Chapter Four: Another Heartless Companion
Kaiba, Mokuba and Jou continued down the Yellow Brick Road, Jou and Mokuba skipping way in front of Kaiba, humming "Ding Dong, the Witch is dead" together and off-tempo.
They only stopped when Mokuba said, "Man, I sure am hungry…"
Kaiba went off the side of the road to a grove of apple trees, and pick ed an apple off the tree. He was going to give it to his brother, when the hand-like branch of the tree slapped his hand and made him drop the apple.
"Ow!" Kaiba nursed his hurt hand.
"Whaddya think you're doing?" snapped the tree.
Kaiba was dumbfounded for a moment, and then he snapped back, "We were walking along, and Mokuba was hungry, so I…" He froze in shocked realization. "Did you just talk?"
"'Mokuba was hungry,'" laughed the tree.
Some other trees laughed along with him.
"And how would you feel if someone came along and grabbed something off of you?" the lead tree asked rather rudely.
"Fuck it," Kaiba muttered, "I keep forgetting we're not in Japan…"
Jou looked at the trees for a minute, and then he said loudly, "C'mon, Mokuba…you don't want any of those apples."
"You questioning my apples for what they are, punk?" the lead tree threatened.
"Oh, no," Jou replied innocently, before adding in a snide tone, "I just don't think he wanted any little green worms in his apple."
That obviously was a grave insult, as the trees tried to attack them with everything in them.
When the three got to a distance where the trees couldn't grab them, Jou whispered to Kaiba, "I'll show you how to get apples," before sticking out his tongue at the trees and mocking them.
"Nah, nah," he crowed, "You can't get me!"
The trees finally grabbed the apples they had on their branches and threw them at Jou. A couple hit him in the chest, winding him, but Jou just laughed.
"Thanks a lot, fellas!" he shouted, picking up some of the fallen apples.
Mokuba grabbed a few more that the trees had thrown further into the wooded area, and when he did, he found something incredible.
"Seto! Jou!" he yelled, "Seto, Jou, come over here!"
"What is it, Mokuba?" Kaiba asked, before seeing what Mokuba had found.
Standing there on its own accord was a perfect replica of a man; the only difference was that he was made completely out of tin. White hair fell around its shoulders, and its arms were lifted to hold an ax, which was in perfect angle with the tree next to it.
"Jesus Christ," Kaiba muttered, coming around to get a better look.
It was then that a voice tried to speak; the only problem was that it was so muffled, you could barely understand a word.
"Did you say something?" Jou asked the tinman.
The voice struggled to speak again, and the only word any of them could make out was…
"Oilcan?" Mokuba muttered in confusion.
Kaiba looked around, before seeing an oilcan propped up on a tree stump. He grabbed it, before squeezing some oil around the tinman's lips.
The lips moved for a moment, trying to open.
"Bloody hell," the tinman finally spoke in a British accent, "I can talk…after all this time, I can talk again… Oh, please, could you oil my arms? My elbows?"
Jou grabbed the oilcan to oil the left arm and elbow, before handing it back to Kaiba so he could oil the right side. The tinman bended his limbs, and then lowered his ax with a shrill shriek.
"Did that hurt?" asked Mokuba.
"No," the tinman sighed, "It feels heavenly. I've held that ax up for ages…it feels great to finally lower it."
"Geez," said Jou, as he put some oil on the tinman's neck, "How long have you held up that thing, man?"
"Don't know, really," the tinman admitted, "I couldn't really ask anyone how long, I couldn't look at a clock, and I stopped counting seconds by the first two days."
"Well," said Kaiba briskly, as he oiled the tinman's hips and legs, "At least you can move now…I'm Seto Kaiba, this is my younger brother Mokuba, and this is Jou the scarecrow."
"Pleasure to meet you," the tinman held out his hand to shake Mokuba's, "I'm Ryou Bakura. I'm a woodman…sort of. I'm more like a tin woodman."
"Well, whoever built you should be proud," Kaiba told him, "You're very well-built…a perfect tin model of a man…"
"Perfect?" snorted Ryou, "Bang on my chest if you think I'm perfect," seeing Kaiba's hesitation, he added, "Go on and bang on it, it won't hurt me."
Kaiba, still reluctant, banged on the tin sharply, to have his bangs echoed back at him.
"Beautiful," Jou grinned goofily, "What a sound."
"It's empty," explained Ryou.
He sighed, before confessing, "The tinsman forgot to give me a heart."
"No heart?" Mokuba and Kaiba said together.
"No heart," Ryou affirmed sadly, "Only tin."
There was a silence, before a light bulb went on in Jou's head.
"We're going to the Emerald City to see the Wizard of Oz! He's gonna get me a brain, and get Kaiba and Mokuba back home! Maybe he could get you a heart too!"
"Well…suppose the Wizard doesn't give me a heart when we get there?" Ryou asked pessimistically.
"Oh, but he will," assured Mokuba, "He has to. We've come so far already!"
Suddenly there was a cold, cruel laugh; they whirled around, and standing there out of newly fading purple smoke was the Wicked Wiz of the West.
"You call this long, runt?" Gozaburo scorned, "You've just begun!"
Here he looked at Ryou and Jou.
"Helping these two along, are we, my fine gentlemen?" he asked, his voice still quite sardonic, "Well, stay away from them, or I'll have an executive at my company handle you personally."
Ryou shivered, but Jou didn't show one ounce of fear.
"Go back to your rat hole, bastard!" he growled at the wizard, "Leave Mokuba and Kaiba alone!"
Kaiba eyed Jou in surprise; Jou didn't look afraid in the least as he glared up at Gozaburo with complete and utter hatred.
The look of smugness in Gozaburo's eyes flickered quickly, before he brandished his hand in Jou's direction and a ball of fire flew at him.
Jou shouted, jumping away from the flames desperately and behind Kaiba as the CEO used his trenchcoat to deaden the flames.
Kaiba looked back up at Gozaburo to tell him to keep Jou out of this, but he was already gone in another puff of purple smoke.
Jou panted a little, his eyes wide with terror. Kaiba patted his shoulder.
"It's okay now," he told the scarecrow reassuringly.
Jou took a deep breath, and then smiled. "Thanks, Kaiba."
"No problem," the CEO replied gruffly, putting his trenchcoat back on, "C'mon…we gotta keep going."
Mokuba, Kaiba and Jou got back onto the Yellow Brick Road, before Ryou ran over to join them, his cheeks red and looking rather shy.
"Can I…may I…could I…?"
"Sure, you can come with us," Mokuba laughed.
And as the sun started to drop down in the sky, the four friends continued into the deeper, darker section of the forest, down the Yellow Brick Road and ever closer to the Emerald City.
