Jounouchi knew he had screwed up, he just didn't know how it happened. One minute he was dueling with someone else (and won), the next some foreign thugs grabbed him while he was passing an alleyway and knocked him out. He wasn't alone either...a white haired kid who looked like a boxer was with him, though he had a concussion.
Just when he thought things couldn't get worse, Yugi is thrown in with them. The thugs looked really pleased grabbing her, though they made the fatal error of not taking the Puzzle from her. When the Pharaoh woke up he was going to end these creeps.
"Jou? What's going on?" she said groggily.
"Why didn't Yami stop these creeps from grabbin' ya?"
"He's tired. We had just finished a really nasty duel when I was taken," said Yugi.
"What do we do? I don't think these guys are duelists," said Jounouchi.
The boxer seemed to be waking up, though he was still pretty groggy.
"Where are we?" he asked.
"No idea. Something tells me we're going to be here for a while," said Jounouchi.
"Maybe not. Kaiba said there was a reason why he picked Namimori for the tournament...there was going to be a second operation going on during the tournament, and there was a chance we'd be targeted. Just not for our cards," said Yugi.
"You think we got caught up in the second operation?" asked Jounouchi.
"Pretty sure of it...he said they were trying to get rid of the foreigners attempting to claim the town, and he made a point to give me several things to insure that we could be found quickly. He said if they knew what I was, they'd come after me with lethal force."
"Wait...this Kaiba guy is getting rid of the unextreme people who have been harassing the town for months?" said the boxer.
The two blinked at his phrasing.
"He told me someone named Hibari called in a favor for something they did earlier," said Yugi.
"That makes sense. Hibari-sempai is a very extreme man, but these guys have been really persistent...and they've been going after him in particular."
"What's your name dude?" asked Jounouchi.
"Sasegawa Ryohei!" he said enthusiastically, before wincing a bit. "I'm the captain of the Namimori High boxing club."
"Makes sense, you follow any of the games?" asked Jounouchi, mostly because something about the guy really appealed to him as a potential friend.
While Jounouchi was doing some bonding with Ryohei, Yugi was pulling on the bracelet Kaiba had given her. Once it was at the required part...which was a cleverly disguised orange bead...she pinched hard enough to break it. Kaiba had made sure to show her how to activate the beacon on the bracelet after she got it.
About twenty minutes after she broke the bead, they heard the sounds of great violence outside.
Ten minutes passed, and the sounds started to die down...then the door was thrown open, and two people were there. Kaiba and a teen Yugi had only become familiar with after the start of the tournament, Hibari Kyouya.
"Everyone fine?" asked Kaiba.
"They only just grabbed us about an hour ago," said Yugi. "But I think Ryohei-san has a concussion."
Yugi and Jounouchi walked out, but she could already tell there was a chance Ryohei might end up being part of their group. He had easily befriended Jounouchi...likely because they were both older brothers who were a tad overprotective of their little sisters.
"So who were those creeps anyway?" asked Jounouchi, though he didn't expect an answer.
"Triads. Someone took notice this place is a treasure trove for people with a certain power and they decided to take over the place and force those people to work for their group," said Kaiba absently. "Which is why my group is here, helping the local clan who controls the place to clear it out."
Jounouchi blinked, surprised at the straight answer.
"So why'd they grab us then?"
"Because you're borderline active for that power, and they had a sensor. Yugi is mostly active, but the Puzzle is blocking the energy from being sensed right away."
"So the reason they grabbed me was because Yami was too tired to block the energy from being noticed?" said Yugi.
"Yes. There's a reason I gave you those extra items, and it's because your particular energy is extremely rare and valuable. At best they might make you a puppet leader, and at worst a breeder. Having a female Active gives a larger chance of producing more of the same type," said Kaiba bluntly.
Yugi gulped. Jounouchi growled at the implications that his friend might be captured and used as a 'breeder'. He would need only a slight push to be made an Active.
Kaiba estimated Jounouchi to be a classic Storm, which was amusing as his best friend Honda was a Lightning. Anzu was a Rain, oddly enough.
Kaiba eyed the way Ryohei seemed to instinctively gravitate towards Yugi and Jounouchi, rather than him. Well, he could think of a worse Sky for Ryohei to bond to, and to be honest Yugi could use all the overprotective Elements she could get. He probably fit in better with Yugi's group than the one he was creating anyway.
"This is Control... we have a possible duelist using outside help to cheat by peaking at cards," said Chrome.
Chrome was wearing a special headset and was working in the control booth with Noah and others to help simultaneously deal with the tournament and the operation to clear out the Triads.
Ironically, clearing out the Triads was easier than dealing with the duelists. Especially since they also had to keep track of the Rare Hunters, who had pissed Seto off enough that he had given free reign for them to be taken out...without having to duel them first.
Bakura had been so pleased to hear that particular piece of news, that he had started an unofficial competition with Mukuro over who could break them the most.
"On it, Chrome-nee. Yeah, I see them. Looks like they're trying to help their brother with his psychic trick," said Mokuba. He had Takeshi with him, as Seto had made it abundantly clear that no one flame active was allowed to go anywhere without back-up, and that one of them had to be proficient in combat.
Mokuba, for obvious reasons, would stick to regulating the tournament from cheating. Takeshi was rotating the shift to clear out the Triads, and was taking a break from using his new sword in live combat.
His father had been a mixture of proud...that his son was so good at the sword and had found a decent Sky to attach to...and resigned, because it quickly became obvious that Takeshi was a natural hit man, which meant his entry into the underworld was pretty much doomed from the start.
"Duel is over, move over to quadrant seven," said Chrome.
"Copy that, Control," said Mokuba.
Chrome noticed something, and changed the channel on her headset.
"Be advised, there appears to be unauthorized dueling over by the hospital," she called out.
"This is Tatsuya of the Committee, it's allowed. A pair of duelists are showing off the duel disks to the children and patients who couldn't see the tournament live. They have permission from the facility."
"Understood, please keep an eye on it just to be safe and make sure they stay out of any ambulance lanes," said Chrome.
It was interesting, keeping an eye on the dueling action and keeping her family safe from any potential attacks.
Thanks to Noah, tracking the Triads became considerably easier. He had hacked the local cell towers and was keeping track of all phones that had appeared within the time period the Triads started making their move. He excluded the local numbers unless they came to close to one of the foreign phones he had marked.
Chrome was about to move on to some more possible cheaters when she noticed an anomaly.
"This is control, we have a possible duel on restricted ground over by the port."
"This is Kaiba. Exactly where by the port? And how the hell did they manage to pull that off? I thought we clearly marked the restricted areas on the duel disk mainframes!"
Due to the fact that they were trying to get rid of the Triads, all areas near the ports were marked as restricted. This was also to prevent accidents from people in boats from crashing into anything, not to mention the distraction a duel would be to the dock workers.
"The duel is happening just outside the restricted area, and it appears to be on a platform that wasn't there this morning," said Chrome. "The duel disk system hasn't updated the new information since last night and since no accident was flagged by our systems..."
Kaiba sounded exasperated.
"Who are the duelists, and how long has it been going on?"
"The first one is Jounouchi...and the other is Yugi. There are no flagged numbers near them," reported Chrome. "But..."
"Why do I sense a migraine is about to replace my headache?" asked Kaiba.
"Jounouchi spent a considerable amount of time around a number with an Egyptian area code not already flagged as part of the Tomb Keepers," said Chrome.
She dutifully muted the channel for about five minutes, and caught the tail end of what was a rather impassioned swearing fit in multiple languages.
"So he was captured by Rare Hunters and is likely being mind controlled. Just what I didn't need."
Chrome was about to respond when the computer sent her an alert.
"Bossu, I think Jounouchi's sister in in Namimori."
"Please tell me you're joking."
"Her phone just popped up on the towers," said Chrome.
Kaiba sighed.
"Where?"
Chrome gave him the directions, and Kaiba immediately picked up a motorcycle to pick her up, lest she be used as a hostage for Jounouchi later.
He was not expecting to find a girl who still had bandages on her face after barely recovering from major surgery.
Kaiba felt like swearing, but refrained.
Thankfully he had Sky flames, and he had the phone number of Honda, who Shizuka was likely familiar with.
"Hello?"
"Honda, the mutt's sister is here and I'd rather have someone she knows vouch for me than make it seem like I'm kidnapping her," deadpanned Kaiba.
"How do you know it's his sister?"
"Does his sister have eye problems that were severe enough to require surgery?" asked Seto flatly.
"Can you send a picture?" asked Honda. "What's she doing in Namimori anyway?"
"She said something about wanting the first thing to see to be her brother," said Seto.
He sent a photo to Honda, who reluctantly confirmed it was her. He held the phone close to her ear, mostly because he didn't want the call to drop by accident.
"Hello? Honda-kun? Where's Jou?"
Shizuka listened to her brother's best friend for a moment. By this point most of Yugi's Elements knew Kaiba to be trustworthy...especially considering how quickly he rescued her, Jounouchi and a third party when Yugi broke one of the tracking beacons he had given her.
As a result, recovering Shizuka was made relatively painless because she had confirmation from someone she knew.
It took them fifteen minutes for Kaiba to reach the dueling area, and from what he saw it was a good thing he had added trackers to the duel disks.
His face twitched at the sight of the anchor and the clearly deadly trap. Honda twitched when he saw Jounouchi's sister there.
Seto put Shizuka into the care of Honda, who was less than happy with what was going on and that she was there.
Seto considered the various ways to deal with this headache...until he remembered how close Jounouchi was to going Active, and the fact that Yugi had likely gone Active the day she completed the Puzzle as a defensive mechanism.
Which meant he could likely fight off the hypnotism if he tricked the idiot into going active.
One of the things he knew could get a civilian to go active...was if they were provoked by a foreign flame signature. He'd bet a good chunk of his money that Jounouchi would go active in a heartbeat and harmonize with Yugi soon after if his flames thought a different Sky was trying to harmonize with him.
Which was why Seto reached out with his flames and tried to harmonize with Jounouchi.
The reaction was immediate. Jounouchi, who had been trying to fight off Marik's control for the past thirty minutes, suddenly started to look far more alert than before. His eyes began to glow from an internal light, and for a brief moment he looked something like a vampire or other red eyed monster.
Something had to give, and with a little nudge from Yugi's Sky flames which had detected someone trying to steal her Storm and had not liked it one bit, that thing was Jounouchi's flames.
There was a bright red flare, followed by a subtle orange from Yugi. Jounouchi blinked a few times, as the sudden awakening of his flames had thoroughly destroyed the hold Marik had over his mind.
As Seto had experienced before, Flames had a habit of overwhelming shadow magic...likely because it was soul based and the purity and power level was considerably higher in Active flames compared to Inactive or even Latents. It certainly explained why Yami was so strong with his magic, and the odd trend Seto had noticed in duelists.
Those with Active flames were more likely to be better duelists, while Inactives were subpar and Latents were the hobbyists. There was something about the cards that seemed to draw those with Flames to them.
And Jounouchi was a Storm of decent strength.
"What the heck was that?" he said baffled.
Yugi's expression was that of pure relief...and some bewilderment.
"Jou?" said Shizuka.
"Shizuka? What are you doing here?" said her brother in shock.
Kaiba broke the locks on the boxes and helped the two off the platform in short order.
"Did you two at least get the locator cards?" he asked.
"I got mine just before they grabbed me," confirmed Jounouchi.
"I just got mine from a Rare Hunter," said Yugi. "Though they did look pretty paranoid about something."
Seto snorted at that. Of course they would be paranoid...he had set Mukuro and Bakura on their group after they pissed him off.