Disclaimer- I own Yu-Gi-Oh :gets carried off by vampires, I mean lawyers: Ok I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! Also don't own Advil, but that stuff is awesome::they put her down: O.O Never thought they where serious….

Me- I live! About 4 months later….

Myself- Well we have a slight excuse on this late update…

Me- First of all being the college girl that I am, I rarely had time to actually write fanfiction. Working more on actual English papers since my high school did crap to prepare me for college writing. Second when I was acquiring time for writing it was finals week! So as we all know you should study then….not look for what doors are unlocked throughout campus. And last, I is stuck in a cage.

I- :rattling the cage bars: Let me out! I learned my lesson!

Myself- Let me explain. For fun she decided to try baking cookies. Notice the try. Well it didn't go well and almost burned all of Me's dust bunnies to a crisp and she needed those for finals. So the dust bunnies locked her in the cage so she cannot burn them all again.

Dust Bunnies- Yay!

I- Please?

Dust Bunnies- NO!

Myself- :poking I through the bars: this is way to much fun to let you out.

Me- Uhh…..I kind of need her to write my fics….when I let you take reign nothing decent comes out.

Myself- :gasp: How can you say that to me!

Me- Because this is romance fic, not a kill everything that isn't hot.

Myself- :pouting: People go for that too……

Me- But this fic isn't about that.

Myself- Fine::lets I out for a bit:

I- Yay!

Me- Now, we can get onto the fic! And to appease all you nice readers I have put in a nice Seto/Seth conversation!

Souls and Hearts

Chap 14- Enemy of the Shadows

It was a week before the nurse allowed Jou back to school. That even took both Yami's and Yugi's combined power of persuasion. So that fateful days lunch break was nothing but an informal interrogation.

"My god Jou, are you alright?"

"Dude, what was with the blood?"

"You should have see Yugi man! He was practically swearing up a storm!"

"He even yelled at Kaiba!"

"And got Kaiba to listen to him."

"The teacher even freaked."

"I'm really fine guys, I've been to about three doctors and the nurse. They all say that I am in perfect health." Jou voiced in attempts to fend off the crowd; sadly said group wasn't picking up on that intention.

"Man I would get some more opinions on that. What happened to you was unnatural."

"You don't know the half of it." He mumbled to himself.

"Don't listen to him Jou, guys with deep seeded problems are totally hot."

"Well this sexy minx then needs to finish his lunch, doctor's orders." Honda suddenly jumped in, successfully dissipating the crowd.

"You are a guy's best friend. I thought I was never going to eat." Jou then dug into one of his bento boxes, leaving a whirlwind mess.

"Be it blood or ESP I am sure its not good either way."

"Got the scoop from Yami?"

"Nope, got it from Yugi, I don't have any classes with Yami till after lunch."

"Very true."

"Past this morning gossip, how are you holding up?"

"Physically fine, emotionally well…Seto's been ignoring me more then usual."

"Seems he actually listened to Yugi." Honda whistled in amazement.

"What?"

"Yugi told Kaiba to stay away from you."

"WHAT! No! I need to be able to see Seto, without Seto I can't talk to Seth!" Jou pitched a fit staring at his best friend dead in the eyes.

"I can't help you there buddy. From what he told me Kaiba wasn't that gentle when handling you and wasn't the most responsive either."

"So? Doesn't mean I should be punished as well!"

"Why are you being punished? Get a detention already?" Yugi giggled, until he was center stage of Jou's aggression.

"Why!" He practically yelled knuckles turning bleach white against the table. Yami quickly stepped in front of Yugi shielding him from both Jou and the conversation.

"Jou, what's going on?" Yami tried to start off on a clam note.

"What in Hell's right gave Yugi the permission to prevent Seto from seeing me!"

"It's for the best Jou. Kaiba was less then adequate when dealing with the situation."

"Who gave you the right to determine that?"

"He practically threw you onto the bed!" Jou's anger was starting to rub off onto him.

"Let's take a logical look at this. He, like everyone else, was in shock and probably scared, also dealing with a terrified Seth running around his consciousness. So I am assuming he was delayed in reaction. Second I know from various sources he knows how to deal with people when they are trapped in a nightmare. The jolt actually brought me back to reality for a bit."

"Jou, he could have made it worse."

"I highly doubt that."

"He wasn't helping your condition and adding extra stress to Yugi."

"He's right." Yugi popped out from behind Yami.

"Let me make this perfectly crystal clear, so clear that not even Kaiba's best lawyer couldn't find a flaw in this statement. Your job, as trusted people, is to make sure that my condition does not waiver from good to bad. That I just stay stable while I am being moved around. It is the nurses and doctors job's to make sure that I get better! Or any other trained person in the field!"

"Please try to understand where we are coming from Jou." Yami tried to rationalize with his angered friend.

"Don't try that with me Yami. You have someone who loves you that you love back. I, on the other hand, don't have such wonderful luck on the love department. So you can take that understand crap and shove it right up your-"

"JOU! I think that is going a little too far." Honda cut in covering Jou's mouth with his hand.

"You need to clam down." Anzu tried to reason, hoping Jou would listen to her more.

"I will!" Picking up his unopened bento box Jou headed to the door that went outside.

"Should we go after him?" Yugi whispered, setting his tray down.

"Not unless you want to get your head chewed off." Honda then went back to his own lunch. Unknown to the group, our schizophrenic acting C.E.O was watching the dramatic play.

'Now's our chance!' Seth gave a woot jumping up and down in his soul room.

'We are not going to follow him, you stalker.'

'But…'

'Besides I was told to stay away from him.'

'And when do you ever listen?'

'When it is convenient to me.'

'They never said anything about me going near him.' Seth pointed out, making Seto actually think of a comeback.

'I am sure the "you" Yugi put emphasis on was talking about both of us.'

'In your fancy legal terms, that would just become a manner of misunderstanding. There was no oral evidence about me going near him.'

'No.'

'I'll give you a headache.'

'You're a headache naturally.'

'I'll sing.'

'So?'

'I'll take over your body on the next business meeting and start stripping to the raunchiest song that there is. I am sure they really want to know just how much you work out.'

'…you can't do that to me.'

'I'll just wait till you fall asleep the night before the meeting and take over while you dream of Jou in some hot little leather number.'

'I don't have dreams like that about Jou!'

'Oh my mistake…so you do dream about Jou!'

'I never said that!'

'Seto, you denied about having dreams like that about Jou. Not about having dreams with Jou in them.'

'You're giving me a headache!'

'I told you I would if we didn't track him down!'

'Ok Seth and the legal expert that you are, I could have denied about having dreams about Jou. But not about someone else in a hot leather number.'

'You are a pervert at heart!' Seth gasped.

'There is no way that I am going to try and win this.' Seto sighed popping some Advil for his oncoming headache.

'Either we go now or I tell him about the neck weakness that we share.'

'I don't have that!'

'Another fast denial.'

'That was not.' Seto huffed, about as much as a Kaiba huffs.

'We basically share the same body Seto. My weaknesses are your weaknesses.'

'Are not and if they are then get out of my body!'

'A little hard to accomplish at the moment.'

'Then work faster on that!'

'I could also tell him about the weakness around the naval…' Seth smirked, wearing a triumphant look.

'Fine, we'll go stalk him if it shuts you up and prevents you from making me strip in front of those ugly old men that I have to talk to.' Seto gave in, knowing that if Seth was given the chance he would make true on his threats.

'Then I'll take over.'

'That wasn't part of the deal yet!' Seto growled as he walked through the doors to the outside world.

'But you aren't allowed near him.'

'I am not letting you out around all these people!'

'What I was going to do oh so smart one was drag him somewhere more secluded.'

'You better make it seem threatening, or else.' Seto sneered giving up control to his much older half.

'Or else what? Hold out on telling me about those dreams with Jou in a maids outfit?' Seth smirked as he began to hunt for Jou. After a quick search of the open grounds that surrounded him, and almost blowing his cover by attempting to bite a fan girl that came up to him, he realized that Jou did half of his work for him. Now going into hunter mode, Seth began to scour the outer wall and the "forest" that the students talked about. The wall was fruitless unless he wanted to talk to the smoking people. When the students said the forest was mild them meant scarce. The forest was just a bunch of trees that the garden club planted over the years. In another decade it could start looking like a forest. Yet in the middle of the upturned dirt was Jou finishing off his lunch.

"There you are puppy." Seth announced his presence in a Setoish manner, should any of the wall people not be high enough to actually remember the conversation.

"I see you've finally grown some backbone." Jou laughed, biting into his sandwich. Peering around, Seth determined that the wall people could not hear their conversation and thus did not need to be exterminated if they did remember it.

"Sadly he has yet to gain some backbone unless it deals with his brother or company. I on the other hand was not threatened at all."

"Seth?" Jou looked up, noticing the miniscule differences between the two.

"Seems you've had a bit of a week, from what my younger half tells me." Seth sat down next to Jou, who instantly cuddled up to him.

"It was only a week! Man the way both Yami and Yugi overprotect it felt longer." Jou joked, taking a sip of juice.

"I would talk to Yami on this matter but there was this issue of misunderstanding. He said for Seto not to come and see you but slightly insinuated about me not being able to see you either. But he never actually said that."

"Right now leave them alone. It's not their business who I talk to anyways."

"Care to tell me what set you off last week. I couldn't see it but Seto said something about crying blood." Jou then told the exhausting story of Ankari and her mishaps.

"Yami said it was ESP leaking out, but he's not sure."

"Red ESP? Not impossible but never heard of. If there can be pink ESP then red has to be a possible color." Seth thought out loud chewing on his thumb nail. A bad habit he was slowly picking up from Seto.

"I need to find a way to channel it. I can't imagine my psych will last to long if it keeps leaking out."

"Have you tried dueling?"

"I can't access the shadow realm like you and the other yami's can." Jou sighed, discarding his finished lunch.

"I was talking about a regular duel; you exhort so much energy when you duel. When you also use the Egyptian cards you use up ESP."

"You do?"

"Why do you think only certain people could play and others could only play certain cards? It was all in their levels of ESP."

"Haven't tried that, then again I have no one to duel with."

"Go to that Kaiba Land that Seto is always going on about. There has to be a lot of people there to duel, I mean that is the whole reason of the park." Seth smiled patting Jou's shoulder.

"Sounds like a good idea, gets me out of the shop as well." The bell rang, giving warning that lunch was to end.

"Sorry I must go, Seto is complaining about his reputation and how he wants control back now." With a sad smile Seth leaned in giving Jou a simple kiss. He left then giving a good distance between himself and Jou before letting Seto back into control. Once Seth was out of sight, Jou deposited his trash and left school to find some dueling action. By the time anyone noticed he was gone it was seventh period.

'Yami! Jou's missing!' Yugi panicked in their mental link.

'I don't know what to tell you little one.'

'Jou wouldn't skip; he stopped doing that ages ago. Well once they started to contact Grandpa every time he wasn't in 2 consecutive periods without a decent excuse.'

'Maybe he went home after 6th.'

'If he isn't at home or Grandpa hasn't seen him then we are hunting for him.'

'We are?'

'He needs to be kept safe with that Oruke guy running around the world.'

'Yugi, what about the history paper? Grandpa said one worse grade and we can't duel for a month! A MONTH! I can't do that.'

'Jou's more important.'

'How about we let Grandpa deal with it for a while, while we work on that history paper and if he doesn't find anything then we can go and search for him. A win, win situation.'

'Maybe.'

'WHAT?'

'Jou's upset and who knows what he'll do?'

'He is also angry at us Yugi. We may actually make it worse.'

'…' Yugi somehow forgot about the lunch incident for that brief few minutes.

'Let Grandpa deal with it for now, he knows how to talk to Jou.'

'I'll think about it.'

'Ok Yugi here is a scenario that no one is going to like. We go out and look for him, find him, confront him, piss him off even more and he runs off to some place in the city that we can never find cause you know he has that talent.'

'I follow so far.'

'Suddenly we get a bad grade on that history paper and Grandpa bans us from dueling for a month.'

'I knew it! This is all about you needing to duel!'

'Kind of but there is more to this scenario, then Oruke mysterious person pops out and takes Jou and we need to duel him to get him back. Now since before we where looking for him and not getting the paper done we can't duel him cause Grandpa said no more dueling for a month and you have yet to go again him. Now we have to tell Jou to wait a month because we can't duel until then and who knows what will happen to him in that months time.'

'We get Bakura to break him out.'

'He got banned from breaking and entering into buildings when Ryou found out that lovely china set that they have was in fact looted from the Kaiba mansion.'

'And when does he ever listen?'

'When Ryou suddenly started to bust Malik for blackmail on him.'

'Well I am sure Grandpa would let us duel to win Jou back.'

'I am sure he would, and then lengthen it because we did have to duel. Even if it was to save Jou's life.'

'Fine, we let Grandpa call around for him and we work on the paper.' With that both boys went back to the lesson at hand. Surprisingly Kaiba Land was dead during the school hours, something Jou did not anticipate. It wasn't until 30 minutes after school ended that it started to pick up.

"Seems like no one skips these days, then again the teachers have become snitchy." Jou mumbled to himself as he searched for worth opponents. Kaiba Land in the end wasn't a total waste of time, he was able to get some tension out by dueling; yet all his duels ended before he could get out his new cards.

"And Kaiba said I wasn't improving. I have won all my duels so far." Jou outwardly boasted striking a random victory pose.

"I highly doubt that mutt. All the experienced duelers come out after all the newbie's leave." Seto sneered looking down at the shorter of the two.

"Who said I was leaving yet? I've been giving these newbie's some dueling pointers so they can get better. Right now it's tension relieving time." It wasn't a full lie, all the nice newbie's he beat he gave pointers to and all the ones that where brats he mocked.

"Tension relieving?" Seto raised an eyebrow.

"Ask Seth about it and tell him thanks."

"He heard you and now that my mission is done I'll leave you to be humiliated by real duelists." Seto turned on his heel and strode to his office.

"Seth worries about me to much." With a smile Jou went off to find some better duelists. It was as Seto said, all the real players come out after all the newbie's leave, or better known as after dark. He got creamed about as many times as he won, also gave out as many pointers as he was given. Yet no matter how many times he played, his new twin cards never made it to the field. This was slightly good in retrospect, since he had no clue as to their purpose in the game.

"I think it time to stop dueling when you hear voices inside your head and don't have a senen item. Even though most of those pointers worked really well." A very tired Jou yawned out loud giving a good stretch to his arms. In his fogged mind Jou took a shortcut back to the shop, a rather shady maze of on way streets and alleyways.

"8:20, man Grandpa is going to kill me. Especially once Yami and Yugi snitch on my skipping class. I could do an all nighter in the park and go to school from there. Only problem is the park is on the other direction." Jou stopped and gave a long sigh. Go back and face the wrath of a long and boring lecture or walk 20 minutes to go and sleep on the branch of his tree? Having more pro's then the park Jou continued his strolling pace to the game shop.

"Is he the one?" A shadow at the corner of an abandoned convenience store whispered out into the street.

"Like I should know! Our mission is to hunt out the one, not psychically point him out!" The shadow next to the mail box hissed.

"I am tired of getting duds!"

"I'm tired of your complaining!"

"I'm just plain tired!" The mail box shadow sighed, why, oh why did he volunteer to hunt around this area? Especially with a half brained partner.

"He'll be our last one, and then we'll go home."

"Then let's go!" The convenience store shadow jumped in front of Jou, who at the moment was thinking of various ways to enter undetected through his room window.

"Can I help you?" Jou took a step back eyeing the misplaced stranger, just before he ran over him. The stranger was a tall yet wiry man with circular metal framed glasses. His clothing consisted of Italian pin stripped suit and comfortable loafers.

"Are you a duelist?" Thankfully years of saving the world and dealing with shady people in shady places taught Jou something.

"Sorry buddy, I'm not a duelist." Jou gave a dismissing wave as he walked past the confused business man.

'Oh well, we can go home now!" He gave a small cheer, almost skipping his way back home.

"Idiot!" The concealed one barked, getting both walking men to stop and turn, looking at the innocent mail box.

"What! He said he wasn't a duelist!"

"That means you check anyways!" The mail box person revealed himself, slipping up through the shadow. Jou's eyes bugged out as he watched a person rise up from the cement. Last time he checked Yakuza people couldn't do that!

"Show off." The business man scoffed rolling his eyes.

"Now I am going to show you what is means to properly check and see if they're a duelist." The more mysterious of the two ran at Jou, pinning him against one of the brick walls. A pained moan escaped his lips as his head was slammed into the unforgiving surface.

"We could have gone home, but no! Lets check any punk that happens to walk by!" The other grumbled as he started to pat the blond down. Jou now got a good look at his deranged attacker. The man, he assumed, was rather androgynous looking with pale grey eyes and shoulder length maroon hair. He wore all back with strange looking straw sandals.

"We're taking a survey about dueling decks this evening. Do you have two twin cards that look like each other?" His captor asked tilting his head to the side. Finally confirming his attacker was male, Jou gave him the dirtiest glare.

"This is a mugging, not a survey! Survey's are those annoying people on the phone or the people at the mall!" He struggled with all his might against the two, not caring is he hurt them now.

"You're cute when you're angry." Jou stopped his movements staring at his attacker in horror.

"Not this again." The older looking one sighed shaking his head in annoyance.

"But you look cuter when you're scared. Like now." The younger one smiled moving up to kiss Jou on the forehead. What little space was left between Jou and the brick was now gone as he backed away from the acid lips.

"You pervert! Get away from me!" He began his struggles anew, school bag falling from his hand.

"I wonder if I could keep you as a pet? I am sure master wouldn't mind." He captured Jou's lips in a forceful kiss as the other began searching through his bag. The first compartment held nothing but pens and pencils, and a calculator upon deeper inspection; along the bottom of the second compartment lay some of his duel monster cards.

"He is a liar alright. Had the cards along the bottom of the bag." He held up the cards, showing off his prize.

"A sneaky one aren't we? Check all of them." With the orders barked he went to work checking all the cards under the light.

"What the hell do you want with those cards? The Swamp Ogres aren't that strong."

"Swamp Ogres?" The perverted captor repeated.

"Yea, their twin cards." Both men gave a look of confusion ad then aggravation.

"You mean there is more then one set of twin cards!" Now agitated beyond the point of reason the older one stalked away throwing the cards back into the bag.

"You are a useful pet." The red head purred giving him another kiss.

"I am not your pet!" In rage and adrenaline Jou brought his head down, delivering a nice head butt. A cry of pain was the only thing Jou could decipher out that his plan worked. Only problem was he had one hell of a headache. The imprisoning hands gave way and he slumped to the ground clutching his throbbing head.

"You nearly broke my nose!" He yelled dabbing away the blood flow from his nose.

"It hurt me more then you." Jou groaned begging the pain would end soon. And the phone ringing in his ears would go over to voice mail.

"The one thing I can't stand is a disobedient pet!" The older of the two left lunged, making both skid on the ground. The poor blond whimpered as his arm was shredded and a punch connected with his left eye.

"I'm not a fuc- AHHH!" He yelled in a mixture of pain and pleasure as his neck was bitten.

"You're my pet now." He smirked, dashing away. Jou gave himself a minute to gain his boundaries before he grabbed his bag and sprinted the rest of the way home.

Me- :panting: Curse me and my marathon chapters!

Myself- I feel perfectly fine.

Me- Only cause you made I do all the muse work!

I- :passed out in her cage:

Myself- Kept her in her cage.

Me- I hope the length makes up for like the 5 month wait! I tried my hardest I really did!

Myself- I am sure you did.

Me- You're being sarcastic aren't you?

Myself- Me? Never.

Me- :making a sign: Looking for a new helpful muse. Skills are being encouraging to me and helping me with my ideas. Also must have a time keeping schedule so chapters get up in less then 5 months. If interested please leave a note somewhere where I can find it with contact information.

Myself- No one is going to go for that posting.

Me- I can always tell Astrith that you accept his proposal.

Myself- Assuming you can get into contact with him.

Me- Then you are going to be a homeless muse out on the streets.

Myself- :takes down the posting: I'll be good.

Me- Yay::happy dance:

Myself- :calling her pharmacist: Yea I need a refill on happy pills…yes the 800mg kind!

Me- Ok people I am not going to promise another chapter coming out soon. So far I can't even keep getting my homework in on time. So when it comes out it comes out.

Myself- But people R&R. If you remember that we are alive.

Me- Byes for now!