Sorry for the long hiatus, everyone. But, good news, I decided to revisit some of my stories, and this is one of the ones that I really want to have finished. Most of the plot has been reworked, and it's a bit more serious (for those who remember the old version, it had a lot of what would be considered filler at best). The story will make more sense now, and it'll be a better read, I promise.
Belladonna Sarutobi is (c) to me, and I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! I just enjoy screwing with it for kicks.
Chapter One
The sun will never set on my love for you
You, never tainted, always pure
"Guess I don't stand a chance. Unless maybe I use...the Breath of Life card."
It was lunch, and the students had scattered around, eating, talking, or in this case, playing a game that had taken the world by storm. It was a new card game called Duel Monsters, and while some had talent, others seemed to have a long way to go.
Joey Wheeler was among the latter.
"Huh? Can she do that?" he asked.
Yugi Moto had a grin on his face as he nodded. "Oh yeah. The Breath of Life wears down rock monsters, reducing them to rubble."
The girl sitting across from Joey smiled brightly. "That brings your life points down to zero, Joey." Tea set down her cards. "Once again, you lose and I rock!"
"Better luck next time, Joey," Yugi told his friend, patting him on the shoulder. The short high schooler looked up to notice someone holding a newspaper. "Do you mind if I see that?"
The girl handed it over, and Yugi turned to the middle of the newspaper. "The regional championships are in a couple of days," he observed. "It should be interesting to watch, to say the least."
"Huh." Joey was looking over his shoulder, and pointed to a different article. "She's kinda cute."
"Way out of your league, Joey," Tea said dryly. "She'd eat you for breakfast. She's a Sarutobi, I know about her."
The group stared at her. "What? How do you know her?"
"Well, I don't know her personally, but her mother was a prima ballerina in France years ago, I remember. She married a Japanese business tycoon, and they had two daughters." She pointed to the picture. "She's the eldest, but it's so sad. Her parents and sister died in an accident."
It had been two weeks since she had flown from America to Japan, but already she was missing the familiarity of home. Or at least, a part of her was, the young, immature part. The other side of her never wanted to return there again. There were too many memories.
It was time to escape from them.
Glancing at a framed photograph, she pulled it flat against the desk, hiding the faces from looking forward at her and pushing it behind a vase of dark blossoms. She would have to remind her secretary to have the picture removed. Perhaps even burned.
"Miss Sarutobi? The man you requested to see is here."
I hate people who waste my time. She finished off the paperwork before her with a practiced, deliberate signature. "Let him in." He only took twenty minutes when I gave him ten to get up here.
Nevermind that her office was at the top floor of a huge skyscraper, even in a city notorious for large buildings. She was in a foul mood, a combination of very little sleep and sheer frustration, and was willing to blame anything for whatever irked her. At that moment, it was the fact that the man standing in the doorway couldn't handle some flights of stairs, or have the intelligence to find an elevator. Granted, if she looked back on all of it, she would say that her anger was probably irrational and probably undeserved. But he didn't need to know that.
"Miss Sarutobi, you called for me?" If it was possible to smell fear, then this man reeked of it in waves. He was already sweating, and she thought him even weaker for it. A true man would actually stand up for himself, not cower in the corner like a dog.
"Yes, this will not take long," she said coolly. Tucking a dark strand of hair behind an ear, she gestured to one of the two chairs in front of her desk. "Have a seat."
Her displeasure was clear enough that he sat in the chair so quickly there was a rush of air towards her face. So much for reeking of fear, the stench was something else entirely. She suspected that not only did his sweat cling to him in a fog, he had probably spent more time than was acceptable at a bar with a bottle of whiskey as his best friend and confidant. "I understand that the shipping department suffered a mishap with their computer network. A bug in the system, if you will."
"Yes, it did," he said shakily, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. "It wasn't for too long, we had it fixed in the next hour."
"Mr. Aoshi, do not lie to me. I don't take it very well." She set the papers aside for a moment and drew up a new file. "I actually had to take the time to have the virus traced myself. It took me some time to go through the logs and the networks, but I saw it through personally regardless. The glitch, to put it in the mildest sense, took four hours to repair, not just one. And I think we both know the one responsible for temporarily shutting down the firewalls." She leaned forward. "Logs never lie, not to me. Care to rephrase your argument?"
"It was an accident!"
Typical of a true escapist. How dull. "Accident or not, Aoshi, it doesn't matter. I was on the verge of losing a client because of your mistake!" she shouted, her voice climbing in volume. Her fist slammed down to the desk, rattling both the overturned picture frame and the vase, scattering two or three petals to the polished surface. "Do you know how much time and money was wasted on that oversight? Resources that could have been put to better use elsewhere, but instead they were put to cleaning up your mess! A business is like a machine, if one part fails, the rest will suffer for it! But of course...it is just a mistake, after all, right? Some, however, are bigger than others, which is why you are fired, Aoshi. I cannot run a company full of dullards like you who make mistakes and refuse to take responsibility for them. It's that kind of thinking that I will never tolerate." As he stared at her, she picked up her pen and clicked it. "Unless you would like for me to order security to throw you out, remove yourself from the premises. Immediately."
While he scurried to the door and practically fell over himself to get out of the spacious office, she toyed with the pen before crossing his name off of a scratched-off list. He was the last to go. Of course, it would take much longer to go through more logs and fire others, but for now she was satisfied. "A business is like a machine. I'm just replacing the faulty parts and cleaning the whole thing with polish so it can run more efficiently than ever before."
Two weeks was enough to miss home, it was true, but it was also long enough to weed out the incompetent idiots from her newly-acquired corporate empire. There would be no mistakes on her part, and she would oversee her father's former company with an iron fist. It was the only way she knew how to succeed. "Is it better to be feared or to be loved," she mused, propping her cheek on her fist as she recalled a book she'd read a week ago. "It is certainly better to be feared, I don't need the love of subordinates. Their duty is to serve, just as it is mine to lead."
Belladonna Sarutobi was the newly minted owner and CEO of Sarutobi Industries. She had turned eighteen not long before, thus granting her control of the company, but she'd honed the cold mentality and ruthlessness of a woman ten years her senior.
Most girls her age were in school uniforms or in pretty dresses. She, however, preferred to wear tailored suits most of the time, black ones if she could get away with it. A business partner told her once that it made her look like an agent of the devil, which she'd accepted like a compliment. It was exactly what a woman in her position was.
"Being the broker for the devil has its advantages, though," she murmured, making another note in her planner. "I get exactly what I want, when I want it."
"Miss Sarutobi, your next appointment has arrived."
"I am very popular today," she muttered, running a hand through her already mussed hair. "The seventh appointment today. I'm told that's a lucky number. Who is it, Yukiko?"
"The head of KaibaCorp, ma'am."
"I see. Show him in." She racked her brain for reasons why the head of that particular company, focused mostly around gaming technology, would want to have anything to do with her. To be sure, KaibaCorp was a weapon-mongering hotbed once upon a time when Gozaburo Kaiba ran it. But after the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death, the company instead turned to games and other forms of amusement she generally didn't pay attention to. "Maybe he wants me to build him a new toy."
"Right away, ma'am."
She stacked papers together and put them in the waiting briefcase. The clock on the desk read 7:35, and she sighed. She could feel the long hours of the day setting in, and as much as she just wanted to take a nap, it was unacceptable. "Professionalism, Bella, professionalism. Two weeks of this and you're crying over not getting any sleep? Yukiko will have to buy some more coffee, that's all. After this, you can just go home and end this nightmare."
"It comes with the territory. Pulling all-nighters will become second-nature to you."
When she looked up, she saw a tall, slender young man who looked to be around her age. He wore a blue coat that matched his eyes and his hair was brown. He was pretty handsome, she had to admit, for a henchman. There was no way he could be the head of a global monopoly. "I've suffered through a fair share, I know what they're like," she said sweetly, the honey dripping from her voice like arsenic. "I didn't expect the CEO of KaibaCorp to send proxies to talk for him. I was told by a mutual acquaintance that he did everything himself."
A muscle twitched in his jaw and his eyes narrowed. Inwardly, Bella smiled. She'd begun the sparring match with the upper hand. "I'm the head of KaibaCorp," he corrected her testily.
Her eyebrows rose. "I didn't think such a renowned businessman like yourself would be so young." She desperately wanted to add I smell inexperience, but reined in her tongue at the last minute.
"That sounds pretty funny coming from you. Sorry to cut this nonsense short, but I didn't come here to chat."
She leaned back in her chair and waved at the seat in front of her nonchalantly. "But chat is what establishes business relationships, didn't you know? Or maybe Gozaburo didn't teach you that's how networking's done? Why don't you have a seat."
"Gozaburo didn't teach me anything worth mentioning. Everything I've learned that's useful, I've learned from myself." He jerked the chair back a few inches and settled into it. "Belladonna Sarutobi."
"Seto Kaiba. Ironic, but enough about that. I just moved to Domino a couple of weeks ago, I've barely been able to tell things apart," she sighed, feigning slight distress. Overdoing it always proved fatal. "Yukiko, my secretary, has been keeping tabs on my appointments for me, so please, tell me why you're here."
He smirked a little at that. "What kind of person doesn't even keep track of their own appointments? Just how incompetent are you?"
Her face kept its relatively polite expression, though she was about two smartass remarks away from losing it and smacking him. Her clenched fists underneath the desk were the only things preventing bodily harm from coming to him. How dare he imply that-No, Bella. Don't let him win.
His eyes said nothing at all as he crossed his arms over his chest. "I'm interested in purchasing a contract from you," Kaiba said calmly, the smug smirk still very evident. "That's what you do, or am I wrong?"
His words kept needling through her skin like tiny barbs. "And let me guess, you'll want me to sign it in my blood and then enslave myself to your will," she replied, her tone one of boredom. Just short of propping her feet on the desk and inspecting her fingernails, she couldn't have made her point more clear.
"That's a little morbid of you. Is that what you want?" he countered, but the smirk didn't disappear. "As fun as it sounds to have you as a servant, I think I'll pass."
She folded her hands and rested her chin on them. Don't let him win. "I am a bit morbid, but I think you knew that already." He gave a slight nod but said nothing. She couldn't fault the man for that, at least he'd done his homework. "So, what's this all about?"
He slid a briefcase under the desk. Though his fingers barely missed touching her knee, she could still feel them pass by and had to resist flinching. I can't shake the feeling that he's either coming on to me or just straight up propositioning me, like I'm his personal- "Inside's the full contract, but you won't need to open it yet."
"Ah, so everything's in the suitcase, and I sit on it until you say 'go', yes? What happens if I play a Pandora card and open the dreaded box? What would happen then?"
He restrained himself from rolling his eyes. "Go ahead, I won't stop you. I said you won't need to open it yet, not that you couldn't. It's a construction contract, the details are enclosed."
Why's he playing so close to the chest? "I suppose my payment for this construction contract waits until I've done what you want."
"Not exactly," he corrected, the smile in full force, but it was more of a demented one. Is this man incapable of changing his smug face into something else? "It's in my best interest in the long run to keep you well-compensated, money is no object. A blank check lets me be on the top of your priority list and keep it that way, which is exactly what I want. I will be the first thing you think of in the morning, and the last before you sleep."
She had to hide a grimace. You're the last thing I want to think about that often. She stopped. He seems pretty intense, with it just being a contract. Does he really expect me to cater to his every whim? "And what makes you think I'll take it on in the first place? You seem pretty confident that I'll do what you say."
"Oh, you will do what I say, because money talks more than anything else."
"So where is this compensation of yours? Hm? I don't see it anywhere."
Kaiba pulled out an envelope from his coat and slid it across the desk, then stood and went to the door. "That's for that top-priority slot with a little extra on top. It should hit the spot, even for someone like you."
She stared at the door long after it had closed behind the bastard. She reached for the envelope, but had a sudden change of heart and grabbed a vase instead. Shattering it violently against the wall, Bella hurled more things across the room and in every direction. Just as she was overturning a bookcase in her fury, destroying thousands of dollars in fine china in the process, Yukiko poked her head through the adjoining room. "Miss Sarutobi?"
"Who does that prick think he is?" she shouted, throwing a book across the room, followed by a paperweight that shattered a pane of glass, then cracking against the stone. "Waltzing in here like he's God's great gift to man, like he owns everything in this room, like he owns me! Like he can buy me, like I'm some kind of mistress to him, or his lapdog! How dare he! I have to wait until I get his permission! And he thinks a little extra money will make me go along with it? I can't believe him!"
"Miss Sarutobi...?"
Bella slid a hand over her face and took a deep breath, turning to face the windows behind the desk. She began to pace, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Wait, wait. He's trying to pull a partnership between KaibaCorp and Sarutobi Industries, that's it, and I can't ruin it. Obviously he was trying to feel me out to see what I was like, but I can't back down from it now. It's my big chance at this, it would only prove more that I made the right choice and that I'm more than capable of taking control of this company. I still hate him, I have to tolerate him, and his type is just going to be a thorn in my side and make my life absolutely miserable until he gets what he wants." I guess I'll just squeeze him dry before he gets me. I'll make sure he makes it worth my while. But damn, I hate him!
Yukiko picked her way through the mess very carefully. "Miss Sarutobi?"
"What, Yukiko?"
"I'll call the designers to come and fix up the office. This won't do for your schedule you have tomorrow. What do you want to use as your excuse? They will be very curious."
Bella pondered on it for a moment, contemplating her different options. "If they ask, and only if they ask, tell them I was with someone," she replied dryly, fetching her coat and shrugging it over her shoulders. "Let them speculate what happened. If they ask who, give them a name, no details. Let them have fun with that."
"Any name, or did you have one in mind already?"
Though it was probably immature, but she couldn't resist the last final dig at him. "Kaiba would be at the top of the list, I think. It might put him on the ropes for a while and keep him out of my hair while I finish sorting out everything in my life. School, company purging, I don't have time for an annoying baby dragon. Just have to swat him away before he becomes a pest."
"Very good, ma'am."