FudoTwin17: Hey, guys.

Cat: And here comes the apology.

FudoTwin17: You didn't have to say it like that.

Goldfish # 4: Yes he did.

FudoTwin17: Anyways, I am sorry. Unfortunately, though, I had a lot going on. Not only did I have issues with writer's block, but I had surgery on my hand, I got seriously sick, I am on crutches because of my leg, and my school work suffered because of my devotion to my drama department. I should have updated, but I didn't and I'm sorry for that. Therefore, this is your apology. A super long chapter that will hopefully give you a small reason to forgive me.

Cat: Speaking of that, it's time for the chapter.

FudoTwin17: Yeah. I don't own anything pertaining to any of the Yu-gi-oh's.

Chapter 14

The four in black trench coats appeared almost disturbingly calm as they entered the large, brick building. It was obviously abandoned, but at it's convenient placement at the edge of the city practically in the woods, it was the perfect base. No one bothered them, believing them to have something to do with drug cartels, and not even the police cared enough to check out the abandoned building.

This seemed to bother no one inside the building or in the nearby suburbs.

The four were quiet, secretly growing more and more anxious with every step they took. They turned down a long hall before climbing down stone stairs set underneath a rotten wood cellar door. After what felt like too long of maneuvering, they found themselves entering a stone doorway with a simple carpet pull over to protect against unwanted intrusions.

Inside, the room was abnormal for what one would expect of an underground room that was made with stone. There was a small table near them that held a globe and had a drawer that no doubt had a gun locked inside. On the far wall (though it wasn't so far) was a large screen of a television set up for something other than cable. On the other side of the room was a mahogany desk with clean sheets of paper, pens, and a golden box inlaid with jewels with silver writing on top in a language that none of the four knew. The floor had carpets rolled out. Behind the desk was the only chair in the room.

However, the chair was hidden by a man. The man was obviously in his late forties by his graying hair and light blue, wrinkled eyes. He wore no aged smile, instead showing off a grim look that was somehow not a frown. He wore a salt and pepper suit with a gold pin. At his hand, there was a ring with an unusual jewel that seemed to shine, but at the same time be complete darkness as it shifted colors in a perpetual yet completely random cycle.

The four filed themselves into a line before him, not speaking.

"Well?" He asked, voice dark and angry.

Yugi spoke, his eyes dark and dangerous as he spared his friends the discomfort of doing the report. "We have completed the mission." He pulled out the same pendant that Luna had seen around the dead man's neck and balanced it in the palm of his hand. "There was no collateral damage. No one but the Light will believe that the death of their member was one of our acts." The man stared down Yugi as if probing for lies, but the man held strong, glaring forward as if he had not just denied there being any witnesses to their act.

"Very well." He took the pendant, quickly locking it away. "Now, for your next assignment. You will be competing in the Duel Tournament that Seto Kaiba will soon be setting up."

"Sir," Spoke Yugi hesitantly, stepping forward once again, "isn't it better if we leave? Our past acquaintances could get involved and find out about-"

"Silence!" The man yelled, an angry vein popping at his neck. His dark eyes bored down on Yugi. The man stiffened, bowing his head to the older man and stepping back as he regained his clam. "Are you idiots?" He questioned, anger still coloring his voice. "Do you not understand what is going on?" At the silence, his fury grew, though he refrained from shouting. "Fools." He spat. "You may be our best agents, but your baggage is starting to outweigh your benefits. Your friends, your fame, those that look for you, your secrets-they are not good. The four of you only have one more mission before your release. After, you are free to stay and work if you want, but if not, then you will be released to spend the rest of your lives away from us. Now, your mission is simple."

The group of four snapped back to attention, quickly being drawn out of their glassy-eyed, shock-induced reverie. They listened carefully to the next mission, each paying rapt attention. Escape was the only thing they had dreamed of since they had been captured. They'd dreamed of what they would do and how they would be with their friends again and-

And it was the only thing that they wanted almost as much as their friend's safety.

Even if freedom hadn't meant being alive.

. . .

It was less than a day since the incident before the entire group knew that Luna, one of Yusei's close friends, was in the hospital. They waited patiently for the girl to awaken. After all, the only injury she had sustained was a bit of swelling on the back of her head that went down less than an hour since she was admitted.

By late night, they were all forced out of the hospital and back to their homes with the promise that she would most likely be awake and ready to leave the next day.

However, the next day she didn't awake.

The doctors became more frantic each hour as she showed no sign of awakening. By the third day, it appeared that she was in a coma and the doctors were frantic. She had large amounts of brain activity that they had only seen in rare cases in which the people were awake. Her brother Leo and her boyfriend Sly spent as much time as possible at the hospital, waiting for her to wake.

However, with all they were dealing with, a spark of fear had ignited in their usually hopeful minds.

What if she didn't wake up? What if the doctors couldn't bring her back? What if Luna spent the rest of her life on that bed, never to move again?

But most of all, they feared that they had lost someone else who mattered to them.

The empty hole in Leo's heart was still a painfully fresh wound that he had tried to ignore by focusing on others, especially his sister. He had never recovered from his role model's disappearance and had tried to slap a band-aid on his wounded heart, pretending that he was over it. But Yusei's reappearance had practically ripped the bloodied band-aid off, making the wound only bleed more.

And it wasn't just him. Sly, though he knew the man very little, had felt the sting of the community as Yusei had disappeared and he had felt torn every time he looked at the broken down girl that he had to hold after horrendous nightmares and flashbacks. She felt pain, and he knew that she wanted him back. That's why it stung so much.

He couldn't comfort her like Yusei could and he couldn't find Yusei to drag him back to fix everything.

He felt powerless.

And it hurt.

His hand tightened on hers as his eyes trained themselves on her face, deceivingly calm. She looked as if she were asleep. If it wasn't for the steady beeping of the heart monitor, then he might have believed that she was just sleeping.

But he knew better.

Sly leaned his forehead against her hand, thankful to be holding the hand without the IV. Her hand was soft and cold against his forehead, almost like a corpse. He shivered.

Please. He begged silently. Please, please, please! Just wake up!

. . .

Seto sighed, the permanent purple bags underneath his eyes even darker than usual. Though his body was obviously overexerted and his mind was slowly becoming clouded, he couldn't bring himself to sleep. He had too much work.

Though Rebecca was working on finding anything she could on their missing friends (as he had come to call Yugi in his mind, but not aloud), he still had work to do. His company was very important and prosperous. It was especially that way as whenever he was stressed, happy, distracted, disturbed, or feeling anything along his emotional spectrum-not that he'd admit to feeling any of those things-he worked.

Since Yugi had disappeared, his company had only gained more profit and gotten stronger and better in every way.

Well, almost. He hadn't had a dueling tournament in years. He constantly had advisors who asked him to continue them with how much money and press they caught, but he had refused. There was no point to them anymore. There was no one that could beat him or make the tournaments more interesting anymore.

And a part of him didn't want to ruin the memories of the previous tournaments with another one that had nothing to interest him in. Another part of him just didn't want to dilute his memories of Yugi.

But if he was really back . . . .

He looked up as one of his security guards knocked before entering. He blinked, waiting. For a moment there was absolute silence. "Yes?"

She bit her lip nervously. She had long silver hair that that was in a ponytail left to cascade down her back. Her wire held to her ear just as it should, though her sunglasses had a habit of drooping to show off dark blue eyes. Her skin was pale as the moon, seeming even more pale with her black suit. There was something familiar about her that had made him hire her. He didn't know what. For a moment, he tried to remember her name. He was always forgetting it. Kisara? Kayla? No . . . . It started with a K . . . . Right! Kira!

"Sir." She spoke softly but surely. "You've seemed off lately. I was wondering what was wrong." Her eyes lifted, obviously concerned. "If I may."

He blinked before nodding, partially gapping. Quickly, he found his voice. "Yes. Yes, take a seat." He gestured to one of the plush chairs in front of his desk.

She nodded before speaking. "Sir, lately you've been getting even less sleep. It's dangerous to your health." If it were anyone else, he might have gotten annoyed, but her voice kept him from anger. "Please. Maybe talking about whatever is bothering you is a good idea."

He looked at her uncertainly. He was Seto Kaiba! He didn't need to talk to anyone! But . . . .

Over the years, he had grown steadily more weary. He was tired and pained and spoke little. He shut himself up in his office without food or sleep for days before passing out on his desk over his work. He knew that he was slowly breaking. He knew that he couldn't take it much longer. But . . . .

He was a Kaiba.

"Please." Kira spoke again, her voice soft. "Please talk to me."

He was a Kaiba!

But her voice seemed to break a wall in his inner wall. Before he knew it, he was speaking. He told her everything; He told her about protecting his little brother from his father, about how abusive the man was, about taking over the company so young, about Yugi, and-oh, goodness, everything about the younger man! He told her everything.

There was no restraining himself. He just . . . . He . . . .

He hadn't realized it, but she had moved. Her hands were soft in his and his eyes couldn't help but meet her compassionate dark blue eyes. "Thank you for trusting me." She whispered in the quiet of the room after his speaking. "I know those scars will never heal, but trust me. You can still make a better tomorrow."

He just looked at her, pain in his eyes. He had just admitted everything to her. He couldn't-He . . . . He didn't know how well he could handle that.

"You can save Yugi." She whispered, clutching his hands tighter. "You can save him. You can make your future brighter. You can make your life worth something. You can save him just like he saved you."

Something in him broke at those words and he knew that his pride would suffer greatly. But he pushed the thought away because right then it didn't matter if he was a Kaiba. He needed to talk to someone and she was there. "How?"

She smiled at him softly, sunglasses slipping as usual. "Get his attention the way you used to. Set up a dueling tournament. The biggest one yet. One that he can't resist." In his torn, tired state, he didn't notice the hint of malice in her eyes.

That was why he nodded, spent and ready to collapse.

Seto Kaiba was broken, but only two people in the entire world knew.

One of them, or perhaps both of them, couldn't be trusted.

. . .

When Luna opened her eyes, she didn't remember everything immediately. It took her time to remember Yusei's face swimming in her memories along with the corpse of a man whom she'd not given another thought to after seeing Yusei. Something inside her broke, and she let the tears fall, not trying to stop them. Pain ripped through her entire being.

Though she knew that they hadn't wanted to, thinking back to the body made her heart clench and her entire being hurt.

Curling up, she tried to push it from her mind again, but she seemed to fail. Luna sighed, knowing that it would take too long to get rid of that horrid nightmare. However, she couldn't let herself focus on that man.

He was dead. There was nothing that could be done for him.

Yusei was alive. She could still save him. And she could save Jaden and Yugi, too.

She just needed help.

That was when she looked around and realized that she was not where she had been when she was knocked out. She was in a dark forest, small bits of light fluttering through pine needles and thick canopies of leaves. The ground was soft underneath her fingertips, dirt loose and fertile. She herself was leaning against a large pine.

Slowly, she stood, her gray-gold eyes wandering the plain, searching for any lifeforms she had missed during her initial sweep of the area. "Hello?" She called timidly. "Is anyone out there?" Her voice seemed to hang in the air oddly. She found herself frowning and looking around again.

She didn't know where she was, but a part of her seemed to be whispering that she wasn't in the normal world. She glanced down at her signer mark, wondering where she could be. Maybe she was in the spirit world again?

"Regulus?" She called again, stepping forward and distinctly missing the sound of the soil and pine needles beneath her feet. "Regulus, are you there?"

She knew this couldn't be her world. It had to be the spirit word! It wasn't . . . It couldn't be anywhere else.

"Kuribon?" She shouted almost desperately. "Regulus? Regulus!"

She found herself running, desperate to find them or-or anyone. She needed someone to ground herself. Just-anything. And in this world, she found she didn't tire. She ran for hours and still hadn't exerted herself. She wasn't tired or hungry or thirsty.

Finally, though, she realized that she wasn't going to find anyone. She stopped, leaning against a tree as she wrestled with herself. She needed help. But more than her, her friends needed help. She needed to help them.

"Where is everyone?" She whispered, dropping to the soft ground without a sound. This realm seemed not to even have a breeze. She sighed, running a hand through her green hair. She needed to leave. To leave, she had to find someone to help her escape. Surely there was someone that could help her get back to her friends!

And . . . . And get back to Sly.

She shook her head, pushing the thoughts away, choosing instead to sit in silence. Slowly, she got an idea. Will.

Her will.

Yusei always had the will and drive to do something. He was focused and wise, no matter what. Slowly, she drew a breath, gathering all her will power. She folded her legs together, closing her eyes for focus.

Yusei.

She needed to get out.

Will.

She had to help.

Drive.

She needed help.

Focus.

She could do this.

Wise.

She could do this!

Unknown to her, her form began to glow a light white, surrounding her and drawing power from her spirit. Slowly, it grew with her will until it was a white blaze that surrounded her, lighting her way. Forming the shape of a great bird, it sored into the sky, tail feathers blazing.

It passed through the forest, across the mountains until it reached a desert. In the desert, it deposited the girl, weary and unconscious, into the sand. Slowly, it dissipated, leaving behind only a faint light glow that too would disappear before the young girl would awaken.

But it had done it's job.

In front of the pale girl was a towering palace of gold and white with the gentle hum of music surrounding it. It held signs of life from the light smell of food from inside to the gentle murmur of voices within it's walls.

She had done it.

She just didn't know it yet.

. . .

FudoTwin17: Okay, I hope that's good enough for you guys. If it's not, I've got another chappie on the way!

Cat: She's obviously excited.

FudoTwin17: I am! I'm finally (writing) getting to the good stuff!

Goldfish # 4: You mean to say that this wasn't good?

FudoTwin17: No! I mean-

Goldfish # 4: She'll be eagerly awaiting your reviews and requests. Bye now.