Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Lethally Hot ❯ Seven is the Perfect Number ( Chapter 4 )

Toboe LoneWolf: Alrighty. This chapter has a LOT of biology in it. If you haven’t taken biology yet or did not pay attention or totally forgot, you are in trouble. I would highly recommend that you readers out there have a nice, supposedly simple book on the human body to help you – either that, or look the stuff up after reading this fic. Or you can assume that what I write makes sense. (Which I hope is true…)

Here’s the disclaimer: I don’t own YGO, or the following references that I have taken quotes out of:
Peters, C.J. and Mark Olshaker. Virus Hunter: thirty years of battling hot viruses around the world. New York: Doublesday, 1997.
Preston, Richard. The Hot Zone. New York: Anchor Books, 1994.
(Who would think that I would write a bibliography during the summer? And for that matter, to think that I would need to do research and all that for a fanfic. Be thankful, dear readers, that I care enough to do this right. Djanil: HA! )

Quotes are italicized. At the end there are pseudo-footnotes, which are explanations of technicalities/quotes/biological info. If you’re confused, read them. Or not.

//…// is Yami to Yugi, /…/ is Yugi to Yami. Also, with Ryou in the fic, I also included Bakura (his yami). So <<…>> is Bakura to Ryou and <…> is Ryou to Bakura.

So anyway, enough explanations…onto my very long, very technical, very biological, very informative, and (hopefully) very interesting fic!

Chapter Four: Seven is the Perfect Number

Joey tore his eyes away from the exploding cells. Okay, so they had about 24 hours. They had better start looking for the cure fast.

"Hey, guys, we’d better go look for the cure right away."

"Got any idea on just HOW to do that, Wheeler?" Kaiba crossed his eyes and stared at Joey.

Joey lowered his eyes. Heck, he had no clue, but his best bud needed his help – that is, all of their help.

Yami came to back up Joey. "Kaiba, Joey is just trying to bring us together so we can fight this enemy together. We must become a team against this Ebola."

"Teamwork, who needs it? I do best by myself."

Tea tried to break up the tension. "You guys, why hasn’t Yugi’s immune system done anything yet? I mean, shouldn’t there be those white blood cells eating those things?"

Tristan added in a comment. "Yeah, and what about antibodies? They should stop those viruses, right?"

Kaiba snorted. If only these goons would pay attention for once. He jabbed a finger at a nearby white blood cell. "If you two would just look, you would see that the immune system can’t do anything. The virus multiplies faster than they are being destroyed."

The group turned towards the white blood cell. As usual, they saw that Kaiba’s observation was correct. There was a white blood cell eating away, but the thread viruses were still swarming. And then as they watched, an Ebola virus actually entered the white blood cell and blew the defending cell up.

"Hey! I thought the white blood cells were supposed to eat the virus, not the other way around." Joey exclaimed.

Yami explained. "The virus is too numerous. It has overwhelmed the white blood cell. Remember, Ebola attacks everything except bone and skeletal muscle. That includes white blood cells."

"But what about the antibodies? Why aren’t they helping?" Ryou confusedly asked.

Kaiba almost rolled his eyes at the stupidity he was hearing. Almost. "How many times must I explain things? If you paid attention in school, you would know that antibodies are mostly used for bacteria. Since Ebola is a virus, antibodies are not as effective. Besides, if you would all look again, you would see the antibodies as well. And they are obviously not working."

Ryou shrank under Kaiba’s barbed reply. It was almost like his other self speaking.

<<Kaiba, like me? Ha, I’m much better at threatening. But I think you know that, vessel.>>

Ryou ignored the voice and turned towards where everyone else was watching. A few of the Ebola viruses nearby had some things stuck onto them, presumably antibodies. But the antibodies didn’t seem to do anything. They just…hung there, like a useless tool. The virus was still moving along, looking for a cell to blow up. White blood cells didn’t even seem to notice the viruses with antibodies on them; they just passed them by. Eventually the virus found a cell to its liking, and entered the cell without any interference from the antibody. Apparently, antibodies aren’t able to stop evil salesmen or slippery assassins. The antibodies, which were supposed to help the defenders from the enemy army, were simply letting the enemy go behind their lines.

Shadi spoke in the silence. "Antibodies do not stop the invader. This has been tested in previous cases of Ebola."

A further complication in the puzzle was the lack of a neutralizing antibody response in convalescent sera from human or animal survivors of filovirus infections.

If you take Venezuelan equine encephalitis antiserum, say, or Rift Vally antiserum and you mix it with the virus, the virus’ infectivity is neutralized. That is, if we take blood from a VEE survivor, separate the serum and mix it with some VEE virus, the antibodies in the serum will block the infectivity of the virus. That’s the way we like to see things happen. This not only represents a weapon against the disease; the assay also serves as a functional measurement of the amount and potency of antibody present in the sample.

But if you take Ebola or Marburg virus and follow the convalescent antiserum procedure I just described, and then assay the infectivity, you’re going to find that it’s essentially the same. … Basically, this was telling us three things, none of which we wanted to hear. First, despite the isolation of the virus, we had no test to confirm the validity of results when we found a positive by the fluorescent antibody test. Second, it meant that antiserum likely provided no passive protection against the disease. And third, this was telling us there was something important about the virus that we didn’t understand.

"So, Yugi’s immune system can’t do anything, right?" Joey concluded.

Yami nodded. "I believe so."

"But why not?" Joey pressed. "Why isn’t it? Why aren’t those helper T-cells and all that stuff helping?"

Tea raised an eyebrow. Just when did Joey know about helper T-cells? But then again, he probably learned about that in the sex-ed part of health class, when they learned about HIV and AIDS. At least Joey learned something…

"Well, maybe we should go to the source." Tristan pointed out. "The immune system centers around the thymus gland. So, we should check out the thymus gland. Maybe we’ll find out what’s going on."

Tristan looked around. Everyone was staring at him. "What?"

"Just when did you learn about the immune system?" Joey asked his friend.

"Unlike you, Joey, I paid attention in biology class."

(Kaiba smirked at this.)

Yami crossed his arms. "Shall we go, then?"

"But how? We can’t just walk there; it’d take forever!" Tea asked.

"It doesn’t matter. We can just take one of these red blood cells to our destination. A single red blood cell can circulate through the whole body in just thirty seconds."

This time, everyone stared at Yami. Just when did 3000-year-old pharaohs know about the circulatory system?

Yami explained. "I like to read Yugi’s school textbooks. They are very informative."

"Oookay then." Joey glanced at the red blood cells whizzing by. "Let’s go hitch a ride."

* * * * *

Eventually, everyone was able to get onto a red blood cell. It was almost like catching a train: you wait, you time your jump, and you (hopefully) get on.

Joey was a pro at this. He had been jumping onto trains for years since his dad was too cheap to drive him anywhere. Joey kept getting on and off the red blood cells, showing the rest just "how it’s done." Tea and Tristan had a few difficulties, but they eventually got on. Kaiba just hopped onto one, taking everything as a joke. Shadi got on a red blood cell quietly and mysteriously, like everything else that he does. Yami, of course, caught on quickly, since he was the King of Games.

Ryou, on the other hand, just could not get himself onto a red blood cell.

<<You are so pathetic, vessel.>>

Joey jumped off yet again to help Ryou. He ran his hand through his hair. If Ryou didn’t get on, they’d be far behind. The others were holding their red blood cells steady, but they couldn’t do it much longer.

"Hey Ryou, how about you just come along with me?" Joey stretched out his hand.

Ryou gratefully took it. He’d never be able to get on one of those things…

"Alright then, onto the red blood cell express." Joey jumped onto a moving red blood cell, and dragged Ryou along. "Here we go."

The rest of the group let go and they were off.

* * * * *

Riding a red blood cell was very strange. The cell felt soft, squishy, and rubbery. Plus, it was strange to be able to see through the cell wall. Ryou was clinging onto Joey for dear life and staring down so he wouldn’t make himself sick at watching everything go by.

Ryou could see the little cell working furiously to keep itself alive. If Ryou remembered correctly, red blood cells only lived for 100 to 120 days. As Ryou peered closer (and also distracting himself from his surroundings) he could see the little parts and processes of the cell. Osmosis, diffusion, even the cell transport system, moving food and wastes. ATP and cellular respiration were also running. But the strange thing was that the red blood cell had no nucleus. But then again, Ryou supposed, the red blood cell was supposed to transport oxygen. The nucleus probably wasn’t that important.

Joey, on the other hand, was looking around at the wonder around him. This was just so cool. Because he was actually IN the bloodstream, he could see everything that his boring biology teacher droned about. But this was much more interesting.

For one, he could actually see that most of the blood is clearish-yellow. He couldn’t exactly remember what it was called, but now he could tell that he only thought blood was red because the red blood cells outnumbered everything.

He could also see the destruction that the Ebola was creating. The Ebola was blowing up cells so much that the blood began to be filled up with shredded up cell pieces instead of whole ones.

If you put the runny Ebola blood in a test tube and look at it, you see that the blood is destroyed. Its red cells are broken and dead. The blood looks as if it has been buzzed in an electric blender.

"So, Yami, where do we go?" Tristan yelled over towards Yami.

Yami thought about it. All that he knew about the thymus gland was that it was near the top of the sternum in the chest. But he had no clue of where they were in the first place. "Shadi, where exactly are we in Yugi’s body?"

Shadi’s Millenium Ankh glowed, and then faded. "I believe that we are traveling through one of the arterioles towards the brain."

"Ah. We’re close, then." Yami looked around. He couldn’t exactly see any organs since the arterial wall blocked the view.

Joey shouted, "Do we turn or what?"

Yami actually had no clue. (But he wouldn’t say that.) The various branches breaking off were all over the place, and the one path that would take them to the thymus gland could be any one of them. Yami glanced at Shadi. Perhaps he knew; he knew where they were, so perhaps he knew where to go. "Can you use your Millenium Ankh to find the right way?"

Shadi shook his head. "Alas, I cannot. The Ankh cannot tell the way in the physical world."

Yami turned towards Kaiba. With all of the education his adopted father put on him, maybe Kaiba remembered stuff about the circulatory system. Kaiba felt Yami’s eyes on him and snapped, "Who has the time to memorize the bloodstream? I certainly don’t."

"Are we lost?" Ryou timidly asked.

"No way! We’re just, uh, delayed…" Joey trailed off.

Tea shook her head. Guys were just so stubborn…"You guys are so stubborn! Why can’t you guys just ask for directions?"

The rest of the males’ faces went blank. Ah yes, directions…

Tristan pointed out something. "But how are we going to get directions, Tea?"

Tea rolled her eyes. "Where else? The nervous system should know. It’s connected to everything." She pointed to the line of nervous cells on the arterial wall. "I’ll bet we can just ask one of those."

Yami’s eyebrow went up. Ask…a cell? Ah well, it was better than getting lost. Yami steered "his" blood cell towards a neuron, aka a nervous cell. The rest of the group soon followed and then got off their "cell transport."

"Good bye, Reddy!" Joey waved to his departing cell.

Kaiba rolled his eyes. "Figures. The dog would name his pet."

Joey grumbled at this, but couldn’t exactly reply. Yami ignored this and pressed his hand on the feathery hands that stuck out from the neuron. It too, felt strange. The dendrites (for that was what they were called in Yugi’s textbook) were short and tingly to the touch. Feeling a bit strange, Yami thought at the neuron, Where is the thymus gland?

And strangely enough, there was actually a reply. A little electrical buzz, and the cell answered with, To the right.

Yami shook his head. Although he had been around for five thousand years, this topped as one of the most bizarre things he had ever experienced.

"So, did it answer? What’d it say?" Joey pressed.

"Nothing much. Just ‘to the right.’"

Joey scratched his head. "That doesn’t help much." He waved around. "There’s tons of -- whatduyuh call ‘em…capillaries, that’s it – to the right."

"A very observant answer, Wheeler." Kaiba said. He turned to Yami. "Can’t you get it to be a bit more specific?"

Yami shrugged. "I’ll try." He pressed his hand on the dendrites again. Which way should we take to get to the thymus gland?

This time Yami was hit by an overwhelming load of information. Later, when they were on their way, Yami could only describe it as if the cell had opened up and brought him into the web. Yami could see and feel the interlocking chain of neurons throughout the entire body. It was as if he wasn’t exactly himself anymore; he was a part of a system. A small part, but a part nevertheless. And then the system flared and showed him the way in a flash. The information flitted through Yami’s mind, and only because he was once pharaoh and the King of Games did he understand it all.

Again, Yami shook his head as he broke the connection. Everyone stared anxiously at him. "Yes. Now I know the way."

"Alright then! Onward, soldiers! Come on Ryou," Joey pulled, "we need to get on Reddy 2!"

Everyone sighed, but followed Joey as he dragged Ryou along and pointing upward in a sad imitation of a hero. Some people can never be let down for long.

* * * * *

By following the directions of Yami, everyone was able to make it to the thymus gland. It was a small organ, squishy, and had bumps all over it, which were packed with various types of white blood cells.

Joey looked around and looked at Tristan. "Soooo, now what? We’re here, so now what do we do?"

Tristan was clueless. "I dunno. I don’t know what is supposed to happen in the first place."

Shadi broke his silence. "Shall I explain how the immune system works, then?"

Yami nodded. "I believe that it would help some of us. Although I may understand the little information that was in Yugi’s textbook, I do not think that it was thorough enough."

Kaiba couldn’t help but make a barb at Joey again. He too, nodded at Shadi and said, "Yes, because I believe dogs simply cannot understand biology."

"HEY!"

Shadi ignored this and began a small but brief lecture. "When an invader enters and begins destroying, the first defense are the phagocytes. There are two types of phagocytes – macrophages and microphages, or ‘big eaters’ and ‘little eaters,’ respectively. As their name implies, they simply eat any foreign material in their way."

"Anything?" Joey interrupted.

"Yeah, Joey, anything. Just like you." Tea rolled her eyes, remembering the amount of food Joey could pack in.

Shadi continued. "Generally, these types of white blood cells are able to eat any invader before it does much damage. If they cannot, the ‘acquired immune system’ also works to defend the body. The acquired immune system has five parts – B cells, antibodies, helper T cells, killer T cells, and the suppressor T cells.

"After a macrophage or microphage has eaten an antigen, or ‘foreign material,’ they show it to the helper T cells, which reside in the thymus gland. The helper T cells organize the entire immune system defense and are the key for its success. If a certain helper T cell recognize the antigen, then it activates corresponding B cells and killer T cells, which also live and grow in the thymus gland. The B cells then create specialized antibodies against the antigen. The antibodies can neutralize the antigen, destroy the antigen, or help the phagocytes eat the antigen.

"The killer T cells, as they are called, seek and kill the antigen. They are specialized to destroy only that type of antigen. After all of the antigens have been destroyed, the helper T cells send suppressor T cells to turn off the killer T cells and B cells, so that they do not destroy anything else anymore.

"In all, there are seven parts to the immune system – macrophages, microphages, helper T cells, B cells, antibodies, killer T cells, and suppressor T cells."

There was a slight pause while everyone took in the information and processed it. Then everyone turned towards Joey, who took the longest.

Joey scratched his head. "I think I get it. But where are the white blood cells I learned about?"

"You actually learned something, Wheeler?" Yet another barb by Kaiba.

Yami tried to make things clearer. "White blood cells is a general term for everything. Macrophages, microphages, helper T cells, killer T cells, and B cells all fall under the category of ‘white blood cell.’"

"Ah."

"With that done, can we get on with it?" Kaiba crossed his arms. "We are wasting our time. I want to get back to KaibaCorp and stop—"

The "ground" beneath them heaved and everything whirled. The bloodstream around them went crazy and some red blood cells looked "confused." Neurons flashed, sending signals haywire.

When everything settled down, everyone stared at Yami. A flash of pain and worry flickered in his eyes. Something had gone wrong with Yugi.

* * * * *

Yugi stood over a wastebasket, wiping his mouth. He definitely didn’t feel too good right now. He had just thrown up his dinner, lunch, breakfast, and probably anything else that was left over. His throat was sore and his head shaky. Yugi HATED being sick.

The wastebasket was full of vomit. Yugi hoped that the nurses would come soon and take it away; it was pretty gross. Vomit in general is gross; but this was the gross of gross. It was a mixture of black and red – probably blood and…something else, Yugi wryly thought.

The black vomit is not really black; it is a speckled liquid of two colors, black and red, a stew of tarry granules mixed with fresh arterial blood. It is hemorrhage, and it smells like a slaughterhouse. The black vomit is loaded with virus. It is highly infective, lethally hot, a liquid that would scare the daylights out of a military biohazard specialist.

Yugi stared at himself in the mirror. What looked back at him was horrifying.

His skin was now sickly yellow and it looked like it would drip off his face. The spiky hair on top of his head didn’t even stand straight up anymore, but sagged a little, as if in despair. His eyes, however, was what really scared him. His normally bright eyes were dull and droopy, and instead of being light purple, they were dark red, blood red…

His face lost all appearance of life and set itself into an expressionless mask, with the eyeballs fixed, paralytic, and staring.

//Yugi! Are you all right? What happened?//

/Yami!/ Yugi gratefully replied.

//Yugi. Are you feeling well? You don’t feel too good.//

/Feel too good? Nope, and I don’t even look too good either./

//What just happened? Everything went crazy a few moments ago.//

/I threw up./ Yugi threw himself on the hospital bed. /It was NOT fun./

A slight pause, then //Are you fine now?//

/Am I fine? Let’s see, I have Ebola inside of me plus seven other people, I look like a mess, I just threw up, my skin is yellow, and I’m probably going to die soon. Am I supposed to be fine?!?/

Yami smiled. Even in the lowest moments, Yugi still could have a bit of spunk. //I suppose not.//

Yugi enveloped his face in his pillow. Then a thought came to his head. /Hey Yami, do you feel okay?/

//Just fine, aibou.//

/You don’t feel sick at all?/

//I felt your pain a while ago, but not now.//

/Hmm, that’s funny. Since we’re bonded, both of us should feel bad, right?/

//I suppose so…//

Yugi felt Yami blank out for a while. Probably informing the rest of the group. Then Yami spoke to his hikari again.

//Yugi, would you mind if we switched?//

/Noooo…why?/

//As you brought up, I feel perfectly fine. I think we should switch, Yugi. I don’t like the suffering you’re going through.//

/I can take it, Yami./

//No, you cannot,// Yami pressed. //I believe that this is too dangerous for you. Besides,// Yami sighed, //it is at least partly my fault that you are infected. Let me take your place, aibou…it’s something I have to do.//

Yugi thought about it. /Fine, Yami. If you believe you must, then we’ll do it./

The millenium puzzle blazed yet again, just like so many times before. But how many times it will shine again is unknown.

* * * * *

Yugi rubbed his eyes. At least his headache was gone, and he felt a lot better now.

"So Yuge, you’re with us again, huh?" Joey grinned. His bud was back and looked just fine to him.

"Yeah guys. Nice to see you. I just hope Yami can put up with the pain…" Yugi trailed off.

Tea looked a bit worried at this. "What pain? Is he--Are you okay?"

"I’m fine, Tea." Yugi turned the focus away from himself. "So what happened?"

Yugi was briefed on what they did, and then Yugi asked a very important question. (It is surprising that no one had asked it beforehand.)

"Shadi, do we know anything about Ebola?"

Shadi sighed. "I am afraid not much. All that the experts know is that it has exactly seven proteins. What those seven proteins do is unknown. It is known to spread through blood-to-blood contact, but it is unknown if it is airborne. It is known that Ebola attacks almost anything, but it is unknown why it is able to do so. It is known that Ebola Zaire is lethal to humans, but unknown why Ebola Reston, a close strain, is apparently not. So little is known, and so much more is unknown…"

My single greatest worry at that point was how little we knew about what we were dealing with. The medical community has observed thousands of flu outbreaks in this century and we still don’t really know how any individual one is going to behave. They all cause trouble, but 1918-19 killed 20 million people. By contrast, there was so little experience with Ebola Zaire, with all the filovirus strains put together, as little as we knew, no one else knew any more. Most of what you did with Ebola was go to Africa and count corpses after the fact.

That fact was not assuring. Everyone looked around, to take their minds off that fact. The thymus gland looked okay, and all of the white blood cells around them were fine as well. There wasn’t exactly anything wrong…but the immune system wasn’t doing anything to fight against the Ebola. It was just…sitting there, doing nothing. No killer T cells, no antibodies (working ones, that is), not even many macrophages eating at the virus. Yugi’s body was like target practice with five-centimeter away targets. And the Ebola had the gun.

"Why isn’t my body DOING anything?" Yugi asked puzzledly.

This time, it was Ryou who pointed out something. "Look at that, guys. That white blood cell looks a bit…different."

The group walked a bit closer towards the white blood cell.

Shadi noticed something. "That is a helper T cell."

"How do you know?" Joey asked.

"Because of the CD4 receptors on the cell membrane."

"Oookay."

The helper T cell looked a bit more…special, somehow. It was tiny bit bigger, a tad brighter, and a smidgen whiter. It looked like a leader, a commander. However, it also looked like it had no one to command. The cell wandered about, randomly moving around. Oh, and it also had the distinct sign of the millenium symbol on the cell membrane.

"Wow…that cell has the millenium symbol on it."

"More hocus pocus. Who cares?"

Shadi whirled around at Kaiba. "Do not taunt things that you do not know about, Seto Kaiba. They may come back to haunt you later on in your life."

"Hmph."

"I wonder why this cell has the millenium symbol and not the other ones." Tristan said.

Yugi thought about something. "Maybe because it was unlocked, like I unlocked the Millenium Puzzle…"

"Say what, Yuge?"

"When I solved the puzzle, Yami became a…part of me, I guess." Yugi explained. Kaiba snorted softly. "He once said that it felt like he was unlocked. Maybe this was unlocked too." Yugi waved at the helper T cell.

"So maybe that cell was unlocked, probably when Yugi got infected. But what does it mean?" Tea pressed.

Suddenly, everything just clicked for Yugi. The tutoring of the King of Games had not been a waste, for the "Prince of Games" had a revelation.

"You guys! I think I figured it out!"

"Spit it out, Yuge. It’s better than anything I’ve got."

"Or anything better than you’ll ever get, Wheeler." Kaiba was seriously getting on Joey’s case. But then again, it’s not like Kaiba asked to be here.

Yugi too excited to take note of Kaiba’s snip at Joey. "There are seven proteins for Ebola, right?"

Everyone nodded.

"And there are seven parts to the immune system."

Everyone nodded again. That made sense; but what was the point?

"And, there are seven millenium items! See the pattern? Seven proteins, seven parts, and seven items!

"When I solved the puzzle, I unlocked one of the seven millenium items. And that helper T cell," Yugi waved at it, "must have been unlocked too. That’s why it has the millenium symbol on it. That helper T cell is part of the seven pieces of the immune system. We have to get the other six.

"Shadi said something about the cure being in Yami’s mind. Yami was once pharaoh of all Egypt. He must have known about all of the seven millenium items back then. The seven millenium items are the key. So we have to find the rest in Yami’s memory. To beat the seven parts of Ebola, we need the seven parts of the immune system. And to get those, we have to find the seven millenium items within Yami’s memories!" Yugi finished triumphantly.

That was the answer. The clue had been there all along – in the magical number of seven. Seven, the number of perfection and completion. Seven was indeed, the perfect number…

* * * * *

The road was clear before them and their path was set.

However, the search had just begun.

And the clock was still ticking.

Tock. Tick. Tock.

Footnotes:

Antiserum is stuff with antibodies against Venezuelan equine encephalitis, or VEE for short. VEE is a mosquito carried virus that can paralyze or kill; it mostly attacks horses but can hurt and kill humans. The military describes it as "an agent of concern" because it could be used for biological warfare. (Ebola is also, according to military sources, being tested as an airborne weapon. It may work, as tests show that Ebola can kill if breathed. The horror, indeed, if it works…) Rift Valley fever is another mosquito born virus. Can kill (although not as beautifully as Ebola…Djanil: WHAT?!? Toboe LoneWolf: ^^;;;). Assay means the analysis of a substance. Marburg is another filovirus like Ebola, kills about one in four, while Ebola kills nine in ten. (Go Ebola!). And overall this means that antibodies don’t stop Ebola from infecting other cells.

Cell functions: (mentioned when Ryou looks at RBC) Osmosis moves water around the cell via concentration differences. If the cell has a lower concentration of water than outside of it, water moves into the cell to "equalize" the concentration, and vice versa. Diffusion moves other molecules of stuff in the same way as osmosis. The cell transport system moves stuff without worrying about concentration values. ATP is cell energy. Just like how a car needs gas, a cell needs ATP. (But not tepees, that doesn’t help. Djanil: That was very lame. Toboe LoneWolf: *sighs* I know.) Cellular respiration is how a cell makes ATP.

The clear stuff that Joey forgot is called plasma. Most of blood is actually clear. It just looks red when you bleed because (obviously) you can’t see the clear stuff and only see the numerous red blood cells. And just in case you’re wondering, your veins look blue because you’re looking through layers of skin and distorts colors. It’s not because your blood is actually blue. Believe it or not, some kids in my biology class, ages 15 and 16, actually thought blood was blue. I kid you not.

Receptors, receptors. It’s how a cell gets stuff from the outside, or "receives" them. Helper T cells have a distinct receptor called CD4. It’s how HIV gets into helper T cells. The cell membrane is the outer "shell" of the cell. Oh, and how Shadi knows all this stuff…*shrugs* Spirits are smart guys, all right?

End Author's Notes:

Toboe LoneWolf: Don’t think everything will be easy as 1)go to Yami’s mind; 2)go through a few traps; 3) find the items; and 4) the cure is found, and life goes on happily ever after. No sirree, I have quite a few plans for this fic—

Djanil: You make PLANS?!?

Toboe LoneWolf: Well, vague plans. But anyway, things are just getting started. Bakura is definitely going to play a part, so don’t worry, Bakura fans. Chaos will come. Kaiba-fans shouldn’t worry either; I have some nice ideas for our blue-eyes hero, who refuses to acknowledge his past… Oh, I have a very nice sub-plot stewing in my head. Plus, now that Yugi and Yami switched, I can inflict pain on Yami now. *evil grin*

Hope you readers didn’t get too confused on the biology. Don’t get mad at me for it, I LIKE biology. That's why I'm probably going to major in it...that or bioengineering. It is kinda cool how it all works out: 7 Ebola proteins, 7 immune system defense parts, and 7 millenium items. Coincidence, maybe…or fact???

Till later, guys! Ebola shall return!!!