MythCreatorWriter: Yeah, I thought everyone would like that little 'lets beat him up' bit from Mokuba. Because honestly, it's what they all had to be thinking after all that had happened! I actually don't add that kind of stuff in there just because I want my story to be more original, but it's more, how I wanted things to go, or how I envisioned things would play out when the camera wasn't focused on Seto and Mokuba. Writing this story is actually a bigger joy than I'm sure I let on. The Noah arc was the most interesting season, I found, and I always had great ideas for what had been happening off camera and, well, after five years, they're finally coming out. It's awesome, really, just to get it all out on paper and then to hear that everyone thinks it's clever:) Yeah, bastard seemed to fit. I don't like using bad words a ton just because I think it takes away my ability to convey a negative without it, so, I only use it when it's appropriate;] Anyways, I better go now, but hey, thanks for the review!

The Future Queen of the World: Hahahaha, thanks for the review! I hope to hear more from you soon!

WhiteAsukalover: Thanks for the reviews! They were quite dandy:]

Rena Redhead: I think I really did miss that kid, I'm pretty sure he's narrated the story more than Seto has. Although I'm trying my best to keep it even and not play favorites(although we know THAT isn't possible) But still, at the same time, there are just some scenes I imagine in my head and their usually from one person's POV and that's it. Like, I can't imagine writing it any other way. So really the scenes, as unorganized a writer I am, are really planned out that way, and they focus more or less on whichever character to get the greatest effect. Wow, this is starting to sound like I actually think when I write stories, hahaha! You have no idea how annoying it was, though, to write all of Gozaburo's story. My God, in the anime it went on for practically eight minutes straight! I thought I was going to die… and I didn't know if I could fit it all in one chapter. Which would've been depressing beyond belief but yeah… I better run, but thanks again for your wonderful review! Enjoy!

Aso: CoA? How clever! I never thought of abbreviating it like that! I usually just call it Consequences cause it sounds EPIC! Actually, that reminds me of something else that is coming up soon, but I best not say and risk ruining the fun. Thanks for the review, I'm glad you liked what you've read so far!

Chapter 26: The Real World Reloaded

-M-

"I spy with my little eye something… red."

"Joey, I think you should stop… people are getting annoyed."

"Something red, huh? I'm thinking it's your mangled body in about five seconds if you don't SHUT THE HELL UP."

"…Actually, it was Duke's vest." I shook my head. That was just another perk you got from being lost in a cave with Joey Wheeler. We were all supposed to be working as a unit now, walking together as a team, but as usual, Seto and I kept our distance from behind the group. I didn't mind it so much; in fact, it gave us some time to talk.

"Hey Nii-sama, do you think this is really the way out?" Seto didn't look my way. In fact, he had ignored me completely. I grabbed a hold of his sleeve and tugged at it. He pulled his arm away. "Nii-sama, come on, why won't you talk to me?" Seto raised his finger to shut me up. I hated when he did that. "Nii-sama…"

"Mokuba, look, for the time being, let's just be silent, okay? I'm thinking about something…" Seto seemed focused. I didn't know what this was about but I gave up and kept my mouth shut.

"My father may be gone now, but he'll be back. But in the mean time, you guys need to get out of here," Noah stated, leading us deeper into the dark cave that we had wandered into not too long ago.

"Yeah, I'm still trying to decide whether you're leading us into a trap or not," Duke said with suspicion.

"I don't think we have much of a choice," Tea stated solemnly.

"Look! An exit!" Noah exclaimed, running ahead to a massive computer at the end of the cave. The group approached the device as Noah ran over to the controls. He stopped and sighed. "Never mind, this is one of the several remote networks controlled by my father. It can give us access to all of the programmed emergency exits, but it seems my father has locked the system and closed off every possible exit to keep us from escaping.

"When my father showed up after six years, he promised to help me. But he was lying. My father was using me…" Noah leaned forward onto the control panel, keeping his back turned to us. My guilt was beginning to grow bigger as I began to make parallels between my brother and him. Gozaburo treated Noah the same way he treated Seto, with no respect and no concern for his well being. Gozaburo had abandoned Noah easily and without regret, like he would have with Seto if the situation had been the same.

Noah was quiet for a while. I continued to feel bad for him.

"Noah? Are you okay?" I asked. The rest of the gang was becoming anxious.

"Noah, are you sure there are no other exits around here?"

"Yeah, maybe there's one you're not thinking of," Tea suggested.

"I want out of here!" Tristan whined. Seto started moving closer to the crowd. I followed.

"Yeah, and we need to get out of here soon before that old man takes over the world!"

"And we can't do it from in here…" Noah chuckled.

"What an intelligent conclusion." Noah's back was still turned towards us.

"Look kid, every virtual world has more than one emergency exit system. So I suggest you try thinking harder."

"What's wrong, Seto? Don't you wanna stay awhile? We won't be alone in this virtual world for much longer…" Noah began laughing menacingly, in a very different but creepier way, as he twisted around, "My father said he's bringing the whole world in here! And that means I'll never have to be alone again…" Noah started laughing again, this time even more loudly than the last, letting his head hang back as he bellowed his laughter. I couldn't stand to see him this way for much longer, I began running towards him.

"Noah, stop!" I grabbed both of his shoulder and shook him, "You have to get a hold of yourself, and you're in danger too! And if we want to get out of this place, we're going to have to work together." Noah finally calmed down and the laughing ceased. He smiled at me.

"Mokuba, you're right." For a split second, Noah's smile looked almost identical to Seto's back when he had been a kid! I immediately let go of Noah's shoulder and took a step back.

"What the-?" I shook my head and checked my vision. Why had I seen Seto's face just now?

"No need to be alarmed, Mokuba, it's only me." By the way Noah was smirking and I could tell he knew what had just happened. I instantly became embarrassed; I was hoping no one else had noticed.

"I can see that, Noah," I quickly turned away and started walking back towards my brother. I couldn't help thinking about Noah, though, and his situation. I mean, despite the fact that he had been trying to destroy us for the past twenty-five chapters, not to mention that weird moment we just had, it wasn't his fault. Gozaburo was the one that made him that way, just as Gozaburo had turned Seto into something he wasn't before.

I got the feeling that with a little help… maybe we could change him back to how he was before Gozaburo put him here and filled him with hate.

"Wait a minute!"

-S-

"It just occurred to me that there might be one more exit route left that hasn't been shut down," Noah stated.

"Where is it?" Joey demanded.

"Tell me, right now," I barked. I was tired of his games. I wanted to get out of here as soon as possible and felt he knew the way all along.

"It's the one doorway I created that leads directly to the real world. I'm almost positive my father has no idea it even exists. You can escape through there!"

"Then let's get a move on, the world is depending on us."

"Very well, just follow me. I'll lead the way." Noah walked through the crowd of people and started us leading us backwards and out of the cave we had just spent the past ten minutes walking through. I didn't enjoy wasting those ten minutes walking in here only to discover the place was useless. But we had no other options, I supposed.

I hung back and let the crowd move ahead. Even Mokuba had blended in with the gang and was walking with them, but I didn't mind. I'm sure he must've grown tire of trying to get me to converse with him, and it wasn't that I didn't want to talk with him… it was just that I needed a plan. Noah had already duped me once before and caught me off guard.

Only what could I do in this situation? I wasn't left much opportunity for a plan and right now, the only smart thing to do would be to follow through with wherever he was leading us. Even if it wasn't the right way, at least we wouldn't be left searching the virtual world looking for the wrong way. This was the only lead we had and I understood that.

I noticed Yugi starting to hang back from his friends and I could barely hold back my annoyance. Mokuba finally left me be, and now Yugi wanted to talk. I thought to myself, 'Oh well'. Maybe conversing with Yugi wasn't such a bad idea. I would have to admit, out of the whole group, Yugi was about the one person that came close to being intelligent.

"It shouldn't be too far off from here, just a little ways away now," Noah called from the front.

"Kaiba, something's not right. I think Noah's lying to us, he's not to be trusted." Wow, for someone I had just considered intelligent a second ago, he was pretty slow to the game.

"Why don't you try telling me something I don't already know?"

"If you're so sure this is a trick, then why are you following him?" Ah Yugi, he may have been the master of duel monsters, but when it came to basic man to man strategy he had nothing to show for it.

"I was always told to keep my enemies close by." Yugi stopped and I walked ahead of him. I was happy to get away; I couldn't deal with the guy for more than a couple minutes without him boring me to death.

Besides, I needed to use this time to plot my next move. I was sure Yugi was going to spend this time instead trying to convince himself that Noah was actually good and that he was trying to help us. God, just thinking about him got me annoyed. That Yugi kid always tried to find the good in people, but what he doesn't understand is that most people aren't good, and almost all of them can't be trusted. It was the way I always lived my life before hand and it never led me astray.

And it never left me on my ass feeling like an idiot for believing in the good of someone clearly evil. For me, I knew that was Noah.

As time went on, we made our way through a random desert, which was surprisingly short in length. And the next thing I knew, we were walking through some sort of dry canal and at the end was a castle-like door awaiting us. I was less than impressed, although curious to say the least. Noah stopped when he reached the door.

"There it is, your ticket to freedom lies beyond this door," Noah turned back around to look at us, "Once you walk through you'll wake up in the real world." His smile seemed genuine, but I was the best at seeing people for what they really meant. After all, I was a business man.

Without questioning or a response, Noah leaned in and shoved the door open. A bright light was awaiting us on the other side; it was expected, but not pleasant. It shot out at us and consumed us, much like the other virtual doors had from before when we had been walking through the forest. I closed my eyes and waited for something to happen.

Nothing did. I found it a little odd and also worrisome. I heard a click and opened my eyes.

"What the-?" I looked down. My hand was on my briefcase like I had just clicked it closed. It was the middle of the afternoon, and I was standing near a plotted tree growing out from an extension of the sidewalk in the heart of… Domino City? That seemed a bit strange, why was I here? Did that mean Noah had upheld his end of the bargain? This came as a surprise… I actually was in the real world.

But something seemed a bit too strange about this. I had this feeling that I had stood in this exact spot only a few days ago…

"Hey Nii-sama, relax. With all of these Rare Hunters running around the city, I bet those god cards are right under our noses!" My head twisted around. As odd as it might sound, I actually wasn't expecting to see who I saw sitting on the bench perpendicular from me.

Mokuba bounced up from the bench and looked up at me, grinning like he had all the answers. "Someone's bound to summon one of them at some point and the minute they do, our satellite systems will alert us right away! We'll be the first ones to see it happen." Why was Mokuba talking about the god cards like I hadn't seen them before? I already knew who had which god cards; Yugi had Slifer, I had Obelisk, and Marik had Ra. So what was with all this talk like it hadn't happened…? I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but something wasn't right about this particular scene.

"Mokuba, have you been experiencing anything… unusual, lately?" Mokuba titled his head to the side, looking at me like I was crazy.

"No, why do you ask?" I scratched my head.

"I'm not really sure… I guess maybe I'm experiencing some déjà vu, that's all." It couldn't be anything to worry about. After all, my brother was by my side, and I was back in my city. What other setting would I suspect?

"Well, we better hurry up if we want to be the first ones to see the god cards being played," Mokuba said, running over to where I was standing to carry my briefcase. Don't get me wrong, I was happy to be back in the real world, but I still couldn't shake this feeling that all of this had happened before. I shook my head and decided to ignore it.

As Mokuba was running towards me, his foot tripped on some uneven sidewalk sticking out. Mokuba fell forward my way; I reacted quickly and held out my arms forward to catch him.

"Don't worry, I've got you-" But instead of falling into my open arms, Mokuba seemed to sink right through my arms that were perfectly in tact and fall to the ground.

"Oh! Nii-sama, I thought you said you got me!" My arms were still being held out, my hands were shaking. What… what had just happened? I leaned down to help my brother to his feet, but my hand couldn't grasp his arm. It just floated through his body like he was a projected hologram. My eyes widened.

"Nii-sama, are you okay?" Mokuba asked when he finally got to his feet. I stood there, eyeing him, confused. I reached out my hands towards his face and my hand stuck out clear through the other side. He wasn't there.

"You're not Mokuba…" I said quietly to myself, the Mokuba hologram stared at me like I was crazy.

"Nii-sama, speak to me!"

"What kind of trick is this?!" I yelled. I reached out again towards the fake Mokuba, moving my hand back and forth through his upper body. The image flickered a bit every time I did and I realized that, for sure, this wasn't real. And we weren't in the real world.

Suddenly the scene made a sudden shift, and I was no longer where I was a second ago. I was still in Domino City, but this time I was at the outskirts. On lower ground, I could see Yugi kneeling at his feet. The wind gusted by, and the clouds were dark and murky.

I knew what this was. This was the duel between Yugi and one of the rare hunters; this was the duel where he got his god card! That was when I realized I wasn't really out in the real world; I was just living through another one of my memories.

Yugi was on his knees as if he was in pain, but he seemed a bit confused too.

"What's going on?!" I yelled in frustrating knowing there could only be explanation for this. I turned away and began walking in the opposite direction. I had come to the conclusion that Noah had duped us, as I had suspected.

Whatever, I didn't care.

I stopped and looked around. Mokuba was nowhere in sight. Alright, that was something I would have to deal with later. I knew exactly who to go to if I wanted to get to the bottom of this. And I knew exactly where to go to find him. I decided that my next destination would be a familiar one; Kaiba Corporation.

A/N: Hey guys! So I've got a lot to say and not enough room to say it in. Actually, okay, that was a lie. I'm not actually sure how much I want to say. Does anyone get that? Where they write a chapter and then when they get to the end they have no idea what they want to say in the author's note? Oh, well, it's usually an easy task for me… BUT ANYWAYS… Um, so, this chapter was cool and all… but I found myself bored by it. I think it's because a lot of what happened was in the show and that bored me, although I did change it up with that extra scene but yeah… things will get more exciting with the next chapter, I assure you!:D Thanks for reading!