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Although a plan seemed impossible, Jounouchi had been quietly thinking of potential solutions to himself. He wondered if Futata would be able to find a way to exorcise the spirit. If they could pull that off, it would, at least temporarily, save both Shizuka and Anzu. But it was too risky to go back to the priestess, or to even voice the idea to Kaiba. Who knew if the spirit was capable of even tracking their every movement?

((Hahaha, uh-oh. I thought you had a plan! Like... using Shizuka and Anzu as a bargaining chip or something... I can help think of ideas, but it's difficult when I don't really know what you're planning to accomplish with all this in the first place. XD))

Jounouchi looked down at the text quietly. Now all he could do was stare ahead as they made their way to their destination.

((It's cool; I've been super busy the last few days. Doing some major spring cleaning and such.

Ah, I see. XD Well I do not believe Domino is a real city in Japan, but from what we see of it, it seems like a pretty typical mid-sized Japanese city, like where I stayed in Hiroshima. Should have a downtown area, but also a lot of green and trees, hills, gardens, residential areas, as well as tiny crop fields. It also seems to be near the ocean, from a number of occurrences involving it. When driving along highways in Japan, it's common to switch between large, fenced-off hills, small patches of farmland, bridges, treed areas, and ocean. If they want somewhere private, it could easily be a beach, a little ways into some woods (not like heavy American mountain woods, but just like wooded areas), or a number of other natural, empty locations. The spirit could just text them coordinates so it's not a public address.))

"...I... I'm not sure." Jounouchi frowned to himself, "I mean... we have no idea what the spirit's going to want from us once we're there. It obviously can kill us any time, so why does it need to lure us anywhere unless it wants something it can't make us do?" he closed his eyes, thinking more, "We don't know how to get it out of Anzu or how to hurt it in any way yet. And we can't attack Anzu herself; she didn't do anything to deserve this, and it probably wouldn't hurt the spirit." he cursed under his breath, "The only thing we've got is whatever it wants from us, and we don't even know what that is..." he hated to say this next part, but it seemed like the only option at this point, "...we'll just... have to try talking with it. Maybe we can at least find out what this's all been about, or who put the spirit up to this... we might need to bargain."

He hesitated at that. Jounouchi himself would be willing to bargain just about anything for Shizuka's and Anzu's collective safety, but would Kaiba? The guy didn't consider either of them friends. He hardly knew the girls, and his only connection to them was being rivals with their friends and family. Kaiba had absolutely no reason to risk himself or offer anything up for their safety. Except for his own morals, which he had very few of.

"...Kaiba..." Jounouchi began painfully, his pride stinging at this despite the desperate circumstances, "If... if there's anything we can do to save them... even if we have to bargain or sacrifice something... please, I'm begging you... do it. I... I don't care if I owe you for the rest of my life or... or whatever happens. I know you don't have as much at stake for this, but I promise you, if we end up in a situation where Mokuba is in danger, I will do everything I can to protect him." he looked him in the eyes, his normally stubborn and defiant expression broken down into nothing but desperation. Talking about protecting Mokuba wasn't a return offer; Jounouchi would do that no matter what, even if this situation had never happened, but it was the only thing he could think to say to help sway Kaiba.

((I'm glad you told your supervisor, and that it's helped! Good for you. And also good you'll be back in CA soon, not just for timezones, but for a break.

Hmm, thinking about it more, my gut seems to keep saying a beach would make most sense. It would be a small one that is closed down because of too many jellyfish or a water pollutant or something, so it would be private, but could still have a name and location. So does that work for you?

OMG that's awesome. XD Sounds like a good plan too. I'm sure Jounouchi will come up with it soon enough, haha.))

Jounouchi tensed, his walls going back up, "Look, I don't know what it wants either, but I don't think it wants us to just offer our lives! It's been playing with us this whole time! Every time we've had a near-death experience, we've just barely managed to have a way to get out of it. The thing could've easily not given us that option. If it wanted us dead, we'd be dead already. It has to be something else." he insisted firmly, not willing to admit there might be a bargain Kaiba didn't consider was worth Shizuka's life.

((Okay good.

And yeah, I think we'd both need to do some heavy encouraging. XD))

"Fine, if that's what it wants, then we'll do it. But if that isn't what it wants... if there's possibly something we can offer it..." Jounouchi was biting his lip hard, desperately grasping at any possibility of safely rescuing his sister and friend.

"But we can't kill it!" Jounouchi argued, "How they hell can we plan to beat it in a war if there's no way we can actually hurt it?! At least bargaining is something we have a chance of pulling off!"

"...maybe it wants to find a new way to torment us." Jounouchi said quietly, "Maybe just... have us do something we wouldn't normally do, something horrible, for the sake of its entertainment." he frowned, thinking it was very possible the spirit might want them to fight to the death, or go kill some innocent person, or hurt themselves intentionally, "I know it doesn't want material things, but that doesn't mean it's luring us all the way here for no reason."