Author's Note: It's been a long time since the last update, hasn't it? Sorry about that! Slow author is slow. Just so you know, I'm not abandoning the story, by any means. I've been working full time over the summer, as well as working on other projects. Thank you for all of the lovely reviews you've left in the meantime! I'm really shocked and pleased by the amount of interest in this, and I hope you enjoy this chapter! The next should be coming much more quickly.

"This room should remain unused for a while," said Ishizu, opening one of the doors across from Kaiba's own. "We can keep your bodies here, in the hospital. I will guard them until you return, to ensure their safety."

"And I'll help her," Mokuba said. "That is, if you're sure I can't go with you."

"Sorry, Mokuba," said Yami. "But I really don't think your brother would appreciate us putting you into danger, even if it was to help him."

After quickly checking the hallway for guards, they all filed hurriedly into the darkened room. It was no different from Kaiba's own room, as far as Joey could tell: a single room, holding one bed and three chairs pushed against the wall, somewhat ghostly, now, in its emptiness. Joey sat down heavily in one of the chairs, and the others followed his lead, each finding somewhere to sit comfortably and regarding each other with expressing veiled only partially by the room's dimness.

"So, I have to ask. Just how dangerous is this, exactly?" Duke wanted to know.

"We're not really sure," Yami said. "We've never done anything quite like this before."

Ishizu nodded.

"It's possible," she said, "That, if you were harmed somehow while inside Kaiba's mind, the injury might actually manifest psychosomatically, but you shouldn't be in mortal danger. If you were to die, somehow, all that should happen is that you're mind will return to your body. Theoretically, at least."

"Theoretically?" asked Duke, warily.

"Well, almost certainly," said Yami. "But..."

"But try not to die, just in case, right?" Joey quipped.

"Right," said Yami. "That's the idea."

"Well," said Tristan, raising an eyebrow. "That's really reassuring."

"You know, it's not too late to back out if you don't want to help," Téa said tersely from her spot on the bed, probably annoyed that they even had room for doubts in this situation.

"No one's backing out," said Joey, noting, but not particularly caring, that Tristan and Duke looked less than thrilled at his speaking for them. "We all said we'd do it, didn't we?"

"Yes," said Yami, thoughtfully. "If you're sure."

"We're sure!" Joey and Téa said together, and Tristan and Duke nodded, after a moment.

"We did say we would," said Tristan.

"Damn it," added Duke, smiling to show that he was joking, at least for the most part.

Yami smiled at that, tension turning the expression into a terse, thin-lipped affair. Ishizu kept her eyes trained steadily on her clasped hands. It was obvious to all of them that the two lacked confidence in this method, but Joey really couldn't bring himself to care.

"Well," he said, after a moment. "Come on, then! What are we waiting for?"

Yami nodded to Ishizu, and closing her eyes, she lifted her brown arms, fanning her fingers in front of her. Joey could feel pressure building in the back of his skull, bright light edging in from the corners of his vision, and he breathed in sharply as Ishizu's voice echoed, as if from underwater:

"It should only be a moment now."

xxxx

When Seto awoke, the first thing he noticed was the total silence that surrounded him. Rubbing his head, where the painful throbbing from before had come to a complete halt, he looked around to find himself staring at a white expanse of source-less light. He couldn't even feel ground under his feet and glanced down to see what, in fact, was anchoring him in place, which was when he noticed the second thing. He was completely naked.

"Damn it."

When he got out of this thing, he thought angrily, whatever it was, he was going to kick Bakura's ass, and after that, he was going to kick the asses of every member of his security team for not stopping the bastard from getting into the complex. And then he was going to kick Joey Wheeler's ass, just to make himself feel better. He'd gotten into a lot of bad situations over the years, but before today, he could at least say that none of them had involved nudity. He would have very happily kept it that way indefinitely, had he been given the chance, but apparently, Bakura had other plans.

What those plans were, however, Seto couldn't fathom. Several minutes of waiting proved fruitless. He attempted to walk at one point and found that he was unable to move his feet more than a foot in front of him or to either side. He couldn't move at all backwards, he found, and his hands met the same barrier, which seemed to end about an inch from his head. So, not only was he naked, but it would appear that he was also trapped in an invisible box. Perfect.

He flexed his toes and thumped his head back against the wall. Or was it a wall? In this place, surrounded by white light on all sides, he couldn't be sure that he was even standing. He lifted his head again and relaxed, feeling gravity pull it backwards again. Well, lying down, then. Not that it made any difference. He hissed in annoyance. Being trapped this way was more than just infuriating, it was humiliating, too, and even though he could see wide open space all around him, the realization of how small his set barriers actually were left him feeling more than a little claustrophobic. He closed his eyes, envisioning a different environment to keep himself calm, and flexing his toes again, he was surprised to find his movements met with the scratch of slick strands of dewy grass.

He opened his eyes and swayed slightly, dizzy with the feeling of being suddenly upright. He found himself standing in some kind of garden, the sort of ornate British-style ordeal featured prominently in the pretentious, rarely-read travelling books that Gozaburo had liked to keep on his living room bookshelf. Several feet in front of him stood a fountain, water gushing out of vases held by insipid little cupids, and beyond it, he could see a small, gravelled path wandering through a gap in the large hedges and taking a sharp right toward some destination that he could not see. He moved toward the road and noted with pleasure that he was no longer trapped by that invisible barrier in this place, and interestingly enough, not only could he see the environment, he could feel it, down to the heat of the sun on his still-bare skin. Surprisingly realistic.

If he could will himself here, he posited (hoped) that he could also will himself out of his own nudity. Almost as soon as the thought had entered his mind, he felt his skin brush against cloth. Looking down, he noted that, for whatever reason, his mind had decided to supply him with his Battle City outfit instead of something more appropriate for the setting, but since he was fairly positive that this was all a dream, anyway, he wasn't particularly bothered. Still, it did feel incredibly real. So real, he thought, as a gentle breeze rustled through his hair, that, if he didn't know better, he'd almost believe he'd actually been transported to this place.

A thought that quickly vanished as he turned the corner and saw the figure standing just beyond the hedge: himself, just as he had been at twelve, tiny hands shoved into the pockets of his slacks, the card-shaped locket lying heavily against his breastbone.

"Well," said the little boy, steadily. "Took you long enough."

xxxx

In spite of the seriousness of the situation, Joey just couldn't repress a grin.

"So," he said. "This is what Kaiba's mind looks like, huh?"

"The first level, at least," said Yami, straight faced. "Yes."

Joey sniggered. They had faded back into consciousness moments before to find themselves standing in a high-ceilinged atrium, obviously modelled after the lobbies of high-class hotels or, more likely, office buildings. Widely spaced and airy, the room was tastefully dotted with green plants of various types (all fake) and a large fountain bubbled serenely in the middle, the clear water glistening in the bright, faux-natural light that shone down on them from a ceiling that had obviously been built to replicate a glass dome. Beyond the fountain, he could see a long hallway, housing neat offices with transparent walls, and to his left a crème-coloured metal door promised to lead to the stairs. There was even a large, dark-wooded desk to Joey's right, empty office chairs lined in neat rows behind the bare counter. The air smelt distinctly of freshly scrubbed tile and air freshener.

"Oh, Kaiba," said the blond, not without fondness. "You boring old bastard."

"That's not very nice, Joey," Yugi said from somewhere behind him.

Joey opened his mouth to respond, but paused, his eyes widening. He glanced back at Yami, still standing to his left. At almost the exact time, the rest of the group seemed to register the incongruence as well, and they snapped around in tandem. Téa gasped.

"There are two of you!" she exclaimed. "Well, I mean, of course, there are two of you, but..."

She trailed off vaguely, and Yugi and Yami quirked identical brows.

"Too weird, man," Duke proclaimed, pulling a face.

"Freaky," said Tristan in agreement.

Yugi scratched at the back of his neck.

"Well," he said, obviously a little embarrassed by their stares. "We do have two different minds, so I guess it makes sense."

Yami nodded.

"Exactly," he said. "This is not really strange at all for us, anyway."

Joey, who had finally managed to get his mouth to close, nodded.

"That makes sense," he said. "Plus, this could be kind of fun! You know, we've never hung out with both of you at once."

"We're not really 'hanging out,'" said Yami, disapproving, as Yugi beamed at him from over the nameless pharaoh's shoulder, and Joey noticed for the first time that the wall to Yugi's back held a polished, professional looking elevator.

"I know, I know," he said, with a roll of his eyes. "We're here to save Kaiba. But you know, I'm not really seeing anything to save him from, except maybe over-use of Lysol."

"Yeah, I know," said Tristan. "It's weird. Somehow I expected Kaiba's mind to be more exciting than this."

"I expected more dragons," Duke said, grinning.

"Maybe there are some walking around here with ties and briefcases," Joey joked.

Téa coughed pointedly.

"While we're making fun of Kaiba, maybe we should also take a look around this room," she said, gesturing widely. "I mean, doesn't it seem off to you guys?"

They all took another glance around the room.

"There isn't a main entrance," said Joey, after a moment's consideration, pointing to the wall nearest to the desk. "It should be there, but instead there's nothing."

"And there are no windows," Tristan pointed out.

"That's not all," said Téa. "I've been thinking since we got here that there's something wrong with that hallway."

Joey strode over quickly, past the fountain and squinted. Téa was right, and the hallway looked stranger the closer he got, somehow flatter, and by the time he got up to the entrance, he though he knew why. Instead of walking in, he lifted a hand. Sure enough, he found his palm pressed flat against a solid surface.

"It's fake!" gasped Yugi. "It's just painted right on!"

Yami narrowed his eyes before walking over to the stairwell door and, twisting the handle, gave it one useless tug.

"It's no use," he said. "The door's fake, too, and the stairs are obviously painted on the glass."

"That's what's off," said Téa, softly. "This whole room is fake. It's like a movie set, isn't it? It looks real enough, but it's not functional."

"But then, are we-?" Duke started, looking a little pale. "Are we trapped in here?"

Yami shook his head.

"Maybe not," he said. "We still haven't tried the elevator."

Joey wasn't sure why he felt so anxious about that proposition, but the others must have felt it, too, because even after nodding in agreement, it took several long moments before someone reached out and pressed the lone, lighted button on the metal pad. The elevator opened instantly, the doors sliding open with a pronounced whoosh. The inside was roomy and inviting, the tiled floor and wooden panelling offset by the mirror that lined the far wall. In spite of the innocuousness of the thing, Joey felt a chill run down his spine, whether because the elevator was actually a portent of some danger to come or because he'd just seen too many elevator-themed horror scenes, he couldn't tell.

"Well," said Téa, finally, and strode forward.

This was apparently the push everyone needed, and they quickly followed her, Joey jogging across the room to join them as they performed the awkward, familiar dance of fitting a large group of friends into a tight space. But in spite of this normal ritual, Joey found that he still couldn't swallow his feelings of unease, something that only increased when he noticed that the large metal panel that would usually hold the buttons for at least twenty floors held only one, right at the centre, a button labelled, not with a number, but with a word:

In.

"Oh," Joey said, nervousness translating easily to sarcasm. "That's good."

"We've come too far to back out now," said Yami.

"Wasn't planning on it," said Joey and pressed the button.