Wow. This is the last chapter. I really enjoyed writing it and I really appreciate all of the support I've gotten. Your reviews kept me going at a time when I feel really unmotivated. Thank you. I will be working on a new Puppyshipping adventure shortly and in the meantime please read Sunset and In Search of Atlantis (while they are not the main couple in those stories there are a couple of chapters dedicated to Seto and Jounouchi).

Thanks again and enjoy.

*24* Jounouchi *24*

Darkness. That was all I could see and the blackness of it was suffocating. I was floating in a sea of oily water and yet I was dry. If this was the afterlife then it gave a whole new meaning to only living once. While I no longer felt the pain nor the weight of living it was still a place I didn't want to be. There was nothing comforting about existing like this. But if this is the price for saving the man I love and the world then I will gladly accept it.

All around me were other souls, they seemed to be suspended in a state of sleep, why was I awake, I wondered. Hopefully I would get to join them in their peaceful slumber.

Suddenly I began to choke and my body felt really heavy, and then I was sinking beneath the black sea. I didn't have time to panic as a wave of white light enveloped me. The next thing I knew was that I was lying on something soft which was good because the weight was catching up with me again.

Then.

Pain.

Unbelievable and great pain filled my body and I wanted to scream but I couldn't. I balled my hands into fists and grabbed at the soft surface beneath me just to have something to focus on.

My heart hurt most of all. I loved Seto so much and by the time I had figured that out it was too late. My life was always like that. I was the underdog in even matters of the heart.

"Why is he crying?" someone asked.

Huh? I knew that voice, yet I couldn't quite remember who it belonged too. It was on the edge of my mind but I couldn't recall it over all the pain I felt.

"It must be the transition." Another voice. This one I couldn't forget in a million years.

"Seto?" I tried to speak but my lungs hurt. Did my lips move at least? I had no idea.

"He's trying to say something." The first voice again.

"Calm down, Mokuba, he needs to wake on his own."

That's right, it was Mokuba's voice. But what were they doing here? Did Siegfried succeed after all?

"I'm so glad it worked though." Mokuba said.

"Alright, why don't you go wait in your room until he is fully awake?" Seto said. "I will get you the moment he's ready."

"Sure." Mokuba said.

I heard the sound of the door closing and then felt a cool hand touch my forehead. It had been a while since I had felt anything and in the span of five minutes I felt everything.

"Open your eyes, Katsuya."

Wow, the sound of my first name, it filled my body with a tingle that replaced all the pain I was feeling. I wanted to obey but I couldn't, oh, why was it so hard to open my eyes?

I felt another sensation on my forehead, soft, it lingered there for a moment before pulling away. "I'm tired of waiting for you. Wake up." He ordered.

Bastard, you think I don't want to?

"I'll make you pay for making me wait, you know." He said, "You aren't going to get me to admit that I love you only to leave me alone. I don't think so." He said and the weight of the surface shifted a bit. I felt the soft sensation again only this time it was brushing up against my lips.

Seto's breath was coming out in shallow waves as he hesitantly placed his lips over mine, harder this time.

My eyes opened and the light assaulted me so harshly that I pulled away from the kiss. "Ah. Too bright." I said so that Seto wouldn't think that it was the kiss causing me to pull away from him.

"I'll adjust that later." He said. "But other than that, how do you feel?"

"Weird, I feel heavy…wait, what's going on?" shielding my eyes with my hands I got a look at the room. The soft surface I was on was a bed. "How is this possible?"

"I tweaked my stepfather's technology so that it would work and then I uploaded your mind and soul into the computer. I didn't have time to make a world for you so it must've been really dark. I'm sorry but I wanted to bring you back as soon as possible."

"Bring me back?" I was so confused, how could this even be possible? Okay, so even if I could be uploaded into the computer my body was still a pile of ash. "But my body…"

"I made you a new one, a perfect likeness too, well almost." He said. "If you tell me what I should fix then I will."

"You made me a new body? And my soul was transferred into it?"

"That's right. Everything you are is exactly the same the only difference is that you are an android. You have all emotions and feelings, you'll even age. Of all the things I've invented you are the one thing I am most proud of." He said.

"Why would you do this for me?"

"Why?" he was taken aback, "I am the one who knows least on the subject of love and yet you ask me why." He laughed. "I told you I wasn't going to let you go. You need to take responsibility for turning me into a lovesick fool."

"I love you, Seto." I said, his first name falling from my lips like it was the most natural thing in the world. I wrapped my arms around him and hugged him around the middle.

"I told Mokuba that I would bring you to him as soon as you woke up." He said.

"Wait, doesn't everyone think I'm dead? What are they gonna do when they see me?" I asked.

"I took care of all of that while I was building you this body. I told Mokuba everything but everyone else thinks that we both faked our deaths in order to save Japan, you going first was part of the plan. You can go back to your normal life." He said.

"My normal life, huh?" I said, "not exactly normal now that I'm with you."

"I suppose that's true." He said and paused for a moment before adding, "I will be going out with you and your friends to Karaoke, after all."

"Really?"

"Don't get too excited, I'm not going to sing." He added. "I told your family that you were alive as well."

I no, did he know that they had moved on without me? Crap. Where was I going to live?

"Your face does nothing to hide your emotions. They missed you, Jounouchi, though with a new baby on the way they have requested that you live here."

"Live here? In the mansion?" I looked around.

"It might be a little strange and if you don't want to I can get you an apartment of your choosing." He said.

"No. I want to live here, with you." I said. "I mean, can I?"

"I assumed that, that would be the case. I have a room ready for you." He said.

"This isn't my room?"

"No, it's mine." He said, I could feel my body heat up at that comment and the suggestive way in which he said those words.

"It's nice…" I said and made to get out of the bed but he stopped me by blocking my path. "What?" he said nothing, instead he slipped his hand into my hair and pulled me closer. Our lips met and he smiled against my mouth before taking it to a more passionate place. He pulled away with a whispered "I love you" leaving his lips.

"I love you, too." I said, my head spinning slightly.

"Welcome to your new life." He said, "I'll bring Mokuba in here, you may need more recovery time than I thought." He got up and left the room, sparing a glance in my direction before leaving.

Welcome to my new life? A new life? There was something freeing about that. I fell back against the bed and stared up at the ceiling and wondered what this new life would bring?

It didn't matter. What mattered was that I would live my new life with the man I love and I would get to experience all of the things I was meant to.

Looks like the death of me was the beginning of a new me, a me I would never take for granted because now I had something special.

Love.

The End.