander from boat to boat, drinking in every detail of each.  From the smallest ships, barely bigger than a rowboat to a huge, gold-painted monster the size of a yacht, we definitely had options.

   I was about to start off down the pier to take a closer look at the carving on one of the more ornate crafts when a felt a hand on my arm and was yanked backwards hard enough to fall back on my rear.  I looked up to see Jezebel glaring down at me.

            "What—" I started, but that was all I got out before she clamped a hand over my mouth.  "Hey!" I tried to shout, but it came out as a muffled, choked off noise.

   As I watched, she put a finger to her lips and threw a significant look down the pier.  I followed her gaze and saw two husky men stationed about midway down the walkway, sharing a lantern between them.  Guards! I thought.  I can't believe I didn't think of that!  I nodded to show I understood and she slowly removed her hand.

            "Now what're we gonna do?" Jou queried in a voiceless whisper.

            "We need a distraction," whispered Ryou.

            "Nice idea, kid.  Go right ahead," answered Jezebel.

   Ryou's eyes went wide and he took an unsteady step back.  "Me?" he squeaked.  "But I—"

            "It was your idea, you know," Jezebel interrupted.  "Just keep them occupied long enough for us to slip onto a boat and we'll get you on somehow, OK?"

   Ryou looked desperately from me to Jou, silently begging us to take his place or offer him an out, but I said nothing and Jou just smiled and quietly wished him luck.  With a sigh, he began to creep down the pier, wincing with every loud, hollow step as though the sound had the power to kill him.

   It wasn't long before one of the men camped out on the walkway heard the clomping footsteps and shouted: "Oi!  Who's there?"

            "M-me," stammered Ryou.  He paused uncertainly before adding: "Elijah."

            "Well whaddaya know, Greg, it is 'im!" the other man exclaimed.  "Come on over, Elijah, ol' buddy.  Long time no see!"  Ryou tittered nervously and mechanically made his way farther down the pier. 

   The first man was just saying: "So what've you been up to lately, Elijah?" when Jezebel made a follow me gesture and began tiptoeing towards the closest boat—a relatively small wood craft with a single, butter-yellow sail.

   Jou and I followed close behind Jezebel, hardly daring to breathe.  We're too loud, I worried, eyes glued to the two guards.  Ryou had somehow managed to get them to turn their backs to us.  They've got to hear us.  We sound like a herd of wild horses, for goodness sake!  They're going to turn around.  Any second now they'll turn around and see us….

   And then we were there.  Jezebel motioned for us to get into the boat and Jou and I were happy enough to obey.  Within seconds, we were both safely hidden from the guards' view.

   The tiny boat wasn't nearly as stable as the huge cruise ship I'd been on during Duelist Kingdom.  The floor seemed to buck and rock with every tiny little wave that passed under.  Jou and I were so occupied with getting ourselves used to this new unsteady surface, we didn't notice that Jezebel hadn't gotten on the boat after us until we heard the screams from the guards, followed by two heavy thuds.  Moments later, Jezebel reappeared with a slightly miffed Ryou in tow.

            "I don't think that was entirely necessary," Ryou was berating.  "They were about to just give us a boat.  You really didn't need to knock them out.  If you would have just—ulp!"  His scolding was cut short as Jezebel roughly picked him up and tossed him into the boat beside Jou and me.  He landed hard and sat up glaring at the assassin while rubbing at an already bruising elbow.

   Jezebel didn't seem the least bit sorry as she landed lightly on the deck and began working at the mooring ropes.  "Yes, and I suppose—" (She yanked viscously at a knot in the rope)  "—it would have been better—" (yank) "—to leave them—" (yank) "—as witnesses…." (Another yank and the knot yielded).  "I suppose that would have been just the thing.  Ha!  Off we go!" she cried, taking in the last of the mooring rope and pushing off from the pier.  She leaned hard on the tiller, and the boat pitched and jerked in a wobbly circle until the wind caught its sails and pushed us away from the dock.  "Anyways, it's not like I permanently disfigured them or anything," she added as the pier slipped away behind us.

   We sailed without speaking for a long time after that.  The land became a dark line on the horizon before disappearing altogether.  The stars seemed to grow clearer and brighter and the briny smell of ocean was all around.  Ryou fell asleep stretched out on his back, and I was close to drifting off myself when Jou whispered: "Yug, you sleepin'?"

            "Mmmm?  No, Jou," I blearily replied.

            "Can…can we talk, Yug?"

   I sat up and rubbed at my eyes.  "Sure," I yawned.  "What's up?"

   Jou lowered his head and stared hard at a plank with a caulked-up knothole in it before answering: "Neva' mind.  It's stupid.  Forget it."

            "No, go on.  What is it?"

            "It's just…what're we doin' here?"

   I blinked, surprised.  This sure didn't sound like the happy-go-lucky Jounouchi I knew.  "Huh?" I asked.

            "I mean it.  What're we doin' here?" He repeated, never taking his eyes off that plank.  "We're not supposed ta be here, in dis place.  It's all wrong.  I mean, everyone's callin' you Aiden and Ryou Elijah…hell, I'm not even a real human in dis loony bin."  He paused and blinked furiously and I pretended not to see.  "'N den there's everything dat happened back at dat house before all dis crap.  What eva' happened wit' all dat?"

   I shivered at the memory and hugged my arms across my stomach, trying to forget the coppery taste of blood in my throat.  "I don't know," I whispered back.  "For now, the best we can do is worry about one thing at a time.  You know; take things as they come."

            "Yeah…I guess…." He trailed and leaned back against the gunwale of the boat.  "Sorry ta bug ya about it."

            "No, it's OK."  There was a long pause.  I allowed my gaze to wander to the stars and found the Big Dipper—or maybe it was the Little Dipper…I never could tell the difference.  "Hey, Jou?" I asked.

            "Yeah?"

            "What's it like; being a robot?"

   He smiled and chuckled at the question.  "It's not much different from bein' human.  At least I didn't know da difference…."  He stopped and the smile faltered ever so slightly.  "It's weird, though, too.  Like dat no blood thing back there?  Dat was just scary…."

   He was about to go on, but at that moment a chortling came from the direction of the tiller.  "So the little robot boy has feelings," Jezebel snickered.  "Honestly, if all I have to hear through this whole trip is that drama shit I'll be sick."

            "Hey!" Jou yelled, temper flaring.  "It's your own fault for listenin' in on our conversation!"

   Jezebel yawned in response before saying: "Feh.  Whatever.  Just so you know, we'll be to the ruler's country in about three days."

            "Hey, wait a second!  We're not supposed ta be goin' to da ruler first!" Jou shouted.

            "Oh?  Then where do you suggest we go, mon capitain?"

            "We're supposed ta go see some duke named Casper," explained Jou.

   Jezebel wrinkled her nose in disgust.  "Casper?" she questioned.  "What do you want with that fop?"

            "He's got a laptop," I replied.

   The assassin threw her head back and laughed at the statement.  "Casper?" she managed to gasp.  "W-with a laptop?"  She dissolved into a fit of giggles before wheezing: "What's he going to do with a laptop?  U-use it for a m-mirror?  Ahahaha!"

            "Dante said he'd have one," Jou insisted above her laughter.

            "W-whatever you say," she chuckled, wiping tears from her cheeks.  She leaned on the tiller and adjusted the sail slightly.  "Casper…with a laptop…heh."

   For two days, we sailed out on the open sea.  Actually, to be fair, Jezebel did most of the sailing, since none of us knew much about boats or where we were going.  The weather was perfect and the wind always seemed to blow in the right direction.  It was as if fate or destiny or whatever higher power is out there was smiling down on us…until the third day.

   The morning dawned gray and clouded over, with a light drizzle of rain.  The wind came in short puffs that would belly the sail out for ten or fifteen minutes at a time before suddenly going still and leaving the sail slack. Jezebel stayed at the tiller all morning, watching the swells around us with an apprehensive expression on her face.

   Around noon, the wind grew steadier; but it was a cold breeze with a coppery smell to it.  Jezebel hitched up the tiller and laid down for a nap after making us swear to wake her up if the wind made even the slightest change.  The three of us were left with nothing to do except watch as the water around our little boat changed from a clear blue to an angry grayish color and the rain picked up.

   About an hour later, the swells became rough and choppy and Ryou shouted: "Look at that!"

  That turned out to be a stand of very ominous-looking black clouds gathering on the horizon.  It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what those clouds meant: a storm—and a nasty one by the looks of it.

            "Oh, shit," whispered Jou.  "Um, Jezebel?  You really might wanna look at dis," he said, poking the assassin in the ribs.

            "Whaa…?" she sleepily mumbled before catching sight of the towering dark monsters on the horizon.  "Shit!" she shrieked as she lurched to the tiller.  She adjusted the sail, cursing fervently all the while.

            "Anything we can do to help?" I inquired through her stream of obscenities.

            "No!" she snapped.  "Just stay out of my way, damn it!"

   I returned to Jou and Ryou to find them both staring wild-eyed over the gunwales of the boat.  "This is going to be bad," Ryou stated, eyes glued to a peaked, white-capped wave that swept past.

            "Hey!  Jezebel!  How far are we from Casper's place?" Jou hollered over the howl of the wind.

            "Not too far," replied Jezebel from her station at the tiller.  "Five—maybe ten knots.  We'll be there in an hour or so."

   But an hour came and went and still there was no sign of land.  The wind was whipping a cold spray from the peaked waves into our faces and the sail billowed and fell flat erratically in the unpredictable gusts.  Rain came down in sheets and pooled in the boat around our feet, and then around our ankles.

   The first big wave came on suddenly; a foamy wall of gray-brown water that pitched the deck high in the air before it came crashing back down with a slap loud enough for all of us to hear it over the shrieking wind.  A wave of spray surged over the bow to bring the water level up to my knees and the boat sluggishly began to right itself.

            "Goddamn it!" Jezebel screamed.  "Are you all morons?  I said start bailing unless you want us to sink!"

   I searched around until I found a bucket floating in the ever-deepening pool of water and started heaving bucketfuls over the gunwales, back into the ocean.

            "We're gonna sink!" Jou yelled as he bailed.  "We're screwed!"

   Ryou paused in mid-throw and went pale.  "Oh my God!" he bawled.

   I followed his gaze and saw a second wave, this one taller than our boat approaching from the side.  Jezebel threw herself on the tiller and the boat started to execute a shaky turn to take the huge swell from behind, but it was all so, so slow.

   The monstrous wall of water hit us hard and I was thrown against the gunwale as the deck went almost vertical.  Water swept aboard as the ship reluctantly righted itself and swayed drunkenly.

   Over the raging of the storm, I heard Jezebel roar: "Keep bailing!  Keep bailing, damn you!"  Or maybe it was the roar of surf breaking on land.  We'd found land!

   I squinted, tried to see which direction the sound of the crashing noise was coming from but saw nothing but the churning water, beaten white as it crashed against rocks that seemed to have appeared from nowhere.

            "Rocks!" I shouted, hoping Jezebel would hear me in time to steer out of the way.

   The boat swerved hard to port, but it wasn't enough.  I had just enough time to hear Jezebel scream: "Shit!  Brace yourselves!" before there was a cracking noise and the whole boat shuddered.

   Another monster wave bore down on us from the side and we spun crazily before we crunched into another stand of rocks.  That was the last straw for our poor little boat.  The sound of splintering wood cut through the roar of water on rocks and suddenly I was tossed and turned in the waves.

   I clawed my way to the surface and gasped for breath.  "Jou!" I yelled.  "Ryou!  Jez—" a wall of salty seawater hit me from behind and I was back under, flailing wildly, nose and throat burning as I choked on the salty water.

   Surface again.  I sucked air and hacked up the water I'd tried to breathe.  A scream came from somewhere behind me and I fought against the heaving water, trying to get to whoever it was.

   Another wall of water and I was spinning out of control through the waves.  Head above the surface, being blasted with pelting rain, under and being blinded with bubbles, and back up again.  I opened my mouth and got a mouthful of water.  Tried to spit it out, choked instead.

   Something hit me hard in the back of the head.  Part of the boat?  A rock?  Who knew?  It didn't matter.  Nothing mattered anymore as I slipped into the roaring darkness of unconsciousness that pulled at me….

~Honda's POV~

   I slammed on the brakes as a fat guy in a dumpy pickup truck pulled out of a side street directly in front of me, tires squealing.  "Bastard," I growled and laid on the horn.

            "Honda, maybe I should drive," Anzu apprehensively suggested from the passenger seat as I blew past the asshole in the truck and gave him a gesture that definitely wasn't a peace sign.

            "No way, Anzu," I replied, taking a sharp right on two wheels to beat the red light.  "You don't even know the way out there."

            "Well, will you please slow down?"

   Slow down?  Some bastard had called her up and threatened her after making Shizuka cry and trying to kill Jounouchi, Yuugi, Ryou, Mai and Kaiba and she wanted me to slow down?  I didn't even bother to grace such a stupid suggestion with an answer as I pressed on the gas and watched the speedometer edge from 60 to 65 miles per hour.

            "You're going thirty over the speed limit!" she screeched.  "We're going to get pulled over!"

   So what?  What was a speeding ticket to me?  Besides, there weren't any cops out on this godforsaken road to worry about anyway.  It was all right.

   We're going to find that bastard, I thought as the trees whipped by in a green blur on either side of the road.  And when I get my hands on him I'll kill him.  I'll rip his goddamned eyes out.

            "You're going to miss it!" Anzu warned.

            "Goddamn it, Anzu, I know where I'm going!" I snapped.  She went quiet and glared out the window, disgusted.  I sighed and said: "Sorry.  Forget I said that, OK?"

            "Yeah.  Sure."

   I hung another left, onto a bumpy gravel road and I slowed down enough to make it through without killing the both of us.  A couple of minutes later, we were parked at the foot of a hill, between a white and blue police car and the ugly rattletrap that my best friend drove.

   Jounouchi's car.  I almost lost it when I saw that dumpy old jalopy.  Memories flashed through my head at the sight of it; memories of me giving Jounouchi a bad time for buying the crappy old thing, of him insisting he'd "fix it up", of useless door locks and stalling out.  Now…now I couldn't tell him what a rip off it was, and he couldn't "fix it up."  Not now.  Maybe not ever.

   No! I silently yelled.  Don't think like that!  He's still alive; they all are!  None of them are going to…going to….  I couldn't even bring myself to think of that scary D-word.

            "Honda, are you all right?" Anzu whispered, laying her hand on my shoulder.

   I took a deep breath and nodded, forcing myself to look away from the battered old car beside us.  "Let's go," I said and together, we began to follow the narrow dirt path up to Hill House, the place where all this shit started.

   Looking back, I'm not really sure what we thought we'd find.  A dropped shell?  A glove with the attacker's name sewn into it?  A wallet complete with picture ID of the attacker?  Could have been.

   We barely made it halfway up the path before we were stopped by the police officer.  "Hey!  What are you kids doing out here?" he demanded, stepping right into the middle of the path in front of us.

            "We…we were just looking around," Anzu answered, in a voice that couldn't have sounded any guiltier.

            "Oh?  Looking around, eh?  Were you 'looking around' for anything in particular?"

   I gritted my teeth and resisted the urge to punch him in the gut.  Don't be stupid, I thought.  Don't piss him off.  "We just wanted to make sure you caught everything," I explained.  The officer raised an eyebrow and I added: "The people that were hurt up here were…are our friends."

            "Well, I'm sorry to hear that, but you two can't be poking around up here," said the cop.  "You're going to have to leave the sleuthing to the police department and get out of here unless you want to be arrested for tampering with the evidence."

            "Please, sir, they're our friends and we just want to help," Anzu insisted.

            "Sorry, little lady, but like I said before, the two of you have got to clear out."

            "But officer—"

            "Come on, Anzu," I interrupted.  "Let's get out of here." Before I try to beat him up, I silently added as I started to make my way back down the path.  She gave me a questioning look, but turned and followed me without a word.

   We made it back down to the foot of the hill after a couple of minutes and I fumbled in my pocket for my keys as we reached my car.  I couldn't help but take one more look at the old jalopy that Jounouchi drove as I unlocked the door.  Why in the hell would somebody do something like this? I wondered.

   Anzu moved to open her door, but stopped and plunged her hand into her purse instead as her cell phone began to ring.  "Hello; this is Anzu," she answered, then gasped.

   I turned to look at her and saw her eyes wide and her face white with surprise and fear…and anger?  "What is it?" I half-whispered.

   She pressed her lips into a thin line and soundlessly handed to phone through the window to me.  I looked from her to the phone, confused, then brought it up to my ear to listen.

            "…And if you want to stay alive, you'd better keep you goddamn snot nose out of all this!  You hear me, you dumb bitch?  Huh?  Do you hear me?" snarled a deep, ugly voice.

            "Who is this?" I demanded.

            "Quit being so damned nosy, you dumb ass kid!" growled the voice.

            "Hey!" I yelled.  "What—"  I trailed as I heard a sharp click from the other line, followed by the toneless buzz of a dial tone.

Author's Notes: Ha!  I finally wrote a semi on time chapter!  Hope everyone enjoyed it.  Oh, and don't worry; I didn't forget about our dear Seto.  He'll (finally) be back next chapter!  Yay!  Thanks to AmunRa, Cherii and Ouvalyrin for reviewing!