*CHAPTER 10*

~Honda's POV~

   Shizuka burst out of the hospital room, bubbling over with laughter.  She threw her arms around my shoulders and I melted.  God, she was beautiful.  Her hair glistened even in the cold, stark light of the hospital's halls.  Her eyes shone with happy tears and her full, oh-so-tempting lips were drawn back in a smile.

   I hugged back and marveled at the warmth of her body against mine, the steady rhythm of her heart, the sweetness of her breath.  I wanted to hold her closer, tighter, to explore what I knew was forbidden.  I never wanted to let her go.

            "I'm so glad you could all come!" she exclaimed, sliding away from my embrace and throwing her arms around first Anzu and then Mai as well.  "Katsuya was asking about you guys all night.  The night nurse threatened to put him on sedatives if he couldn't keep quiet!"

            "Well, that certainly sounds like the Jounouchi we all know and love," Anzu heartily replied.

            "How is he doing now?" Mai inquired.

   Shizuka wrinkled her nose and answered, "He's kind of floaty from all the painkillers they've been giving him.  Oh, why am I sitting here talking about it when you can see for yourself?  Come on!"  She motioned for us to follow her into the room she had just left.

   Christ, what the hell am I supposed to say once we're in there? I wondered to myself.  'I'm glad you're awake?'  How lame does that sound?  'You scared the shit out of all of us?'  Yeah, that's great.  I stepped inside.

   Jounouchi was awake—that was an improvement.  He was alert—major improvement.  He didn't have that tube down his throat anymore—definitely a plus.  But he looked vulnerable in that hospital bed.  Not weak, mind you…but vulnerable.

   The oxygen mask that covered his mouth and nose seemed to hide most of his face.  He looked small and fragile beside the IV's and other hospital equipment that surrounded the bed.  His eyes were red and bloodshot and his hair was still dark with soot.  But he was awake now, goddamn it, and that was all that mattered.

            "Hey," I said, and cringed inwardly at the way-too-enthusiastic tone.  "You look good, man."

            "You don't have ta lie," he croaked.  I visibly winced.  His throat must have hurt like a bitch for his voice to be that sandpapery.

            "How do you feel?" Anzu queried.

            "I got heat blisters on my damn eyelids," he rasped back.  "How do ya think I feel?"

   I saw Shizuka bite her lip, distressed.  This wasn't how she'd planned for the visit to go.

            "We were so worried about you Jounouchi," Mai whispered.  She paused to take a deep breath and a shadow of uncertainty flashed across her eyes before she added, "I was worried about you."

   Jounouchi blinked, surprised and said, "Jezebel?  You're here, too?"

   Mai's eyes went wide and then narrowed, confused.  "Jezebel?" she repeated.  "Who's Jezebel?"

            "She's…forget it.  Sorry, Mai."

            "That's all right.  No big deal."  She smiled, but even I could tell she'd been hurt.

   There was an ugly silence for a long time after that.  Finally, Jounouchi grated, "What happened ta everyone else?"

            "Huh?" Anzu ever so helpfully answered.

            "Yug 'n Ryou 'n Kaiba," he replied.  "Damn nurses won't tell me anythin'."

            "None of them have woken up yet," I quickly replied.

   He gave me an exasperated look and said, "I already know that.  What happened to 'em?"

            "Katsuya—" Shizuka started.

            "I gotta know, sis," he interrupted.

   Anzu and Mai exchanged uncertain looks and I nervously shifted from one foot to the other.  What're we supposed to tell him? I wondered.  Are we even supposed to talk about that stuff with him right now?

            "C'mon, I really wanna know about it," he prodded.

            "They think Ryou hit his head pretty bad," Anzu quietly stated.  "He might have a concussion or…I don't know."

   We all knew what she meant by 'I don't know'.  Brain damage, I silently added.

            "What about Yug 'n Kaiba?"  He paused waiting for a response before repeating, "Guys?  What about them?"

            "Kaiba got burned all over his back.  Third-degree," I tonelessly related.  "They won't let us see him; he's still in the ICU, I think.  And Yuugi—" I trailed off.  How in the hell am I going to say this?

            "What?  Tell me, Honda."

            "They wouldn't let us see him, either.  He's hanging on, though; he's fighting."  Could I possibly have made that sound any shittier? I wondered.

   Jounouchi closed his eyes and sighed.  "Damn," he whispered, and shivered.  "Thanks, man," he added.

            "Yeah," I muttered.  As if he doesn't have enough to worry about as it is, I furiously thought.  Whoever did this is going to pay.  I'll mount their goddamn head on a wall.

   The rest of the visit was so damned subdued it hurt.  We talked about piddly little things that really didn't matter, like the chemistry lab he'd missed and who was picked last in gym class.  Jounouchi just listened and nodded every so often, but didn't he say another word.  Not one single word.

   We didn't mention Yuugi, Ryou or Kaiba again.  We didn't mention Hill House.  We didn't mention the phone calls Anzu had gotten or the man who was stalking Mai.  By the time we walked out of that white (why the hell is it always white?) room, everybody looked tired and worn down.  But we weren't done yet.  Oh, no.  We had plenty left to do before we could leave the hospital.

   How in the hell are we going to explain about Yami to Mai? I wondered.

~Seto's POV~

   I still wonder precisely what went wrong.  I have a feeling it was because we trusted that inept moron Jounouchi to handle a task that involved technical knowledge (simple though it may have been).  It certainly was not my doing—computer hacking is child's play for me and this system was especially easy to breach.  No, Jounouchi was most definitely the one to blame.

   "It", in case you are wondering, was the apparent death of Jounouchi.  I say apparent because (1) I highly doubt that a robot can be classified as "dead" and (2) I'm not entirely sure what was done to him.

   Jounouchi had just finished destroying the Ruler's defensive system (or so he claimed) when his body began to convulse.  I logged out of the Ruler's system in less than two seconds (an admirable feat when you consider the fact that Yuugi was screaming in my ear to hurry and completely ruining what little concentration I had).  Jounouchi's body went still and a thin curl of acrid smoke wafted out of his left ear.  And all hell broke loose.

            "Jounouchi!  Oh my God!  Jou!" Yuugi screeched, dropping to the ground beside the mutt that some people like to refer to as "Jounouchi".

   Ryou went a very odd shade of white and fell to his knees shaking and never taking his eyes away from the scene.  Jezebel laughed like a maniac.  And I quietly sat there, by far the most composed of the group.

   The first person to utter a coherent phrase, surprisingly enough, was Ryou.  "Kaiba," he quietly said.  "Do you think you could fix him?"

   I blinked, surprised.  "Excuse me?" I replied, incredulous.

            "He's a machine," Ryou elaborated.  "You're good with machines.  So do you think you could fix him?"

   Jezebel abruptly stopped laughing and stated, "If we're going to be breaking in to the Ruler's fortress, now would be the time to do it.  His defenses aren't going to be down forever, you know.  Why waste this opportunity on the worthless robot boy?"

            "No!" Yuugi wailed, voice tight with grief.

            "Look, do you want the Ruler assassinated or don't you?" Jezebel irritably demanded.

            "I'm the one who hired you, so you've got to do what I say.  And I say we don't go anywhere until Jou's back to normal."

   I raised an eyebrow and regarded Yuugi with a mix of anger and admiration.  He's throwing away our chances at getting back to 2004.  Anger.  Yuugi's showing a little authority for a change.  Admiration.

            "Do something to help him, Kaiba," Yuugi whimpered.  "Please."

   And what exactly do you expect me to do, Yuugi?  I mused to myself.  I know nothing about the way he was made.  Who's to say I won't further the damage?  But I scanned the mutt's lifeless face with a critical eye, mildly curious as to what technology had been utilized to create such an advanced robot.

   Wordlessly, I pulled the plug out of the port that was located behind Jounouchi's right ear.  I examined the area around the port as thoroughly as I could, searching for screws, flaps or any abnormality that would allow me access to the inner workings of the robot and saw none.  I ran my fingers along the area, feeling for lumps, bumps or cracks and felt nothing but what felt like smooth, unbroken flesh.

   How am I going to do this? I wondered to myself…and then my eyes came to rest on my claws.  Perhaps these claws will prove useful after all…. I thought, an idea beginning to form in the back of my mind.

   I brought the tip of my index claw to rest just below the port behind Jounouchi's ear and paused.  A sudden wave of nausea swept over me at the prospect of what I was about to do, but I ignored it and willed my hand to stay steady.  And then I pressed until I felt my claw pierce his flesh.

            "What are you doing?" Yuugi shouted as I continued to cut Jounouchi's flesh along his jaw line.  "Stop it!  You'll hurt him!"

            "Somebody shut him up!" I snapped, a bead of sweat tracing down my temple.  Yuugi whimpered and began to weep quietly.

            "Kaiba, what are you—"

            "Quiet!" I interrupted Ryou as I reached Jounouchi's chin.  "I need to concentrate."

   When I had made a large enough cut, I peeled back the flap of flesh and was relieved to see cold, familiar metal.  This was what I knew.  This was what I could work with.

   I found a small screw just below the port, right where I had expected it to be.  Unscrewing it was a simple operation (my claws once again came in quite handy in that maneuver) and I was soon sorting through a complex network of wires and switchboards.

   At first I'd been worried that I would never be able to identify what had been damaged, that all my efforts (while informative) were ultimately in vain.  But I was surprised to discover that apparently, only one small part had been damaged.  More surprising still, it was a part common to most computers.

   This is going to be too easy, I thought as I shut off the laptop computer.

            "Hold on there, Sherlock," Jezebel stated as I prepared to strip the computer's parts.  "What do you think you're doing with that?"

   I sighed in exasperation.  "I'm getting a part that I need to fix the mutt," I slowly explained.

            "No, you're not!  No way are you taking that thing apart!  Not after what we went through to get it.  Besides, we might need it later!  How can you—"

            "Let him do it, Jezebel," Yuugi firmly ordered through his tears and Jezebel snarled with frustration.

   It was no difficult task to find the part that I needed.  It was a bit more of a challenge replacing the damaged part with the new one from the laptop, but in the end, I managed it without a hitch.  I returned the screw back to its place and folded the flap of flesh back to its original position.

   For a moment, I contemplated how I was going to close the cut, but out of pure instinct I decided to try pinching it closed and was delighted to find that the flesh stuck itself back together quite readily.  And then Jounouchi looked just as he did before I'd started.  The entire operation had taken no more than ten minutes.

   I surveyed my handiwork proudly.  Not bad, I congratulated myself.  Not bad at all.

            "It didn't work," Yuugi miserably whispered.

            "Well, what did you expect?" Jezebel muttered.

   I turned on her and demanded, "Who asked your opinion?"

            "Oh, honestly.  'Do you think you could fix him?'  What a silly idea!"

            "It was worth a try, Jezebel!" Ryou argued.

            "Yeah?  Well you know what?  Now we don't have a damned laptop.  Which means if we don't get into the Ruler's fortress right now, that's it.  We're done.  Finito.  No more.  All of that on some stupid, wasted attempt to—"

   At that exact moment, Jounouchi's eyes fluttered and he groaned.  He shakily brought a hand to his temple before slowly opening his eyes.  And do you know what that ungrateful little Chihuahua's first words were?  No, not "Gee thanks, Kaiba, for bringing me back to life."  Not "Oh, thanks.  I owe you."  Not even a measly "What happened?"

   Oh, no.  His first words were, "Why did you bring me back?"

   There's no such thing as gratitude these days.

~Yami's POV~

   I had left my agonizing vigil over my suffering charge for one undeserved moment.  I could no longer bear the sight of his pain or the steady beeping of the foreign equipment that surrounded him.

   Those horrible machines.  They hurt him.  They prolonged his suffering.  But they kept him alive.  How long they would keep him that way, I did not know.  I did not understand their beeping, their whirring and their dripping.  I did not understand what they were doing.  I understood only that as long as they continued to beep, continued to whir and continued to drip my aibou would continue to live.

   I kept to the darkest corners of the most abandoned corridors of the hospital.  Unlike the Tomb Robber, I had no desire to terrorize innocent mortals.  I was therefore understandably surprised when a voice shouted, "Yami!  Hey, Yami!"

   Who's there? I wondered.  I recovered from my surprise and recognized the voice.  "Anzu," I stated, turning to face the mortal who had called to me.

   There was a sharp gasp and a second voice exclaimed, "He…he looks like Yuugi!"

   I caught sight of a mane of blonde hair and instantly recognized the second speaker.  Mai Kujaku.  I hastily focused on making my form appear to be more solid and fervently hoped she would not notice my very transparent legs.

            "Yeah…he's Yuugi's cousin," a third voice hurriedly explained.  Honda, I thought.

            "Really?  They look so much alike…it's as though they're twins," Mai replied.

            "No; I am his cousin," I answered, deciding to go along with whatever it was Anzu and Honda had planned.

            "Hey, Mai, why don't you tell Yami about…you know," Anzu prompted.

            "I…why would he want to hear about—"

   Anzu cut her off and prodded, "Don't you think Yuugi's cousin would want to know about that?"

   I furrowed my brow and gave Anzu an interested albeit confused look before adding, "What is it?  Is it something that has to do with Yuugi?"

   Mai went red in the face and said, "Well…I…I was…."  She trailed, embarrassed and ashamed.  "I was supposed to be there," she whispered.  "At Hill House.  I'm sorry."

            "What about after that, Mai?" Honda pushed.

   I gave him a questioning look as Mai growled, "Honda, I'm not going to talk about it with his family!  That would be so disrespectful!"

            "It's all right.  Please, tell me," I encouraged.  What in the world is this? I wondered.

            "Well, after the…accident…" she paused and I nodded, prompting her to go on.  "This man started…he started coming after me.  I noticed something strange about him, though, Yami.  He had a gold eye.  I mean a real, gold eye in his head.  It looks like the eye on that pyramid necklace that Yuugi always wears."  She paused again and inquired, "Yami, are you all right?"

   I realized that my mouth had dropped open in shock.  "Yes.  Yes, I'm fine," I responded.  The source! I thought.  It must be!  But why?  Why would he go after Mai Kujaku?  A chill went through my being as another thought came to me: What if it was the source that hurt my aibou and his friends?

            "Pretty weird, huh, Yami?" Honda inquired.

            "Yes.  Very strange," I dazedly replied.  I must tell the Tomb Robber of this! I thought.  This imbalance affects us even more directly than we'd first thought!

            "Do you think there might be a connection?" Anzu queried.

   I nodded.  My mind was racing at a mile a minute.  Why would the source want to harm Yuugi?  Or Jounouchi, Ryou or Kaiba?  This has only made this mystery even more confusing.

   Before another question could be asked, a gaggle of doctors raced down the hall, pushing a patient on a wheeled bed and shouting amongst themselves in medical jargon that was so complicated it may as well have been a foreign language.  Behind them came a small girl with light brown hair, wailing over and over, "Katsuya!  Katsuya!"  She was sobbing and her face was buried in her hands, but I recognized her.  Shizuka.

   I whipped my attention back to the doctors in time to see them disappear around a corner at a sprint, bed in tow.

            "Shizuka!" Honda cried, seizing her arm as she raced after the bed.  She stumbled and fell against his chest, choking on her sobs.  "Shizuka, what's wrong?  What happened?" he asked.  She shivered and buried her face in his chest and he held her gently in his arms.  "What's the matter?" he tenderly whispered.

            "It's Katsuya he's…" she shuddered and gasped for breath.

            "Did something happen to him?" inquired Anzu.

   Shizuka sniffled and gasped through her sobs, "Katsuya…stopped…he…oh God…he stopped breathing!"

   Mai and Anzu both gasped, horrified and Honda immediately gave Shizuka a warm embrace to try and comfort her.  "He's back…in…a coma," she wailed.

   I slowly backed away from the four mortals.  This is my fault, I thought as I melted away into the shadows.  I am so very sorry.

Author's Notes: Wheee!  Another chapter of JK20 hot off the presses for your reading pleasure!  Things are going to start picking up next chapter in both the present and future story lines.  *Insert insane evil laughter here*  Hope you enjoyed this chapter!

Thanks to dragonlady1220, Tuuliki, Rikki-The-Fox, Sunrise and Sunset, restlesspirit, AmunRa and BlackFireDragonK for reviewing!