There had been a few complaints since Battle City opened- most of them favoring the graveyard. Kaiba was much too busy to care about whatever was going on there. It was most likely nothing. Losers liked to complain a lot. Mokuba, however, had been appointed head of security. So he was going to take it upon himself to at least check out what was going on, whether he really wanted to or not. Truth was, if he could find something better to be doing at the moment, he probably would have. But Kaiba was busy making sure things were running smoothly, so Mokuba had to be doing his job too!
The graveyard wasn't so scary when it was daytime (and Mokuba had made extra sure to go during daylight hours). More than anything the place made him feel depressed. It made him remember, unwillingly, his father's funeral. How much he'd cried and clung to Seto's sleeves and begged for things to be different. No one listened then. No one except Seto.
Lost in his own thoughts this way he didn't even notice a shadowed figure creeping up on him. It was only when a hand touched his shoulder that he let out an alarmed cry and jumped back. His hand was quick to go to his whistle and bring it to his lips. The person he was facing looked rather disfigured and gray in skintone and it made his fear creep over him in an instant. The whistle was blown as loudly as he could possibly manage.
The short ugly looking man put his hands to his ears. "Stop that!"
Mokuba blew again, twice as loud before speaking. "Who do you think you are sneaking up on people like that?" He exclaimed.
The weird guy put his hands up in the air, wiggling his fingers. "Oooo I'll eat your soul!"
Suddenly the younger Kaiba wasn't so impressed. He'd seen a lot worse than whomever this guy was. If his brother ever knew he'd been scared in the first place he'd probably be disappointed. Mokuba soured. "Who are you supposed to be anyway? Are you the reason we've been getting complaints?"
The man stopped moving, freezing even. "-...c-complaints?" His voice sounded less creepy and more scared, more kidlike now.
Mokuba inclined his head. "Yeah! Complaints! If you're the reason I'll kick you out of the tournament right now!" He threatened, feeling more powerful by the second.
The strange looking man raised his hand, causing Mokuba to tense for a moment, but soon enough he reached underneath his chin and pulled off the mask he'd been wearing. The face underneath it wasn't one Mokuba recognized immediately. Though his suspicions had been cleared. It was a kid wearing that mask after all. He looked dreadfully tired. Plain, maybe. With spiky black hair and big bug eyes. Mokuba was less than impressed.
The boy stepped forward. "Who are you supposed to be anyway? You think you can threaten me like that you little brat?"
Mokuba huffed. "Who are you calling a brat? I'm Kaiba Mokuba!" He proclaimed proudly, knowing exactly the kind of weight that named carried. Truth be told, he liked it.
The kid's eyes widened (if that was even possible). "N-no way! You're Kaiba's kid brother?" He sounded very impressed.
"Watch who you're calling a kid!" Now that Mokuba had gotten the situation under control he was going to use every ounce of that proclaimed weight to his advantage. His brother was scary, he could be scary too!
The kid put his hands up. "A-ah! S-sorry! Please don't kick me out of the tournament! I wasn't doing anything bad I swear!" The last thing he wanted to do was go home so early after cooking up such a brilliant strategy of scaring duelists into peeing their pants and dropping their cards. But he couldn't exactly tell Kaiba's little brother that he'd been doing that. He really would get kicked out for sure.
"Yeah right." Mokuba said in quite a dramatic disbelieving tone. "Then what's up with all the complaints?"
"How should I know?" The boy countered back a little too quickly.
Mokuba trudged forward, pointing his finger at the other. "Well you're the only strange kid wearing a mask and trying to scare people around here that I see!" He said, drawing a breath after such a long sentence.
"I'm not strange!" The boy proclaimed, pointing to himself. "I'm Ghost Kotsuzuka!"
Mokuba's lips pursed to the side as his head tilted. "That's weird enough." He said.
He wiggled his fingers in Mokuba's direction again. "Maybe so. Strange and weird. Maybe that's my thing. Maybe you can't handle it!"
Both children now were in a shouting match, trying to outdo the other. But neither had the wits about them to know how to stop it. They just had to keep one-upping the other. "I can handle anything! I'm a Kaiba!" Mokuba continued.
Kotsuzuka took a step back at that. He'd known enough of the Kaiba name. He knew of Kaiba Seto, how scary and mean that guy was. Did he really want to be picking fights with the guy's kid brother? Probably not. It sounded like a very bad idea. "Heh. Yeah, well... can you duel?" He held up his deck.
Mokuba turned his head away at that. The last time he'd dueled hadn't gone so well, and he hadn't had a lot of time to restructure his deck. He wasn't a real duelist. Not like his brother... "Who says I've got time to duel a know-nothing like you anyway?" He tried with a scoff.
The other boy was going to pursue that line of logic hard and fast. He was going to rail this kid, Kaiba or not! ...that was until there was a staticy transmission coming from Mokuba's pocket. The young Kaiba took his phone out. "Mokuba. Status report." The voice definitely belonged to Kaiba Seto. Ghost paled.
Mokuba just smirked at the other. It sent Kotsuzuka to his knees in a standard begging position. "Please please please don't say anything bad! I'll be good I promise!"
The begging was awfully empowering. Mokuba liked it. He smirked harder before answering. "Everything is fine, Nii-sama!"
"Good. Report back to headquarters as soon as you can." With that the feed cut.
Mokuba put his phone away and grinned very hard at the other. "You owe me one!" He stuck his tongue out for a moment, acting like the kid he really was. "I could have gotten you kicked out of this city so fast!" A laugh. "Don't let me hear about any more complaints around here weirdo or you're done, you hear me?"
The boy stood up and grimaced. "I said my name is Ghost Kotsuzuka! Not weirdo! ...but yes. Fine! Things are just fine here!" He couldn't help himself.
"Whatever." Mokuba said, rolling his eyes before taking off again. Such a strange kid. He'd have to look him up again once the tournament was over...