*21* Jounouchi *21*

Once again I was forced to face the reality that my dreams were just that. I was dead and anything that was happening in my dreaming state was not real. Each dream was more pleasant than the last: I spent time with my friends, my family was fixed and everything was fine, I got to share a simple morning breakfast with the man I loved.

Each of these dreams were precious and wonderful and I wanted to remain asleep so that I could enjoy them longer. I was tired of facing the fact that I was nothing but a ghost and that all the things I could have had were gone now.

I was growing frustrated by these dreams and I wanted them to stop too. I wanted to stop waking up to the truth. I pounded on the glass with every ounce of strength I could muster but it wasn't enough to do anything. Damn it! If I was so powerful that an evil mastermind went through all of the trouble of orchestrating my murder then why couldn't I save myself?

The door opened, interrupting my hopelessness, and I saw a shadow of a man enter, he closed the door behind him. If it was another one of that pink-haired freak's lackeys I'd show them a thing or too. Okay, there wasn't much I could do from to confines of my prison but the thought would be there.

I watched as the man came closer and I felt myself tense up, I wasn't sure what these freaks were up to and I didn't like it. The man, who was wearing a strange outfit for a scientist, finally stood before me and tilted his head back so I could see beneath his baseball hat.

Blue eyes bore into mine and I was instantly surprised to see Kaiba, but he shouldn't have come to Domino. "What are you doing here? You went through all the trouble of making everyone think you are dead."

"Shut up, I do what I want. No one's seen me so far." He said as if this were some fun new game. "What have you gotten yourself into this time?"

"You think I know? These dumb ghost hunters or whatever caught me in this trap and when I woke up I was in this tube." I said, "This pink-haired jerk said something about assimilating with me. I tried to catch as much of it as I could but it made no sense."

"Jounouchi, calm down. I know that Schroider is behind this and I have seen the plans for this machine once before as well."

"Schroider? Why is that name so familiar?"

"I'm not surprised you don't remember since that tournament was small." He said, "It doesn't matter, all that matters is that I had hoped that the tournament would be the last I would hear from him."

"There are somethings I never shared with you, during battle city when our bodies were taken hostage by Noah." he said. "This machine has something to do with that. Anyway, I am going to get you out of there."

Kaiba moved away from the glass and turned his attention to the computer connected to the machine and started punching in buttons and messing with levers. "Hey," I said when I noticed the lever that was keeping me in this state of weakness. "Push that green one up a bit." I said, he did so without hesitation and I could feel my energy returning.

It was quick and powerful, I had no idea if it was from the machine or the fact that Kaiba was right there but I was still grateful. At least I was until Seto jerked his hand from the machine in pain only to glare at me.

"Whatever you're doing, knock it off." He said.

"I'm not doing anything." I said, "at least I didn't mean to."

"Crap, you fried it." He said. "Nothing works now." He said as he touched a few useless buttons. "I can't open this now." He said then paused as an idea came to him, I could tell because he wore that familiar smirk on his face. He turned away, grabbed a metal pipe, "Duck as much as you can and shield your eyes." I did as I was told and in an instant glass rained down around us.

I stumbled out of the tube but I hadn't felt my legs in so long that I fell forward. I was on my way to the glass covered ground but I never made it as a strong arm wrapped around me. Seto pulled me up but didn't let go immediately when I was straight again and I looked at him for a moment.

He ignored the awkwardness and reached his hand down to grab my wrist. "Let's get out of here before he finds us." He said.

"You don't need to tell me twice." I said.

Still welding the metal bar, Seto smashed the window to the outside and we climbed through. We had to hurry because if they found Seto they wouldn't hesitate to kill him.

We got in the car and he drove off, after a few miles I began to tell him about the things I had heard the men say while I was conscious.

"It makes sense now." Seto said, "at least the part about them wanting access Gozaburo's old inventions. They want to use the machine that was supposed to give Noah my body, only that machine was meant for an empty host. I sounds to me like Schroider wants to use it to fuse souls together inside one body… his."

"That's nuts." I said

"He won't have the access codes, no matter what. We'll stop him. My brother can keep the American's at bay for now."

"But it sounds like once the deal with the Americans go through then he'll have an army of his own and he'll be unstoppable." I said. It seemed as though we were too late to do anything to stop him.

"We'll find a way to stop him." Except I know Seto long enough to be able to tell when he was unsure of himself.

"We need to help Mokuba." I said.

"He's the last person who is stopping them from getting control of my company. I trust him." He said, "He's learned from me."

"I'm not doubting him, I just think that we need some extra help on this." I said.

"If you are suggesting what I think you are then you can forget it. We don't need to get any more people involved." He said.

"You know that it's the right move. Why are you fighting it?"

"I'm not going to beg your friends for help and I am certainly not going to tell them I can see you."

"You don't have to beg, they consider you a friend. They would be glad to help."

"I hate everything about this." He said, let out a breath and asked, "Does Yugi still at the game shop?"

"Yes." I smiled as Seto headed for the Kame Game Shop.