Chapter Two

Yami Bakura had settled down with the day's newspaper. Oh, not that he particularly cared what was happening, but it was something to do, and every now and then there actually was reason to care. He turned the page and found himself looking at a story about the former KaibaCorp board of directors. An eyebrow quirked in his surprise.

Bakura was passing by with two mugs of hot chocolate. "What is it, Yami?"

Yami Bakura took one when offered. "I don't think I ever realized exactly what happened to these fools," he said. "I remember them because of the portion of my spirit locked in the Millennium Puzzle at the time they tried to abduct many of your friends. This article claims there was an accident that left all five of them in comas. I was under the impression that their bodies were all dead."

"So was I," Bakura frowned. "And yet I was confused, because I couldn't feature Seto Kaiba just leaving their bodies locked in the virtual pods until they withered away." He took a sip of hot chocolate. "I found out that his medical teams had tried to revive them, but to no avail since their spirits were trapped in the virtual reality game due to their own twisted rules. So they were taken to the KaibaCorp infirmary and left there in comas. Whether or not they're still there, I don't know. Maybe their bodies all gave out."

"This article also poses the question as to whether the accident was an accident," Yami Bakura remarked. "I doubt the Kaiba brothers will take kindly to the insinuation that Seto Kaiba may have deliberately done something to them."

"Oh my. They certainly won't," Bakura exclaimed.

"That reporter will probably be out of a job tomorrow," Yami Bakura grunted. "If the entire paper isn't just shut down instead."

"I think Seto Kaiba would have a right to be angry," Bakura said. "Especially since the only things he did were in self-defense and the defense of his younger brother. He didn't deliberately trap anyone, but he couldn't get the Big Five out after their plan backfired and they were trapped instead. They were the ones who were committing criminal acts and deliberately imprisoning people. But I suppose there is no applicable law to arrest someone for trapping someone else in a virtual reality world. . . ."

"Heh. If it becomes more widespread, someday there might be," Yami Bakura retorted.

"What a horrible thought," Bakura shuddered. "I hope Seto Kaiba's augmented reality game will be far more foolproof."

"It's not immune from hijacking either, as that demon proved," Yami Bakura said flatly. "Honestly, anything can be turned into a weapon if someone is determined enough."

"How sad," Bakura sighed. "But true."

Yami Bakura set the paper aside. "And we still don't know any more about the Infinity Items, either," he grunted. "That professor's research has been almost useless."

Bakura couldn't deny that. "Well, at least it's interesting," he said with a weak smile. "That ancient scene depicting someone in Rome fighting evil with the Infinity Ring was worth seeing."

"I am hardly the next Captain America," Yami Bakura said with dripping sarcasm. "I will never be one of those goody-goody heroes such as that scene depicts and such as your friends are."

"You'll never be a conventional hero," Bakura agreed. "But you already are a hero, Yami. I saw that long ago, and the others are starting to." He smiled. "I have every faith in you."

Yami Bakura looked back down at the newspaper, humbled and amazed. "I know."

xxxx

As it turned out, Mokuba was more upset about the story in the paper than Seto was. When Seto left his office and found Mokuba and Marik in the outer office, Mokuba was waving the newspaper and fuming.

"I can't believe this creep!" the boy cried. "Trying to make it sound like Seto did something wrong about the Big Five!"

"It's not the first time your brother has been the target of an unpleasant news story," Marik pointed out.

"No, but it sure makes me mad anyway," Mokuba said. "The Big Five were the real creeps there!"

"What's going on?" Seto interrupted, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh! Seto!" Mokuba jumped a mile and turned to look at his beloved brother. "We found this story in the newspaper that's just awful!"

Seto took the paper as Mokuba waved it again and glanced over the story. "Hmph." He handed it back.

Mokuba blinked at him. "Aren't you mad, Seto?"

"I'm not jumping for joy. But I'm going to show my critics the value of what I've been working on. They can judge from that." Seto started walking again, heading for the elevator.

Mokuba and Marik chased after him. "But . . . that won't tell anyone that you didn't do anything to the Big Five," Mokuba protested.

"We don't need to tell anyone that," Seto replied. "Not unless the police show up thinking they've got a case against me." Inwardly he scowled. First he imagined the Big Five cackling at him outside the window and now this. One's past really didn't leave them alone.

Mokuba sighed. "If you say so." The three climbed aboard the elevator and Mokuba pressed the button for the ground floor.

Marik folded his arms. "What happened to them anyway?" He had also witnessed the events of Noa's virtual reality world, through Téa's eyes. It wasn't something he had ever mentioned, but he thought about it sometimes. It had been a strange, strange experience.

Mokuba paused. "You know, I'm not sure," he realized. "The last we heard about them at all was that Noa was banishing them to different parts of his world. Well . . . I didn't even know about that until I asked someone later, when I was myself again. . . ."

Seto didn't comment. The last thing he wanted to think about was when Noa had hypnotized Mokuba against him.

"And then the computer was destroyed, so the virtual reality world was as well," Marik mused. "They must have been destroyed with it. Or sent on to the afterlife. . . ."

One can only hope, Seto thought.

"That's what we figured," Mokuba said. "Their bodies are still at the KaibaCorp medical center, though. . . . But I guess their spirits don't have any way to get back to them. If they did, they would have woke up by now."

"I thought they said they lost their bodies," Marik said in surprise.

"They meant they didn't have any way to get back to them," Mokuba said. "Their bodies weren't connected to the virtual pods anymore, so their spirits were trapped even if they'd found a way to beat the game."

"I see," Marik said, and he felt like shuddering in spite of himself. The Big Five had been horrible, but to not be technically dead and yet not have a way to get back into one's body sounded like a nightmarish fate. It reminded him a little too much of when Yami Marik had kicked him out of his body.

"There's no need to talk about them any more," Seto cut in. "They're not going to bother us again." The elevator reached the bottom and he got out, his dark coat sweeping out behind him.

Marik and Mokuba followed. "What do you need to do to get this augmented reality game ready?" Marik asked.

"Just install it on the Kaiba Land computer system," Seto said. "It's already been checked and rechecked for bugs."

"It'll be great!" Mokuba beamed. "After Seto installs it, we can try it out to make sure everything's running properly!"

Marik smiled at his friend's enthusiasm. Hopefully, he thought, everything would work the way it was supposed to. Heaven knew they needed something to go right after all the calamities.

xxxx

Yugi sighed as he glanced up at the rain pelting on the door and windows of the Turtle Game Shop. There had been less customers today because of it, something that always depressed his grandfather. Hopefully things would look up soon, but with Domino City entering the summer rainy season, it would likely be like this for a while. Then things would eventually pick up again and Solomon Muto would perk up too.

He looked back down at the cards he had been absently shuffling on the glass counter. Things had been awkward since his mother's return from her business trip. Explaining about Atem and who he was and how Yugi had met him had been . . . awkward, to say the least. Interesting too, but not really in a good way. She was still trying to get over her repulsion and horror at Atem having been an ancient spirit sharing Yugi's body to exist on the mortal plane. Explaining that it had only been with Yugi's permission hadn't really helped.

"Well, you can't blame her," Atem had told Yugi afterwards. "That's hardly the kind of thing that would endear someone to most people."

"I know," Yugi had sighed, "but I wanted her to like you."

"And I believe she will," Atem had encouraged. "Give her time."

At least, Yugi mused, she hadn't kicked Atem out of the house. But then again, maybe that was only because it was Solomon's house and it wasn't really up to her. She was having trouble coming to terms with Solomon having known about Atem almost all the time, too.

"So, Yug . . ." Joey suddenly cut into Yugi's thoughts. "You heard anything from Bakura lately?"

Tristan nodded. "We haven't seen much of him for a couple of weeks."

Yugi started back to the present. "Oh. Yeah, I have, actually. He said he and Yami Bakura are fine and Yami Bakura is healing nicely. But I have the feeling that a lot more may have happened to them in the last weeks than he said."

"Well, one thing we know about was how those creeps tricked him into getting drunk," Tristan said in disgust. "They really should have been kicked out of the school for that."

"They still might be," Téa said, her eyes flashing, "if their parents don't completely railroad the principal and bully him into letting the whole thing drop."

"Honestly, the way things go, I'm sure they will," Tristan said.

"It's not right," Téa spat. "Especially since Bakura could have been seriously hurt when he fell out that window!"

"I hear you, Téa, but unfortunately, money talks," Tristan said.

"Just like Kaiba's always does." Joey was staring at the newspaper now. It was spread out on the counter and he was leaning over it, his hands on either side of a story that had caught his eye.

Yugi looked over in surprise. "What is it, Joey?"

"This story in the paper about the Big Five and Kaiba," Joey said. "The reporter's making it sound like Kaiba deliberately trapped those suits in his virtual reality world!"

"That's not cool," Téa frowned. "They were the ones who trapped him!"

Atem nodded. "All Kaiba did was get out. It wasn't his fault that the Big Five's own rule was turned against them."

Yugi sighed. "I wonder why a story like this is coming out right now."

"Probably because Kaiba is getting ready to debut his augmented reality game," Tristan said. "You know how people love to try to dig up dirt on someone when they're in the spotlight."

"A story like this could cause sales of the game to drop off," Yugi said with a frown.

"Maybe that's even what the reporter wants," Tristan said. "Kaiba's got no shortage of enemies."

"And a lot of them probably have good reason to hate him," Joey said. Glancing at Yugi, he amended, "Although I guess the picture could change if you don't know the whole story and find it out later. . . ."

Yugi nodded. "It sure can. But even if they have good reasons to be upset with him, it doesn't give them the right to try to ruin him on purpose."

"Well . . ." Joey shrugged. "Tomorrow they'll probably have to print a retraction or something."

"Or they'll all be fired," Tristan added.

Yugi sighed. "I just hope everything will go well with the game. I'm sure Kaiba's tested it for bugs after Yami Marik tried to use it for evil, but I'll feel a lot better when we can all see it's working perfectly."

"I'm sure it's fine, Yugi," Atem smiled.

"Once it's up, we should all go check it out," Téa said. "It looked awesome before Yami Marik got hold of it!"

Yugi nodded. "We'll make a day of it! It would be great to play a game just for fun, without any evil nutcases trying to use it to conquer the world."

"Man, you said it," Joey said. "And if the rain lets up, maybe we should all go say Hi to Bakura. And Yami Bakura too. Just see how they're doing."

"That's a good idea, Joey," Yugi smiled. "We should definitely try to include them more. Particularly since you and Tristan haven't been feeling so on the rocks with Yami Bakura lately."

"Eh. It's hard to when he goes and saves Tristan," Joey said. "And does his best to try to save Marik too." He shrugged. "I don't know. . . . Maybe we really haven't been fair to the guy. He's a grouch, but he hasn't done anything actually wrong since Zorc was destroyed."

Tristan sighed but nodded. "Bakura said it wasn't fair to forgive and trust Marik and the bikers and Dartz and not Yami Bakura too. Of course he's right. I'd probably be in Davy Jones' locker right now if it wasn't for Yami Bakura. As weird as it sounds to say that."

"I'm glad we're finally all on the road to being united again," Yugi smiled. "We were having some rough patches there."

Joey and Tristan fell silent. To some extent, they still were. Yami Bakura hadn't been the only source of conflict in the group; Duke's interest in Serenity, and her finally reciprocating, were more hurdles that hadn't quite ever been conquered. David Tanaka's anger towards the group for excluding Duke was another.

"Well," Atem said, "the rain is easing up. Perhaps we should see if Duke would like to come with us to visit Bakura."

Yugi perked up. "That's a good idea! We should." He headed for the door. "Coming, guys?"

The others followed, Tristan somewhat reluctantly. But at least, he hoped, Serenity wasn't at Duke's shop right now.

xxxx

Serenity wasn't. But Duke was leaning against the counter, idly spreading dice through his fingers while David looked on.

"I never did like slow days," David said.

"I know," Duke replied. "They make it hard to rake in the profits."

"Well, when you're right, you're right," David smirked. "But one thing I do enjoy about slow days is seeing what lengths you'll go to to combat your boredom."

"Ha ha." Duke spread the dice out on the counter.

"Seriously, Duke. . . ." David sobered, peering at the younger boy in concern. "Are you really alright after what happened with that serial killer?"

"I'm fine," Duke insisted. "The stab wound wasn't serious and the headaches healed up long ago."

"I hope you're telling me the whole truth," David said. "I've been leery of Pegasus for a long time, but I wasn't expecting that you'd be in danger from some nutcase trying to kill him!"

"Who would?" Duke retorted. "It wasn't exactly how I planned for our meeting to go."

"At least Kaiba finally stopped that creep," David said. "Although I still don't get exactly how. You'd think I'd be used to magic and the supernatural by now."

"You'd think we all would. Huh?" Duke looked to the doors with a start as Yugi and company entered. "Hey, guys. What's up?"

"We thought we'd stop in and see how everything's going, Duke," Yugi smiled. "And ask if you'd like to come with us to visit Bakura."

Duke blinked in surprise. "Everything's fine here. Slow, though. Sure, I'll come with you." He glanced to David. "You can hold the fort down here for a while, can't you?"

David shrugged and spread his arms. "I always do."

Yugi looked to him with a genuine smile. "Hi, David."

David nodded. "Hello. You just bring Duke back without any more owwies, you hear?"

Duke flushed. David was on the one hand phrasing it like a joke, but on the other hand, he really meant it. And judging from all the recent calamities, it wasn't so off the wall to worry.

"Everything should be fine," Tristan spoke up.

"That's how it always begins," David remarked, and no one could deny that, either.

xxxx

Marik looked around as they arrived at Kaiba Land. Seto hadn't actually invited him, but since he had been with Mokuba and Seto hadn't told him to go, Marik had taken that as the Okay to come along. He was happy to help set things up if he could. Right now, Kaiba Land was largely deserted, but that was fine while they got the program ready to go.

Mokuba hopped out of the limousine when they reached the building. "We had some extra dueling arenas in here," he said. "They haven't been as popular since Seto perfected the Duel Disk system, so he decided to downgrade and put the augmented reality game in here instead."

"That sounds logical to me," Marik said as he followed.

Seto got out and walked ahead of them to the door. He swiped the card key through the slot and the door slid open, revealing what was currently a large, bare room.

Mokuba grinned as he scampered in after his brother. "Perfect! People can boot up the game and change the way the whole room looks! And there won't be any nutcases to get in the way and try to use it themselves!"

"Which is something we all appreciate," Seto grunted. He crossed the room to a computer console and sat down. Once he had connected the laptop to the console, he began to type.

Marik pulled the door shut and folded his arms to watch. He imagined it would be fairly dull until Seto had the game fully installed, and judging from everything that was part of it, the installation could take quite some time.

Mokuba wasn't having any problems with finding things to do. He ran around the room, calling back to Marik about all the awesome levels in the game and all the different ways the room could be made to look because of them. Marik listened and smiled, occasionally glancing back to Seto to see how things were coming. Seto just continued to work, not distracted in the least by Mokuba's enthusiasm. When at last he stood, with an exclamation of "There!" both friends looked up.

"Alright!" Mokuba grinned. "This is gonna be awesome!"

The room glowed, shimmered, and switched to what looked like a meadow with a blue sky. A feminine voice from the computer intoned, "Welcome to Duel Monster Days at Kaiba Land."

Marik looked around in curious approval. "Impressive. What now?"

"Now we just start walking," Seto said. "Some of this game is a little like Pokemon Go, as Wheeler surmised. When you see a Duel Monster, you can try to entice it to come with you. Then you can choose to either keep going through this level as an adventure zone or else bring your friend back with you to the city."

Mokuba nodded. "If you choose the latter, the scenery will change to downtown Domino City," he beamed. "There'll be other Duel Monsters there."

"Like the Injection Fairy Lily receptionist we saw during your beta test?" Marik asked.

"Exactly," Mokuba said.

The trio wandered about the level for several minutes. Even though they continued to stay in the room, the scenery changed as they walked, giving the illusion of an open space. After a while, trees and a forest began to appear.

"I see something up in that tree," Marik announced after a moment. He walked closer and the branches quivered.

"I think it's a Faith Bird," Mokuba said, squinting through the leaves.

"So exactly how do you entice it to come down?" Marik wondered.

"Well, like Seto said before, they're programmed with free will, like Sims, so you're never sure what they're gonna do." Mokuba held his arm up like a perch. "But with a bird, you can always try this first."

After a moment the Faith Bird screeched and flew down to Mokuba's arm. He grinned, petting it. "It feels just like the real thing," he announced.

Marik cautiously reached out to pet it as well. "It does," he said in surprise.

Seto looked pleased. "I spared no expense to have the best three-dimensional, solid holograms on the market."

"You certainly do," Marik said. "Is your home console version of the game going to come out at the same time?"

"People will be able to purchase them here," Seto said. "Of course, it won't be like the full Kaiba Land experience, but it will be something for days when going out isn't convenient. Both ways of playing the game should be popular."

"It'll be a while before the home consoles are really ready," Mokuba said. "We're testing the prototypes now."

Seto nodded. "With the full version now operational, I'm going to turn my attention to the home console version next. But first, Mokuba and I are going to beta-test every level of this game to make absolutely sure all the bugs are out. Then if all goes well, it should be ready to debut tomorrow."

"You'll probably be up all night testing levels," Marik remarked.

"Probably, but it'll be worth it," Mokuba said. "And fun!"

"You're welcome to stay and keep testing them with us," Seto said.

"Thank you. I'll stay for a while," Marik said, "but then I should really get home." He looked around in increasing fascination. "Although it's going to be hard to tear myself away. . . ."

Mokuba practically burst with pride for Seto's invention. "Seto always comes up with the most awesome stuff!" he exclaimed.

Seto kept walking ahead, but he was hiding a smile. He was definitely pleased and proud of his work. But more than that, he loved his brother's unfailing support. Through thick and thin, they had always had each other to rely on. Nothing and no one could change that—not even Seto's actions in the past or Noa's cruel hypnosis.

"He does," Marik agreed. He hesitated. "Tell me, Mokuba, how are things with your school friends lately? You seemed so excited about being with them when you first met them, but lately you haven't been with them as much again."

"I know." Mokuba grabbed a fake leaf, pulled it off a fake bush, and twirled it around between his fingers. "It's kind of funny, I guess. . . . I wanted kids my age to like me and want to do stuff with me, and then when some of them finally did, it was fun to hang out for a while. But in the end, well . . . I guess I still like hanging out with people older than me more. Seto's always wanted me to have a normal childhood, and in a lot of ways, I have. But I've also seen things that kids my age never have and probably never will. And I've spent all my life with Seto, and . . . I don't know, I feel like I relate better to him and you and Yugi and everyone than I do to kids my own age."

"And that's fine," Marik smiled. "I have to admit I'm glad that we can be together more again. I missed you."

"Yeah. . . . I missed you too." Mokuba tossed the leaf aside and grinned. "So let's find some more Duel Monsters and see what else this place has in store for us!" He took off running.

"Alright," Marik laughed. "Wait up!" He chased after his friend.

Unseen by all of them were five figures waiting in the shadows.

"I don't remember that boy before," the oldest man frowned.

"Obviously he's a friend of young Mokuba's," the tallest man drawled in a Southern accent.

"So he'll be caught up in things this time too," a mustached man growled. "Not that we're interested in Mokuba, for that matter, but he's automatically involved in anything we do to Seto."

"From our research and observations over the past months, it also looks like a white-haired boy will be involved," another man mused as he adjusted his glasses. "And a somewhat older man claiming to be his ancestor."

"Nonsense," snorted the fifth man.

"Oh, it's not nonsense," the oldest man grunted. "As you have all seen, I was right about the two Yugis. The other is Yugi's ancient ancestor. What they're doing in the present-day is of no concern to us. The important thing is that our plan to utilize Seto Kaiba's augmented reality device to bring us into the real world has worked! And due to his technology, we have solid bodies of a sort."

"Still not as good as our real bodies," the Southern man grumbled. "But right now we'll take what we can get."

"We were lucky that we were bound enough to our real bodies that we returned to them when Noa's world was destroyed," the mustached man said. "Too bad we weren't able to bring them out of their comas."

"That will hopefully come in time," the oldest man retorted, "when we have full access to all the technology we need. Right now, we need to focus on our plan to take over Domino City and KaibaCorp."

They all laughed.