So, we're already up to the fifth chapter? ::blink:: Weird… it doesn't feel like that. Maybe it's cause my chapter's are so short these days…

Anyway, the next chapter is here, introducing a new character. : )

The review responses:

Tokemi: ::grin:: Well, we'll see about the paring. This chapter should give some hints. …actually, a bit more than just 'hints'. Thanks for the review!

Kyrian: 17 reviews by now. Well, if people are stupid enough not to read a good story, how can I help it? ; ) As for the shounen-ai… One of my friends did point out that I said it a little confusingly, but… then I somehow forgot about it. ::sweatdrop:: What I meant to say is that there will be shounen-ai, but it's not S/J – the relationship between Seto and Jou is brotherlike. Sorry about that… and thanks for the review!

Yami-loverOB1: Thanks! I'm really happy that you like this. And yes… you'll find out about everything eventually. Just have patience (and a lot of it. ::sweatdrop:: I'll try to update sooner this time.)

Disclaimer: Hmm… I think I haven't been doing this for some time, so let's refresh the memory: I don't own either Yu-Gi-Oh or the books. (Okay, so I do have them in my bookshelf, but besides that…)

Chapter 5

"Good morning!"

Jou groaned as he heard the annoyingly cheerful voice, made even more irritating because he knew that all of the cheerfulness was intentional. "Go away," he mumbled as he rolled over, turning his back to the voice. The voice didn't answer, but he could hear someone drawing the curtains, and suddenly the blinding beams of the morning sun entered the room.

"Get up, Jou. Your mother is here."

Jou sighed, but didn't move.

"Do you want her to come to wake you? I'm sure she will, if you're not soon downstairs. There's a visitor too."

"Shit." Jou sat up on the bed.

"There are your clothes." Seto threw them to him. "Get up and dressed, and be quick about it." He sat on the bed's edge as Jou began reluctantly to pull on his clothes.

"Who's the guest?" he asked.

Seto shrugged. "I don't know. Didn't even see him clearly. When I saw the carriage driving to the yard I thought it best to come wake you up."

"Yeah… maybe. What about… uhm…" Jou was at a loss this early in the morning, and suddenly he couldn't remember the kid's name, "Our other guest?"

"Oh, we ate breakfast together, hours ago… Where's your comb? You have to do something to that mop of yours before we go down."

"Ymph…" Jou produced a comb from somewhere and ran it couple of times through his hair. "Why did you change the subject?"

Seto raised his eyebrows. "When?"

"Just a moment ago. You..." A gigantic yawn cut off his sentence. "God, I'm tired…"

"Too bad. Come now, we have to be going."

"Coming, coming…"

-

Lady Jounouchi shook her head, looking curiously at her guest.

"No, my Lord. I have to say that unfortunately I have not seen anyone like that – but then again, I have been gone from here for some time. Perhaps the boys will know something, if they just… Oh! There they are!"

The young man sitting beside Lady Jounouchi got up when the two boys entered the room.

The Lady gestured towards Jou. "This is my son, Lord Jounouchi." The man bowed at him.

The stranger was quite a striking sight. He was dressed in simple clothes, fit for traveling and quite darkly colored. There was nothing strange in the clothes, but Jou found himself unable to stop staring at the stranger's hair, which pointed wildly in every direction. That in itself was quite… uncommon, to put it mildly, but the hair was also of three different colors, black, red and gold.

'Bow.'

Hastily, Jou executed a little belated bow. 'You were worried about my hair? Just take a look at his…'

"And this," the Lady was saying, "is his huntbrother, Seto." Seto made his bow in time.

"Pleased to meet you," he said, with a quick glare at Jou, who chose to ignore it.

"The pleasure is all mine…" the man muttered bowing to him. "I am called Yami."

They all sat down, and after exchanging few more pleasantries the discussion took a more serious tone.

"Lord Yami tells me…" Lady Jounouchi began, but Yami raised his hand and cut her off.

"Yami will do, as I told you, my Lady."

She nodded slightly. "As you will. Anyway, he told me that he is chasing a thief. Someone has apparently stolen some holy relic… from one of the Gods' altars." She glanced at Yami. "I have to say that you weren't very specific."

Yami waved the comment away by turning to look at the boys. "There is no need to be. The Lady informed me that she had not seen anyone who'd fit my description, but maybe you have. I know that he moved to this direction."

"What does he look like?" Seto asked, while Jou was still trying to wake up properly.

"Just a moment." Yami raised his hands up on the level of his face and hold them there. First, nothing happened, but suddenly a face appeared between his hands.

A face that most definitely belonged to Ryou.

"Holy shit," Jou whispered, as Seto stared at the vision, his mind gone blank.

Yami lowered his hands and the apparition disappeared. "So… have you seen him?"

Jou opened his mouth to answer, but realized then, a little belatedly, in what kind of turmoil his huntbrother's thoughts were. He glanced cautiously at Seto and looked then again at Yami, shaking his head. "No, I can't say that I have seen anyone like him. And I doubt that Seto has either, we've been together most of the time. Right?" He looked again at Seto who nodded, still quite dumbfounded.

Jou looked back at Yami. "I'm sorry that we weren't much help. Maybe some town people have seen him, if you're sure that he's been here." He rose up bowing slightly. "I hope that you will excuse me, but I haven't had breakfast yet."

Lady Jounouchi gave a sigh. "What should I do with you… how do you sleep so late?"

Jou smiled at her. "Late? Me? Anyway, I'm sure that your charming company, Mother, is enough to keep any man satisfied. I am hardly needed here." He bowed again. "Are you coming, Seto?"

"I… yes, sure." He got up and bowed too to Yami, who nodded slightly to them. "If we find out anything new, we will surely tell you," he said as they left.

'What do you think about that?' Jou asked him through their bond, just to be certain that no one heard.

Seto shook his head. 'Ask later again, I can't think anything yet.'

'Do you believe him?'

'I don't know. I guess we have to talk with Ryou…'

Jou nodded. 'Read my mind, as usual. But… why were you so shocked? I mean… I was too, of course, but that shocked…' He glanced at Seto, slitting his eyes. 'Is there something you haven't told me?'

'What do you mean?' Those four words carried with themselves a great amount of wariness, and Jou frowned, still staring at his huntbrother.

'I don't know. Maybe…' He paused for a while, concentrating on what he felt from Seto. It wasn't easy, his huntbrother was much better in hiding his emotions than he was, but… Suddenly he stopped.

"Holy shit, I say!" He stared at his huntbrother in amazement. Slowly, a wide grin began to form on his lips. "You're falling for that boy! How didn't I notice it earlier?"

"When do you notice anything, anyway?" Seto replied angrily. "And I wouldn't say that I…"

"Oh, but I would. You're falling in love." He shook his head. "I didn't know you swung that way… why didn't you tell me?"

Seto snorted. "Show me someone who'd want to tell you something like that and I'll get him a place in a madhouse."

"That wasn't nice." Jou was still grinning. "So, you have a sweetheart…" The grin widened, if possible. "You probably were just happy that I slept so long today… you haven't been naughty when I wasn't watching you, have you?"

Seto rolled his eyes. "Proves my point… Jou, stop that," he said as the other boy was about to continue. "This situation isn't funny."

With some difficulty, Jou managed to become serious. "Yeah, you're right. But we're here already… isn't this his room?"

Seto nodded and knocked on the door, but there was no answer. He knocked harder.

"Maybe he's taking a walk," he said as no one answered this time either. He pushed carefully the door open. "Ryou? Are you there?"

Receiving no answer Seto stepped into the room. The bed was made, the curtains drawn, all in all it wouldn't have been easy to tell that someone had spent a night that room. As he took a look around the room, a little piece of paper on the night table caught his attention. He walked to it, picked it up and read it frowning.

"What's it?" Jou came to read over his shoulder.

I am sorry to leave without proper goodbyes. I know I promised I would stay for this day, but I'm afraid I won't be able to do that after all. As I said I really am in hurry. Maybe we will meet again someday, but I doubt that. Goodbye and thank you for everything.

Ryou

"So," Jou said. "He's gone."

"That's quite obvious," Seto snapped as he crunched the note and slipped it into his pocket.

Jou looked at him, worried. He wasn't used to see his huntbrother in such a surge of emotions, usually he was the one who had to be calmed down, and he really didn't know how to act in a situation like this.

"What should we do? Do you want to tell that Yami guy about this?"

Seto thought about it for a moment and shook then his head wearily. "No… I don't think so. Anyway, we don't have anything to tell him than what he already knows: that Ryou was here. Besides… I don't really trust him. We haven't heard the full story, so we don't know the truth of the matter. I mean… Ryou didn't feel like any thief…"

Jou shrugged. "Maybe… but running away like this is certainly suspicious."

"I know."

Jou glanced at him. "You'd want to leave after him yourself." As Seto said nothing he continued, "We don't have time for that. The Sacred…"

"I know."

"It's possible that we might catch him quickly with the dogs, but it'd make Yami suspicious if we suddenly started to hunt on the roads…"

"I know."

Jou fell silent. For some time they stood there in the abandoned room, both of them deep in thought. Finally Jou glanced hesitantly at the other, wondering if it was save to speak.

"What?" Seto asked, not looking at him.

"Do you think he's chasing him with magic? Yami, I mean? He has to be mage-born, judging from that lil' trick he just did."

Seto frowned. "He might be that too…"

"Too?" Jou looked at him questioningly, and got an irritated glance from Seto.

"Don't tell me you didn't notice… or were you so interested about his hair – which, I might add, also should give you some clue, it is quite unordinary – that you didn't notice his eyes?"

"Eyes?" Jou looked at him, baffled. "Yeah, they were weirdly colored, but what about that?"

Seto sighed, giving up. "I think he has to be god-born." [1]

Jou stared at him. "Are you sure?" he finally asked, voice barely a whisper.

"What else could he be, with eyes like that?" [2]

Jou stared at the floor for a moment. "Ryou's in trouble," he said then.

Seto sighed again. "I know."

"And we still don't have time to go after him."

Seto turned to glare at him. "I. Know. When will you get it?"

Jou raised his hands in defense. "Hey, take it easy. I just wanted to be sure…" He took a glance around the room. "Um… maybe we should be going…?" he suggested hesitantly, gesturing towards the door.

Seto shrugged. "Well, there's nothing here for us to do. And stop looking at me like that!"

"Well, I can't help it if I'm worried about you!" Jou retorted angrily. He walked to the door and flung it open. "So you could… could…" Suddenly he forgot what he was saying when he found himself staring at crimson eyes. "Uh… hello…"

Yami nodded at him slightly while looking over his shoulder into the room. For a moment his eyes rested on Seto, but continued soon their scrutiny of the room.

"What… uh… what are you doing here?" Jou asked finally, when the silence was becoming awkward – well, awkward to his mind. Yami didn't seem to notice.

"Me?" The crimson eyes fell again upon the blond boy, and he resisted an urge to gulp. "Since there was no one here to help me," the eyes stared directly into those of Jou, and he bit his cheek to force himself not to look down, "I was leaving. It seems, however, that I am lost."

Lost? You wouldn't get lost in the hells… From somewhere Jou managed to bring a smile on his face. "Oh, then allow us to guide you out of here. This is kind of a big place…" And why were you walking to the door alone in the first place? He looked over his shoulder and saw Seto standing right behind himself. "So, let's go." He pulled Seto out of the room and closed the door. Somehow he felt himself calmer when the door was closed and Yami didn't anymore have a direct view into it.

In silence they began to walk downstairs, Jou glanced at the dignified figure walking beside him. And… if you were going to leave, why did you come upstairs…? I'm not going to be able to rest until you're gone.

Yami turned to look at him and smiled a little as their eyes met. A little hesitantly, Jou returned the smile. Don't tell me you can read minds…

"Your huntbrother seems to be very quiet," Yami said suddenly. "Is he concerned for someone?"

"Wha…? Seto? Well…" Jou glanced at the said huntbrother. Seto was walking onward, staring at the floor as if he hadn't heard the question, although Jou very well knew that he had. He grinned at Yami, who – for the first time betraying some emotion – looked a little surprised. "It's nothing serious. His sweetheart just ran away."

Seto glared at Jou as Yami glanced at him. "Really? Well, girls do that sometimes."

After that they walked in silence all the way to the main entrance, where they said their goodbyes to the crimson-eyed stranger, much to the relief of them both.

[1] God-born simply means that another one of someone's parents is a god, if you didn't guess…

[2] Okay, actually the god-born have golden eyes, or something like that (can't remember exactly…) but let's ignore that for a while. ; )

A/N: ::stretch:: If you have anything to comment, please do. I'll go to sauna now, and then to sleep. : )