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Cursed	By : AtomBunny Category: Yu-Gi-Oh > Crossovers Views: 3721 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own YuGiOh! or Ranma 1/2. Those belong to Kazuki Takahashi and Rumiko Takahashi respectively. this is just for FUN and I'm not making any money from this story

Chapter List
- 5
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Disclaimer: I do not own YuGiOh! or Ranma 1/2. Those belong to Kazuki Takahashi and Rumiko Takahashi respectively. This is a product of my warped mind wanting to cross EVERYTHING over with Ranma 1/2 and actually writing it down this time. Of course, this is just for FUN and I'm not making any money out of this, so please do not sue me.

A/N - Even though I've worked hard on this chapter over the last few days and it is definitely better than it was, I have to say that I'm not a hundred percent happy with it. It is what it needs to be though, so it will stand as it is.

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A couple of days after that strange written conversation, the rest of the students that had gone on the class trip to Jusenkyo returned home, several days earlier than intended thanks to the Amazons making them leave their land.

Yugi had finally listened to his answer-phone messages when he got home and he wasted no time in calling Mokuba, worried about how Jonouchi was.

"Hey Yugi," the youngster's voice came over the phone as he answered the call, "I take it that you got Jou's message?"

"Yes," Yugi confirmed. "How is he – and Kaiba?"

"Seto isn't back from the office yet," Mokuba replied thoughtfully. "He seems to be coming around to the fact that he is part of a curse, but he's taking it for granted that he can just go on as if nothing has happened."

"That sounds about right," Yugi sighed. "How is Jonouchi taking things?"

"He seems to be alright," Mokuba said, "but he was also quite down the other night."

"Oh?" Yugi was concerned. "Why? What happened?"

"He... they had been to see a specialist in Nerima," Mokuba said. "Jou said he had been told something... bad, but he wouldn't tell me what. He just told me that it would make Seto hate him even more, but he'd make sure that it wasn't an issue. They'd also been having a written conversation in Seto's room, but I guess that Seto must have said something to upset him."

"Oh I do wish that they could have learned to get along," Yugi said with a sigh. "If they had then this probably would never have happened."

"Can you explain that?" Mokuba asked in a demanding tone. "Jou mentioned something about this curse happening because of something between him and Seto, but he wouldn't tell me any more than that. He said that you would be able to explain it better than he could."

"Well..." Yugi was a touch unsure, "Normally I wouldn't say anything, but under the circumstances," he sighed, "It all has to do with the ancient past..."

"You mean that thing where Seto is supposed to have been an ancient Egyptian priest?" Mokuba scoffed and Yugi swore that he could hear the boy rolling his eyes. "Seto always insisted that it was a load of nonsense and refused to say any more about it," Mokuba said.

"Yeah, well," Yugi hedged, uncomfortable with the conversation, "it was all true... but to cut a long story short, Kaiba and Jonouchi are soul mates..."

"No way!" Mokuba interrupted once again. "They hate each other. How on earth could they possibly be soul mates?"

"They were back then and they still are now," Yugi insisted. "There are... reasons why Kaiba won't get along with Jou today that are rooted in the ancient past and the curse is probably fate's way of forcing the issue."

"If what you say is true, then how is getting cursed supposed to help?" Mokuba asked. "If anything it's probably made it even more awkward."

"Now that I can't explain," Yugi said. "What the fates deem fit..." he sighed. "For what it is worth, I don't really see how it's going to help either, apart from making sure that they are together. We can only hope that things will work out in the end." Yugi said that last with more confidence than he felt.

"I hope so," Mokuba said with a small wobble in his voice. "I'm... scared for Seto. I mean, if Jou finds a cure, then what? Will Seto cease to exist? After all, he is the one that drowned in the pool..."

"I don't know," Yugi was stumped. "I hadn't thought about it in that way before, but I can tell you that as a general rule soul mates, once discovered, cannot survive once their partner dies. There wouldn't be much point to it if one of them were to die as a result of a cure; the other would immediately follow."

"Damn that Jonouchi," Mokuba growled. "I'm sure this is all his fault."

"Actually, it isn't," Yugi protested. "Once Jou realised what was happening he tried really hard to at least be Kaiba's friend, but your brother kept on pushing him away."

Mokuba made a non-committal noise, not really wanting to admit that Seto might be in the wrong.

"Don't be like that Mokuba," Yugi said, "I can bet that even now Jou is going to do his best to not inconvenience your brother."

"We'll see," Mokuba said. "Is there anything else I should know about the curse?" He listened attentively as Yugi outlined what the Jusenkyo Guide had told them about the curse and how it worked. "Interesting," Mokuba said. "If that is all, I've got to get back to my homework..."

"One last thing before I go," Yugi interrupted before Mokuba could finish the call. "I'd really appreciate it if Jou could call me sometime soon. I know it's likely to be difficult, but I just need to know that he's OK. And let him know that I've got his bag from the trip, along with his deck and I'll keep them safe for him." Yugi suspected that it would be for the best if he were to keep hold of them for the moment. Kaiba was quite contemptuous of Jonouchi's deck and he would not put it past the CEO to simply dispose of it if he were to find it.

"I'll pass the message on," Mokuba promised, "but I'm sure Jou will be fine. I'm more worried about Seto."

"I can understand that," Yugi said. "But Mokuba, if you need to talk to anyone..."

"I know where you are," Mokuba finished the sentence for him. "Thanks Yugi and bye for now." Mokuba hung up. Well, that had been an interesting phone call. He wasn't sure about all the talk of Soul mates and the ancient past, but he knew that it was quite a pickle that they had landed themselves in no matter who was at fault.

He just hoped that things would sort themselves out soon.

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At the other end of the line, Yugi pressed the 'end call' button thoughtfully. /Yami, did you get all that?/

/Yes I did,/ the spirit confirmed. /At least now we won't have to go anywhere near Nerima./

/Why not?/ Yugi wanted to know. /Don't we need to try and find out anything that might help our friends?/

/We don't have to,/ Yami said calmly. /They've already been referred to a specialist in Nerima. I'm sure that there won't be anything we can find out that they couldn't./

/There's more to it than that, isn't there?/ Yugi accused. /Come on, what is it?/

/Fine./ Yami sighed. /One of the people that the guide mentioned was an Amazon Elder that is living in Nerima. I don't want to go anywhere near those people, especially after what nearly happened on the way back from Jusenkyo./

Yugi felt Yami mentally shudder, but he wasn't quite ready to let it go. /What is wrong with the Amazons?/ he wanted to know. /Yeah, they were a bit scary out in China, but we were on their land. With us being on home soil now.../

/Yugi, trust me, there were tales about Amazons even back in my day and it didn't matter that they were on foreign soil. No, we must stay away from them./ Yami was quite insistent.

/Well, if you say so.../ Yugi said uncertainly, /but I can tell you that the others won't like this one little bit!/

And Yugi was right, they didn't, but they'd all been shaken by the Amazon confronting their group and specifically Yugi on the way out of their territory, so they had backed down reluctantly. Honda had been especially annoyed and had been ready to go off to Nerima on his own. It had taken a lot of effort on Otogi's part to calm him down, but eventually he came around.

He didn't have to be happy with it though and he made sure that the others knew it.

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Three days after his visit to Nerima, Seto was in his office drinking coffee when the water magnet part of the curse decided that it would be a good time to come into effect and once again Seto splashed a small amount of coffee on his hand. Jou came to, suspecting that it would be very bad if he were caught in Kaiba's office a second time, so he quickly went to find some cold water before he could be discovered. Unfortunately, luck was against him.

"Hey, what are you doing here again?" Seto's secretary called him even as she punched the button to summon security.

"It's not what it looks like," Jou said defensively as he looked frantically for an escape route. He stopped short in dread as he backed into a warm body.

"You again?" one of the security men asked. "I'd have thought that you would have learned your lesson last time."

"But… I…" Jou gave it up. He knew that there was no way that he could give a satisfactory explanation and there was also no way that he could get away for long enough to locate some cold water so he resigned himself to humiliatingly being escorted out of the building yet again. Suddenly he realised that they were heading towards the back of the building and not the front as they had done last time. "Hey, what gives?" he asked. The guard that was holding his arm did not reply, but simply twisted said appendage behind Jou's back painfully.

"It's simple, fanboy," The other guard said, the word 'fanboy' dripping with derision, "last time was obviously not enough of a deterrent for you, so today we are going to teach you a little lesson."

Jou's stomach dropped. He knew all too well what kind of lesson these guys had in mind so he started to struggle. Sadly, it was to no avail as he was punched in the gut. As he gasped for breath, the two security guards dragged him towards the back entrance of Kaiba Corp and upon reaching the corridor near the back door, they unleashed a torrent of blows on the blond, careful to ensure that there would be no obvious injuries showing. Then they unceremoniously dumped him outside.

"Now, maybe THAT will teach you not to break into Mr. Kaiba's office in future." With that they returned back inside the building, shutting the door behind them and leaving Jou to pick himself up and limp out of the rear courtyard.

As he made his way painfully from Kaiba Corp, he thought about who it would be best to contact. In the end he decided against contacting his friends or even Mokuba. He needed someone that Seto might actually listen to and he thought that he knew just the person. He searched Seto's pockets and soon located his cellphone, calling the one person that might actually be able to help him; Doctor Kenn.

"Seto, my boy," The rich tone of the doctor's voice came over the airwaves as he answered his personal cell phone, "This is a rare occurrence. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"It's not Seto, Doc," Jou gasped out as he finally collapsed onto a bench. "I… need some help."

"Jonouchi?" What happened?" The doctor was suddenly concerned.

"I was… caught breaking in to Seto's office," The blond groaned. "The security guards did quite a number on me. To teach me a lesson they said."

"Where are you now?" The doctor asked.

"Sat on a bench a couple of blocks down from Kaiba Corp. Near the old bandstand. You know the place?"

"Yes Jonouchi," the doctor confirmed. "Stay where you are, I'll be right there." The doctor hung up as he hurried to get to the injured teen.

A few minutes later, a red sports car pulled up opposite where Jonouchi was sitting. The doctor got out and hurried over to examine the teen. "Good grief Jonouchi," he said with some shock, able to tell just by the blond's posture that he had been beaten quite badly. "You weren't kidding were you? Come on then."

"Eh, what?" Jou said as he was not exactly with it.

"I'm going to take you to my office so that I can see to your injuries properly and make sure that nothing is broken," the doctor explained simply.

"Oh, OK," Jou said as he struggled to his feet and began to walk painfully towards the car. A moment later, the doctor moved to help him. Once he was safely sat in the car he zoned out as he was driven back to the surgery.

Several minutes later found Jonouchi sat on the doctor's couch being thoroughly examined. "You are lucky, Jonouchi," the doctor observed, "There is going to be some extensive bruising going on, but nothing seems to be broken. I suspect that was quite deliberate."

"Still hurts like a bitch though," Jou said with a wince as the doctor prodded at a particularly sensitive area.

"Quite," the doctor replied, "But it's going to hurt Seto too, which makes me wonder why he hasn't given you clearance to be there. That would have prevented this from happening in the first place."

"It's not the first time either," Jou said. "The first time I met you, when Kaiba ended up being beaten by…" Jou tailed off, "Well, that all came about because I got thrown out of Seto's office that day too. It probably wouldn't have been so bad this time if I'd managed to find cold water quicker…"

No Jonouchi," the doctor said, "This is something elementary that Seto should have seen to. I take it that he has started to accept the curse?"

"Well, we've been communicating by notes," Jou said, "but we even ended up arguing then." He hung his head sadly.

"That's a start anyway, even if you did end up arguing," the doctor said encouragingly. "Right then. I want to speak to Seto and get all this straightened out." He approached Jou with a glass of water

"Alright," Jou said as he braced himself for the cold water to hit.

"What the hell?" Seto exclaimed as he came to himself, an uncomfortable disconsolate feeling filtering through even as he registered that he was in pain. He looked up to see doctor Kenn standing in front of him. "Doctor Kenn? What am I doing here? I take it that Jou got himself beaten up again?" he said disparagingly.

"Oh Seto, for such a genius you can be incredibly dense sometimes," the doctor observed, putting up a hand to forestall the brunet as he made to protest. "Tell me Seto, what would happen to someone who was caught in or near to your office that should not be there?"

"As long as they weren't trying to steal anything they would be ejected from the building," Seto said. "I do have a bit of a problem with fangirls after all."

"And if they were caught a second time?" He asked.

Seto gave the doctor a funny look. He didn't like the direction this conversation was heading in. "There are procedures in place for persistent offenders."

"Do those procedures include a beating?"

Seto sighed with a sudden insight. "You are going to tell me that my security overstepped the mark aren't you?"

"Well, yes, you pretty much hit the nail on the head," Doctor Kenn said, "so Seto, I'd like to know why you haven't given Jonouchi clearance. The way things are going, he, and by extension, you, will end up getting seriously hurt or worse."

"I thought… I could get away with it if I was careful," Seto said with a little shame, "I thought that too many questions would be asked if I simply added him to the very short list of people who are allowed into my office unsupervised. I was… wrong."

"I'm glad you realise that, but I have to ask you something Seto," Doctor Kenn said gently, knowing how much it had cost Seto to admit just that small thing. "Why do you hate Jonouchi so much? From what I've seen of him he is a nice enough young man. A little rough around the edges maybe, but his heart is definitely in the right place."

Seto's face took on a stony cast. "I do not wish to talk about it," he said in such a way that made it clear that the subject was not up for discussion.

Doctor Kenn, knowing that Seto would not bend, let the matter drop. Somewhat anyway. "Alright Seto, but please be aware of Jonouchi's feelings. I don't think that he's coping all that well with all this."

"The mutt will bounce back, he always does," Seto brushed the matter off.

"For your sake, I hope you are right," Doctor Kenn said seriously. While Seto was holding up fairly well, Jonouchi was definitely showing some signs of strain even though he was trying to hide it. And it had only been a few days since he had become cursed.

"Right then," Seto said, resolutely ignoring what Doctor Kenn was trying to tell him, "I need to get back to Kaiba Corp to deal with the security men and add Jonouchi to the security list. I can't have my security men beating random people up. It would be bad for the image of Kaiba Corp if that kind of thing were to get out."

"Well, I should be telling you to get some rest," Doctor Kenn said sternly. "This is the second time you've been beaten within a week. But getting Jonouchi added to that list is important so make sure that you don't stay at the office too long."

"I won't" Seto promised, "Thank you Doctor." He bowed with a wince, then stiffly turned to leave.

"Anytime Seto," Doctor Kenn said with a smile that lasted until Seto had left the room. He couldn't help but be concerned for Jonouchi and by extension, Seto himself. He would have to try to keep a close eye on things and try to intervene if things got too bad, but he knew that Seto wouldn't make that easy.

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In the end, even though Seto had now given lip service to the fact that he had begun to accept the curse, in reality nothing really changed. Yes, he had Jonouchi added to the security lists and the two errant security guards were dealt with harshly, but other than that Kaiba went on pretty much like nothing had happened. He continued to work at Kaiba Corp, attended school and he pretty much went on with his life like a normal person would - well, normal for Kaiba anyway - with the exception that on the first day back at school, he had been called to see the Headmaster.

"You wanted to see me?" Seto Kaiba said coldly as he entered the Headmaster's office.

"Yes, have a seat," the man said pleasantly, but Seto was not fooled. He knew that the 'kindly' routine was intended to make him relax, instead it only made him be more on guard.

"So, what did you wish to see me about?" Seto said, sitting down and crossing his legs in a contemptuous manner. He knew exactly what the man wanted, but he was not about to make it easy for him.

"I think we both know why you are here," the Headmaster replied, dropping the kindly old man image. Seto wasn't phased as he had expected it. "I wish to talk to you about your non-attendance of the school trip. I do believe it was made clear that it was mandatory for your grade this year."

Seto was annoyed. "So you mean to tell me that you would still expect me to attend the school trip even though I had... been in an accident?" He would not actually admit that he had crashed in any way, shape or form.

"At the very least you should have reported your situation to the teacher in charge," the man insisted. "Even if you had crashed... with no injuries I take it?" he enquired, suddenly concerned that CEO may have come to harm on his watch. Something like that could be bad for the school's reputation.

"No, I was perfectly fine," Seto said, "although quite shaken."

"I can imagine," the Headmaster agreed, "but you should still have let someone know, or telephoned as soon as you got back."

"While I'll agree that maybe I should have called," Seto conceded, "didn't Yugi Mutou's group tell Mr. Tanaka what had occurred? Surely that would have covered it?" Seto raised his eyebrow as he waited for an answer.

"Well, yes they did tell him, but..." the headmaster spluttered, seeing his chance to bring Seto down a peg slipping away.

"But?" Seto prompted.

The Headmaster calmed himself, having just recalled an anomaly that he needed an answer to. "I need to know what happened with Jonouchi," he asked.

Seto paled slightly. Could he possibly know... "What about Jonouchi?" he asked more calmly than he felt.

"I was told that he had apparently returned to Domino with you," the Headmaster stated. "Can you tell me why he needed to return to Domino and what has happened to him since?"

"I'm not the mutt's keeper," Seto all but snarled.

"So are you saying that he did not return to Domino with you?"

"What I'm saying is that I never saw him," Seto stated, completely truthfully. He had not seen the mutt with his own eyes after all. Given their current circumstances, that would be quite impossible.

"Hmm... that is quite the conundrum," the Headmaster said.

"Not for me," Seto said, pointedly standing. "If that will be all?"

"Fine," the Headmaster said. "You may go."

"And my grade?" Seto asked.

"Bearing in mind the circumstances, your grade will not be affected," the Headmaster confirmed reluctantly.

"Thank you," Seto did not bow, but simply smirked and left the room.

The Headmaster watched as the door closed, wondering, in that case, what had happened to Jonouchi? He thought about it for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders. Who cared, really? It was only that troublemaker Jonouchi. He'd been informed that Jou had returned to Domino and as far as he was concerned that was as much as he needed to know. To be brutally honest the school would be better off without him. He put the problem from his mind and returned to his work.

That was just about typical when it came to concerns over Jonouchi's welfare. Nobody in a position to actually help cared enough to do anything about it.

-------------------

As it was, Jonouchi was not doing so well. To start with, he had managed to keep in semi-regular contact with his friends because he had taken the rare times he was out as his to do with as he saw fit, but this changed the first time he had caused Kaiba to miss an important meeting.

After Seto had got through ranting about inconsiderate mutts and threatening dire unspeakable things that he could not go through with at the moment, Jou had gone to Mokuba to come up with a solution as Seto had still not seen fit to share his schedule, almost as though he were deliberately setting Jou up to fail. Mokuba wasn't particularly happy about what Seto was doing but Seto wouldn't listen to him either, so what they came up with was a system where Jou would send Mokuba a text message to find out if the CEO had anything that he absolutely had to be at work for and if he had then he changed back at the first opportunity. This method wasn't fool-proof by any means, but it did save the majority of mishaps.

To add insult to injury, the first time that Jou had turned up at school (thanks to some errant hot water in the bathroom,) he'd been caught by one of the teachers and sent straight to the Headmaster's office where he had immediately been handed a two week suspension for non-attendance. Yeah, that really made a lot of sense, but Jou reckoned that it was about typical really, especially with the way his life was going at the moment. Or rather his non-life.

Kaiba may have said to Doctor Kenn that Jonouchi would bounce back, but he had failed to take into account that much of the blond's seeming infinite strength came from his close ties to his friends and he was sorely feeling the lack of contact. He was slowly becoming more depressed and withdrawn. Yugi and the others rarely ever saw Jonouchi these days and any attempts to reason with Kaiba were constantly rebuffed. Luckily for Kaiba, Jonouchi's friends knew better than to try and splash Kaiba with hot water at school. Jonouchi had kept Kaiba's legal status to himself, but they didn't need to know about that to know that if someone were to find out about the curse then things could become incredibly difficult. It was lucky that hot water was not so readily available in the school. Kaiba didn't eat in the cafeteria with the other students and he rarely, if ever took gym class, so the opportunities for being splashed were somewhat less than normal.

Luckily, Jou's brief appearance had stopped the rampant gossip that it had been Jou that had been cursed. There had been plenty of hushed whispers around the school, wondering what had happened to the blond duelist and speculation that he had fallen foul of the curse that the Amazon had spoken of had been rife. But word soon got around that he had been seen and suspended, so that had put an end to that.

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A/N - This chapter was originally a lot longer, but I felt that I was skimming far too much and it read more like a summary than a story. I ended up adding three scenes plus heavily editing and changing several other parts which combined made it far too long so I cut it approximately in half. It does work a lot better now and I'll probably post the next chapter in a few more days once I've looked over it a couple (of hundred) more times.
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Cursed