Greetings! Everyone pick your jaws up off the floor because this really is a new chapter. There's no excuse for the three years between updates... all I can say is that I'm sorry for leaving you hanging for so long. Lucky for you (and me) there is only one chapter left after this one. I had to reread the entire story to get the gist of it again, but it was surprisingly easy to pick up. I also realized that I should probably have done bit more research, but there's not much I can do about that now. I don't promise to have the next chapter out super fast, but I can almost guarantee that it won't take another three years to post it.

Special thanks to Kaiya-Hikari for editing the chapter. I never had a beta for this, so it was nice to have the sanity check this time. Enjoy!

Posted 1/23/10

Chapter 31: Light in Darkness

Yugi and Joey stared at each other for some time until Joey broke out of his stupor and approached Yugi. The lanky teenager pulled his shorter friend out of his chair and embraced him tightly.

"You're safe," Joey said into Yugi's shoulder. "I'm so glad you're safe."

Yugi was grinning, and he tightened his own arms around his friend. So many scenarios had gone through his head since he'd last seen Joey, most of which involved Joey ending up somewhere without his memory, or worse, ending up dead. Yugi felt immense relief that his friend was safe and sound. He also felt less alone and scared than he had ten minutes ago.

"I'm glad to see you too, Joey, but you're going to squish me if you don't let go."

Joey immediately released him, and Yugi noticed a strange expression cross the teenager's face. The happiness was still there, but was now somewhat shadowed by something Yugi couldn't quite identify.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have just grabbed you like that, Jomei," Joey said.

"I've remembered my past, so you don't have to call me that anymore," Yugi said, grinning. The rush of happiness at seeing his friend faded a little, however, as he recalled the circumstances that had brought them here in the first place. "Jomei will always be a part of me," he added. "We shouldn't forget him."

The clearing of a throat behind Joey brought Yugi's attention to the other person that had walked in to the small diner. Yugi's grin returned at the cultured look of disinterest on Kaiba's face. He couldn't quite hide the sparkle in his eyes, though.

"It's good to see you too, Kaiba. Leave it to you to find me."

One corner of Kaiba's mouth twitched in what could have been a smile if Mr. Rhodes hadn't decided to choose that moment to speak up.

"Are they friends of yours?" the elder man asked, looking from one teenager to the other.

Yugi nodded, and realized that he'd reverted to speaking Japanese, so Mr. Rhodes probably hadn't understood anything they'd been saying. He made introductions as Mr. Rhodes ushered them to the bigger table he'd gotten for them. Once seated, Yugi asked his friends how they'd found him, though he had an idea he already knew.

"Ryou told us where he'd last seen you," Kaiba explained in perfect English for the benefit of their host. "We also met your little girlfriend in Seattle. She told us where you were going."

Yugi blushed, which was probably exactly why Kaiba had used those words. "Remind me to look her up once this is all over and thank her," he said, resolving to continue the conversation in English so that Mr. Rhodes understood them.

"So what are you doing here?" Joey asked. "You're a long way from home."

Concern for Joey had driven Yugi to get to the United States, but he wasn't about to tell his friend that. He had a feeling that Joey felt guilty enough no matter how much Yugi reassured him that he was not to blame for his current predicament or what had happened to him all those months ago. Seeing him now, safe, whole and uninjured, made everything Yugi had been through since he left Japan worth it.

"What did they do to you?" Yugi asked Joey instead, unwilling to give Joey and answer just yet.

Joey's eyes darkened and he stared at Yugi meaningfully. Unknowingly echoing the deal Kaiba had offered days earlier, Joey said "I'll tell you if you tell me."

"What do you mean?" Yugi asked, his voice cracking ever so slightly. He had been aiming for nonchalant, but the twisting of his gut and his racing heart prevented that. He schooled his features into his best imitation of Kaiba's indifference and hoped that it came off better than it felt.

Joey glanced at Mr. Rhodes and then back to Yugi again. "I heard you," Joey said. "You were in the next room screaming and I couldn't get to you. What did they do?"

Yugi kept his eyes on Joey, unwilling to admit anything by looking away. It took everything he had, and he was glad that neither Joey nor Kaiba could see his hands as they clenched in his lap.

"Shadow," Yugi finally said, his voice steadier than he would have thought possible with the raging emotions in his head, "he drugged me again. I don't know what happened after that. I next woke up on a beach in Tokyo."

Both young men stared at each other, and when it became apparent that Yugi was not going to volunteer anything further, Kaiba spoke up.

"What is your role here, Mr. Rhodes?" the young man asked.

Yugi turned to Kaiba, grateful for the deflection he'd just provided. Kaiba glanced at him, and Yugi realized that it was only a temporary reprieve. He knew he'd have to talk about it eventually but was glad he wasn't being forced to do it in such a public place.

"My brother, Mike, found Yugi on that beach in Tokyo," the man said. "I'm a physicist at the government facility just up the road, so he thought I'd be able to do some digging and find out who this Shadow character was."

"Were you able to find him?" Joey asked.

"Yes," Mr. Rhodes replied. "He was a chemist with the government until unsanctioned experiments forced him out of his job." He paused when the waitress arrived with their food. When she asked if they needed anything else, Mr. Rhodes looked to the other two teenagers. "Would you like anything? I think it's best that we take this back to my house and continue the discussion there. I don't live too far from here."

They all agreed. Kaiba and Joey ordered the same thing Mr. Rhodes had gotten for himself and Yugi and, fifteen minutes later, they were on their way to Mr. Rhode's home. Yugi was riding with the American while Joey and Kaiba followed in Kaiba's rental car. The house was a nice, two story home located in a quiet neighborhood. It was the middle of the day so there was no one around to see them arrive. Yugi was grateful for that. The last thing he wanted was to get anyone else involved. There were too many people involved already; too many potential targets. If he was going to finish this and put Shadow behind bars, he had to do it cleanly and quickly, before anyone else got hurt.

Mr. Rhodes let them in his home and ushered them to the small dining room off the main living space. As they passed, Yugi noticed all of the family pictures on the walls and on the fireplace mantle. The woman staring out of those pictures was beautiful, and the little boy had a wide, carefree smile. He could tell that they were a happy family, and he hoped that the man's involvement with him didn't jeopardize that.

They ate in silence and retired to Mr. Rhode's office afterwards. His desk was littered with papers and thick files as well as a few empty coffee cups. He'd obviously been spending a lot of time in that room. Joey brought two additional chairs from the dining room and they all settled around the desk.

"This is Justin Shore," Mr. Rhodes said and laid a glossy photo on top of all of the other papers on his desk. The man depicted in the photo was middle aged and smiling. He wore a white lab coat and was shown proudly holding up a test tube with some green liquid in it.

Yugi closed his eyes as the cruel sounds of the man's voice went through his mind.

"Very well. Who am I to deny a man his last wish?"

A soft touch on his arm brought him back to reality with a jolt and Yugi found Joey watching him.

"Are you ok?" Joey asked.

Yugi swallowed the sudden lump in his throat. "I'm fine, just remembering."

"Yeah," Joey said and shuddered. "He's the bastard that gave me that injection and wiped three weeks out of my life."

Yugi's eyes widened. He hadn't known that. Joey must have seen something on his face because he smiled. "It's ok, I'm fine. What's three weeks?"

Joey was valiantly trying to be brave about the whole thing, but Yugi could tell that it bothered him. Yugi decided to file it away for later. Right now was not the time to get into their personal issues.

"He was with the guy that shot me in Tokyo," Kaiba said.

Mr. Rhodes looked from one young man to the other, surprise and horror on his face at what he was hearing. "You've all had dealings with this guy already? Mike didn't tell me that."

"Mike didn't know," Yugi said. "Before now, we hadn't been able to put a name to the face. Now that we have, we can do something with it. What else did you find out about him?"

Mr. Rhodes looked around his desk until he found a specific piece of paper, then began to read the information off of it.

"Dr. Shore was a brilliant chemist who was working on a drug that would lessen the trauma of war," Mr. Rhodes said. "The goal was to minimize the effects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, which is a common disorder that many soldiers who spend any significant amount of time in a war zone experience. In the course of his research, he found an unexpected side effect from the drug he created: instead of minimizing the impact the traumatic memories had on the subject, the drug eliminated the memories completely. He also found that if he regulated the drug just right, he could control how many of the memories he could eliminate. Having exhausted the testing he could carry out on animal subjects, Shore went to his superiors with his findings and asked for human subjects with which to continue. The superiors weren't as enthusiastic about the findings as Shore himself was, so they rejected his request. Dr. Shore did not take that well and went about procuring his own subjects".

Mr. Rhodes looked up from the paper and looked at each teenager in turn. The look of disbelief in his eyes told volumes about what the man thought of what Dr. Justin Shore had gone on to do. Yugi's stomach did a little flip, already knowing that he wasn't going to like what he heard.

"Dr. Shore began to neglect the research project he'd been assigned to. After a little digging, his superiors discovered that he started spending time around homeless shelters. They were never able to find proof, but the belief was that Dr. Shore was using the homeless as his test subjects."

"Did they do anything about it?" Yugi asked.

"No. They didn't want the nature of the project getting out so they decided to take care of the problem themselves. However, Dr. Shore disappeared before they could take action and he hasn't been heard from since."

"They knew this man was experimenting on innocents and yet did nothing," Yugi said. "He could have been stopped long ago."

"He should have been stopped," Joey added. "A lot less people would have gotten hurt."

"How did you come about all of this information?" Yugi asked.

"I hacked into a lot of computer systems," Mr. Rhodes answered. "I hadn't yet started work at the facility when Dr. Shore was around, but some of my colleagues knew him. I overheard a conversation about him once, and when Mike approached me about finding some information about this Shadow character, I knew exactly who he was talking about. It was just a matter of accessing the right information."

"Are you sure you weren't watched or traced?" Kaiba, ever the tech-savvy computer person, asked.

"No, I'm not," Mr. Rhodes answered. "I took all precautions I could think of, but there's always a chance that they know I have the information. They'd never guess what I wanted to do with it, though."

"What will they do if they know you have it?" Joey asked.

Mr. Rhodes shrugged. "Best case scenario is that I get fired; worst case scenario is that I get arrested for hacking into confidential files. As it is they'll know someone at the facility hacked the system and gave you the information, they just won't know who it was."

"I'm sorry," Yugi said. "I shouldn't have gotten you involved."

"Do you have wireless here?" Kaiba suddenly asked.

"Of course I do, why do you ask?" Mr. Rhodes replied.

Kaiba didn't answer. Instead, he took out his laptop. Yugi watched as Kaiba's fingers danced over the keyboard and the touchpad, fascinated. He leaned over to watch Kaiba work and was astounded at the number of windows the young man already had open. Yugi's command of written English wasn't good enough to keep up with what was on the screens Kaiba was working on, but Mr. Rhodes apparently understood.

"You've hacked into the laboratory's main computer system," he said. "What are you doing?"

Kaiba didn't immediately respond. Instead, they watched him navigate through screen after screen of information, each time cracking the required password with ease.

"I'm making it look like I hacked into the system from somewhere in Japan three days ago and took the information," Kaiba finally replied. "This way they'll never suspect you."

"This is a government laboratory you've hacked into, young man," Mr. Rhodes said with a tone that reminded Yugi of how his grandfather chastised him when he did something his grandfather didn't approve of. "What makes you think they won't prosecute you?"

"I'm a minor and a foreigner," Kaiba replied. "I also happen to have considerable influence in my country. I can arrange it so that my government makes it impossible for your government to prosecute me."

Mr. Rhodes stared at Kaiba in disbelief for a long moment and then a small smile appeared on his face. "I thought you looked familiar," the American finally said. "My son is a fan of your virtual reality systems."

"That's our Kaiba," Joey said and clapped Kaiba on the back, which earned him a glare from Kaiba. "His money and power come in handy once in a while."

"We don't want you or your family to get hurt because of this," Yugi said. "You've given us very valuable information."

"Yugi's right," Kaiba said. "This information, in connection with our statements and positive identification of the man, is enough to get the police started on an investigation. We also have the warehouse in Domino and the other kids that lived with Asami in Tokyo as proof. We just need to get the police there to secure the sites and the witnesses."

"Is that the plan then, Yugi?" Mr. Rhodes asked. "You're going to the police?"

Yugi looked at each of the occupants in the room, at their concerned looks and their steely determination. He hadn't intended to go to the police when he'd set out on his journey. Instead, he'd intended to go after Shadow himself. He had no clue what he'd planned to do once he'd found the man, he just wanted to make him pay for what he and his friends had been put through. Now that Yugi knew that Joey was safe, however, all of that had changed. When he'd left Japan, Yugi had been driven by the need to make sure that Joey was fine and that nothing like what had happened to him ever happened to anyone else. He was rational enough to know that he didn't have the means to do it by himself and had no right to drag his friends into a possibly fatal undertaking for all of them.

You don't have to finish this, Yugi.

Yami's voice was unexpected, but nonetheless welcome. Yugi willed himself into the corridor between their soul rooms, not quite ready yet to encounter what Yami had hinted that he'd find in his soul room. Yami was waiting for him, a calm and soothing presence as always.

"You have been through enough, Yugi," Yami said. "You do not have to put yourself through any more of this. It is wise to leave the work to those that are trained to find and catch criminals like Shadow."

Yugi thought about Yami's words. They made sense, but there was still something nagging at him.

"I feel like this is my responsibility," Yugi finally admitted. "I feel like I should see it through to the end."

"What end?" Yami asked. "How did you plan on finishing this, by killing Shadow?"

Yugi's eyes widened at the question, and then he realized that Yami was right. Subconsciously, he had planned to do just that. He felt sick.

"What kind of person does that make me?" Yugi asked, his voice barely above a whisper. "What did he do to me to make me want to resort to that kind of payback?"

"He hurt you, Yugi," Yami replied, his voice steady and strong. "He hurt your grandfather and your friends. He stole nearly a year out of your life. He has made you change the way you see yourself and left you to put the pieces back together. Revenge is a normal reaction."

Yugi didn't say anything because there was nothing he could say. He was angry and he wanted the man to pay for what he'd done. Yami wasn't saying anything that was untrue.

"Let the professionals do what they do and focus on healing," Yami said. "You all need some time to put your lives together again."

Yami was right. The realization brought a wave of relief over Yugi. "I've done something; I've helped. Even if all I can do is tell the police what I know, then it's more than they have. That will help."

Yami nodded. "It will."

Yugi smiled. "Thank you, Yami. You always know the right answers."

Yami smiled sadly. "Not always, but I am glad I could help."

Yugi willed himself back to face the others. The conversation with Yami hadn't taken that long, but Joey was looking at him with concern. Yugi smiled to reassure his friend that everything was fine.

"Yes, that's what I'd like to do," Yugi replied to Mr. Rhode's question. "The police can better handle this and they have better resources to track Shadow and put him behind bars."

"Then that's what we'll do," Joey said, making it sound like the easiest thing in the world.

They'd been on the road for a half hour and no one had said anything. Yugi sat in the passenger seat staring out the window at the passing scenery while Joey had stretched out on the back seat with his eyes closed. His body language screamed 'tension', so Kaiba doubted the other teen was sleeping. On the floor in front of Joey was a box that contained everything Edward Rhodes had found on Dr. Justin Shore. Mr. Rhodes had stayed behind to keep from further implicating himself in the situation. He'd wanted to come, but the three teenagers had managed to convince him that they could go to the police themselves and that he needed to worry about keeping himself and his family safe. The evidence they had didn't seem like much now that they had it all together and packaged into one box, but Kaiba hoped that it would be enough.

Kaiba sighed and his hands tightened around the steering wheel. He felt helpless for the first time in a very long time. He was a man of action who got things done when they needed done. This whole experience with Yugi, however, had shown him that money, influence, and power weren't always enough to keep people from getting hurt. Kaiba could no more make this situation go away than he could turn back time and prevent everything from happening. He had no influence with the police they were about to go see and he was afraid that, if the police decided that there wasn't a strong enough case with the evidence they had, then Yugi would take off again and continue on this dangerous quest. Kaiba couldn't let that happen.

"We're doing the right thing, aren't we?" Yugi's voice broke through Kaiba's dark thoughts.

Kaiba turned to find Yugi staring at him. The young man's eyes were clouded with doubt and with exhaustion. The physical bruises were healing, but Kaiba doubted that the mental ones would heal any time soon.

"Of course we are," Kaiba replied as he turned back to the empty road ahead of him. He hoped that he sounded a lot more confident than he felt. "There is enough evidence in that box to prove that Justin Shore was committing crimes and should be found."

"You don't really believe that," Yugi said. It wasn't a question.

"I do believe it," Kaiba said.

"You don't sound like you do."

Kaiba sighed again. The old Yugi wouldn't have been so attuned to the negative emotions in people; he'd been a lot easier to fool.

"I do believe that we're doing the right thing and that we have plenty of evidence against Justin Shore," Kaiba said, with much more confidence in his voice. "However, I'm not familiar enough with the justice system in this particular part of the country and don't know how they'll react to a group of foreign teenagers walking in with stolen information."

"What do we do if they decide not to pursue an investigation?" Joey asked from the backseat.

"What can we do?" Yugi said. "I'm not willing to put you two in danger in further pursuit of this."

"But you're willing to put yourself in danger, right?" Kaiba said, his voice a lot more bitter than he had intended.

"What are you implying?" Yugi asked. Kaiba didn't have to look at Yugi's face to see the anger it no doubt displayed. "I'm not reckless."

"You hitched a ride on a boat to a country you know nothing about in pursuit of this. What the hell do you call that?"

The words had been out of Kaiba's mouth before he could stop them. He chanced a look at Yugi and saw disbelief flash quickly through his face, before something akin to respect settled there instead.

"Always to the point, right Kaiba?" Yugi said. "Yeah, it was pretty stupid, but think about what you would have done if you were in my place. This man took months out of my life away from me. Who knows how many other kids he's done this to? He also took my grandfather's use of his legs and I want him to pay for what he's done."

"So it's revenge, then?" Joey asked.

Kaiba glanced at the back seat and found Joey sitting up and staring at the back of Yugi's head.

"No," Yugi said. "It was never about revenge, it was always about…" Yugi broke off. "It doesn't matter what it was about. We can't let this guy get away with this."

"So then what will we do if the Santa Fe police decide not to help us?" Joey asked again.

"We go to the police in Tokyo," Kaiba said. "We keep going to the authorities until someone listens. Yugi's right, we can't let him get away with it."

Kaiba guided his rental car into the Santa Fe city limits. It didn't take him long to find the police station, thanks to Mr. Rhode's very detailed directions. Once he'd parked the car in one of the visitor's spots, he turned to his two companions. They both looked nervous, but determined.

"Are you ready?" Kaiba asked Yugi. After all, the young man would be the one doing most of the talking.

"As ready as I'll ever be," Yugi replied.

Together they got out of the car and stepped into the police station, each hoping for the best.

The story is winding down and I feel much better knowing that there is an ending in sight. Please leave a note to let me know that you're still reading. Until next time.