I've officially unoffically named all three of the Otogi-turned-Ryou fangirls since the series did not. Yumi, Terumi and Natsumi. The Umi Trio. Fear them. Your best bet for their looks is to watch the anime episodes introducing Otogi, since those are the girls I'm basing their appearances off. I described Yumi last chapter, so that leaves Natsumi as the blond one with the sharp chin while Terumi is the brunette who looks like a Rumiko Takahashi side-character.
Unbeta'd, awkwardly confess any and all mistakes.
It's another hideous day, so much so that the security guards refuse to let Anzu and Jounouchi make their own ways to school, leading to an awkwardly quiet ride for the three of them in the car. The driver looks at them sternly through the rear view mirror, perhaps sterner than usual and for allegedly good reason, according to Mokuba AND Isono.
Seto is effectively grounded - about as close as you can get to grounding a CEO, anyway. By the entirety of Kaiba Corporation. Mokuba was decidedly unimpressed with his late night jaunt to the office, enough so that in the time it took for Seto to eat his breakfast and get dressed for school, he'd rallied Seto's more intimidating secretaries and loyal office workers into forming a conspiracy of paperwork that has left no gaps for Seto to 'interfere' with. He's proud of his baby brother. He would most likely lose if they ever met as competitors - Seto has learned from the masters and Mokuba has in turn learned from him.
Once school ends, they won't be able to stop him from stalking around the Research and Development department at the very least. Seto's not one for sitting idle and if he can't snatch paperwork from someone he'll just have to get even more involved with the creative side of Kaiba Corp. There are always new models to code and new advances in technology that mean even MORE models to code to bring them up to his standards. Even the Duel Disks are due a software upgrade to allow for Solid Vision to take the lighting of the environment around them into account for even more accurate renders, for example.
He briefly considers checking in on the employees (or, 'Illusionists' as they like to call themselves) assimilated from the Japanese branch of Industrial Illusions after the death of Pegasus, although he doesn't particularly relish the thought. Last time he ventured into the turpentine saturated depths of their department, every single flat surface was a mess of concept sketches and oil color swatches. The time before that, he'd walked in on an argument about exactly how much fluff was too much on a concept piece for Toon Watapon that lasted for hours and divided the whole floor down the middle - literally. There was a chalk line and everything. Pegasus had certainly known how to pick 'em, because they continued designing beautiful cards even without his guidance. Eccentrics know their own.
Speaking of eccentrics, as promised Ryou is in school. He's all smiles as Yugi practically tackles him as a greeting, buzzing with questions about his new place and if Seto hadn't been the one speaking to him and near black bags weren't under both their eyes, he would've never believed that Ryou had been awake at such an unsociable hour. Surely being that chipper on less than four hours of sleep is illegal, though that assumes he even slept.
Seto considers joining in the conversation, if only to be nosy, but suddenly wonders if calling him 'Ryou' is a little too much, too soon - the others still call him Bakura, after all. He finds that a little odd, on reflection. Ryou calls Yugi and Anzu by their first names after all. Ryou makes the choice for him by greeting him with a warm "Good morning, Kaiba!" and he nods back. Only over the phone then. Only Mokuba calls him Seto in public after all. If Ryou started, it would probably draw more attention to the both of them that neither would enjoy.
Otogi is in their classroom today, which is odd considering his class is several doors down. He's made a bet with Honda to see how long he can sit in on their lessons before anyone notices. It's mid-afternoon and Seto is mildly curious about what he stands to win as Honda glares at the clock.
Thunder ripples across the sky, the windows rattle in their frames and the classroom is suddenly illuminated with a flash of lightning. The storm must be right above the school and it's fierce enough for the teacher to pause his lecture and take a worried glance outside. There's an odd sensation on Seto's wrist where the garnets touch his wrist, like a tingling feeling.
The lights flicker out and it's dark enough thanks to the clouds that Seto can instantly tell who's been sneakily texting in class from the glow of their screens, as can the teacher who scowls at the offending students, though he's long since learned the pointlessness of trying to confiscate them. His presentation has vanished along with the lights and since the man is incompetent and only capable of reading what's projected onto the board, his lecture is effectively over.
They wait a minute. Two minutes. The power doesn't come back and the whispers of the bored students grow louder, not that they were very subtle in the first place.
The teacher clears his throat. "All of you, stay put - Miss Mazaki, you're in charge. I'm going to find out what the situation is. Read chapter five and take notes yourselves while I'm gone and anyone who's not in here when I get back..."
Once the door closes behind him, almost everyone is out of their seats and turning to their neighbors, or pulling out their phones again. Ryou is one of them, firing off some texts by the looks of things. A few students start doodling on the chalkboard. Seto skims through chapter five and quickly decides it's not worth the effort - the teacher apparently thought copying chunks directly from it constituted a presentation - and thinks about pulling out his laptop for some quick email checking, but decides against it. He doesn't want to run out of power, so he settles for his old, well read standby, letting the classroom noise fade around him.
It's been five minutes since the teacher left and people are getting antsy. He hears the desks behind him scrape against the floor as they get rearranged.
Yugi's not dueling for once; Ryou's done with whoever he was texting and has asked Jounouchi for a duel, which he accepts with a resigned look of terror on his face. He has no idea why Jounouchi seems so skittish about dueling him. They're just cards, even if Ryou can make them materialize. The artwork isn't even that scary - Ryou's cards are relatively tame compared to some of the cards Seto has had to veto. Sometimes the Illusionists get a little... avant-garde.
They're neck and neck, the defeat of Ryou's Goblin Zombie allowing him to summon a Zombie Mammoth, which gets a formidable buff from his existing Wasteland. Jounouchi plays the old standby of Baby Dragon and the Time Wizard and the duel grinds to a halt as apparently everyone used up all their spare change at lunch, so there's no coin to flip.
One boy gets bored of watching the duel. He loudly proclaims that he's going to the bathroom, in perhaps the least subtle invitation for a smoke break Seto's ever heard. A few of his friends join him, but when he tries the door, it doesn't open. He blinks, confused, then tries again. The boy's friends all tug at the handle and it doesn't budge an inch. Honda asks around; nobody heard the door lock. Nobody can hear anything outside, actually. Not the rain on the windows even though they can see it, not the other classes being taught or being similarly rowdy in the darkness. Seto takes out his phone and quietly sighs in relief that he still has a signal. If anything happens he can still reach Mokuba.
He watches as Anzu tries to open the window. It doesn't budge. Someone laughs uneasily, jokes that the teacher must know how terrible his lecture is if he didn't want everyone to escape. It doesn't help.
Ryou reaches into his bag and pulls out his phone again, tapping away at the screen. A few moments later, a text arrives for Seto.
Remember what I said to you last night? - R
Of course.
How could he forget? He might still be in the slightest bit of denial, perhaps, but he couldn't forget.
I think we've got a live one. The fire code means all the doors and windows should be unlockable from the inside without a key. - R
So a ghost or ghoul or some otherworldly creature has trapped them in the classroom. Or he has grounds to sue the school for negligence. Either way, it's marginally more interesting than the lecture.
Are we in danger?
Probably not. I'm more worried about the teachers, to be honest. - R
Why?
If it was just a poltergeist or something pulling a joke, it wouldn't care about splitting us up. There's no point. - R
The brief image of some nature documentary Mokuba had watched flashed into his mind, of a wolf pack picking off a straggler from the herd. Wait...
Teacher/s/?
Yes. We're not the only classroom hit. Terumi and Natsumi's teacher is gone too, and there could be more. Yumi's off sick though, so I don't know about her class. The team's one short :( - R
Seto considers the unspoken offer. He had the vague memory of Yumi and the kappas from the night before but he has no idea who either Natsumi or Terumi are. He barely interacts with people who consider him a friend, after all, and these two are complete strangers. On the other hand, he has the image of Mokuba trapped in his own classroom (even if it's nowhere near Domino High and there's no way the same haunting could take place at the same time) in his mind and if Ryou knows a way for Seto to help stop it, he'll do it a thousand times over. On the other other hand, he has a vague feeling that once he takes this step, there's no going back. Like he's standing over an abyss and nothing but endless blue awaits him at the bottom.
He makes up his mind and nods - he's never feared the unknown before, so why should he even consider giving it the time of day now?
Ryou's face lights up and be beckons him over quietly. Honda looks at him when he moves to stand beside Ryou, a little confusion on his face, though not for long and he soon turns back to conversing with Jounouchi. Ryou scribbles something on a piece of paper, tears the page out of his notepad and pushes it into Seto's hand. There's a symbol drawn on it that Seto has a vague memory of seeing before, like a stylized eye, but before Seto can ask what it is, Ryou leans over and taps the Time Wizard card three times.
Everything stops. Jounouchi is frozen mid-sentence, a pencil rolling off someone's desk hangs in mid-air. The classroom is completely silent except for Seto's slightly rapid breathing and an incessant ticking.
Ryou stares at Seto, his face unreadable. Seto can only blink back at him, because he's just watched someone stop time using a trading card and that's not really something you see every day. He wonders if he's just fallen asleep in class and the teacher's fist is going to come crashing down on the back of his head any time now.
"Seto? Are you okay?"
He manages to tear his gaze away from the rest of the classroom to look at Ryou. He's jittery. Skittish, a far cry from the confident exorcist who confronted Gozaburo. Like he's afraid of how Seto's going to react. They're in the same boat; Seto doesn't know how to react either. The paper with the eye on it is crumpled in his hand.
"Give me a second."
"S-sure! No problem! You, uh... You relax and I can start working on the door in the meantime!"
Ryou dashes over to the door and examines the hinges, pulling out strips of paper from his satchel, along with a fine paintbrush and black ink - always prepared, apparently. He scribbles runes and seals all over them, then licks the backs and slaps them on the hinges of the door. There's an odd crackle and the faintest hint of smoke as the paper strips burn away to nothing, but when Ryou tries the door again, it opens as easily at it always had. Maybe even a little better, it always gets stuck about halfway anyway.
"I need to get the same seal you have on Natsumi and Terumi so they can move, they're in Otogi's class. That's a few doors from here, but I can't predict what we might run into once we hit the hallway. I might not be able to..."
He turns away from Seto then. He stands rigid in the doorway. "You can still back out now, if you like. All you need to do is tear up that piece of paper or hand it back to me and you'll unfreeze with everyone else. It'll be like you blinked."
It occurs to Seto after a few minutes that Ryou is waiting for him to agree.
"I can handle it."
The hallway is quiet, almost as if the two of them are merely sneaking out in the middle of class. He almost expects to be busted by a hall monitor or something. Nothing jumps out at them as they go to the other classroom, which bugs Seto. You'd think something that went to all the trouble of trapping the students would notice when some of them escaped, though perhaps it's caught in time too. Do supernatural things operate on the same level as something as natural as time?
Ryou does the same trick with their door. Otogi's classroom is noticeably more in order than Seto's - most of the students actually had their textbooks open, and were hunched over them writing dutifully, or at least they had been. Ryou stops in front of two girls who are hiding their phones instead. They must be Terumi and Natsumi. Ryou draws the same symbol for them on paper and presses it onto their frozen palms.
They unfreeze with a start, looking around warily. Then they see Ryou. The brunette jumps up and tackles Ryou, hanging off his neck with a giggle, while the blonde holds back and her eyes are sharp as she looks Seto up and down.
"Why's he here?"
Ryou eventually manages to dislodge his assailant, who pouts as she sits on her desk. The brunette interrupts Ryou. "Isn't it obvious Natsu? Domino's most handsome devil is filling in for Yuyu!"
Seto's brain short circuits at that. Handsome devil. Is that really what she thinks of him? Do other people think like that?
"But how does he know?"
Ryou darts in before the girl - presumably Terumi - can interrupt him again. "Because I told him."
Natsumi scowls at Ryou. "You said yourself that you didn't want anyone else involved."
Ryou shrugs. "Kaiba's an exception."
"Why?"
"That's for him and only him to know."
The Tone again, and evidently Natsumi's heard the Tone before too, because she looks away and doesn't ask him anything else. There's an awkward silence that only seems awkward for him and Natsumi, since Terumi is happy to help Ryou as he searches his satchel, finally pulling out a map of the school. Terumi quickly sketches a few more rough copies and hands them out to everyone, while Ryou goes over the plan.
"Okay, I think we should split in two to cover more ground - so long as time is still stopped, we're safe. Don't touch anyone or anything you see or they'll be unfrozen for as long as you touch them, and don't try to turn the power back on. If you find anything out of the ordinary, make a note of where and we'll meet up here again in... Well, try your best to keep count of ten minutes. Remember, don't touch anything."
Now this is more like what Seto likes to see. Authoritative, confident... It's the voice of someone who took on Gozaburo Kaiba and won.
Terumi perks up at the idea of splitting up, immediately latching on Ryou's arm. "Me! I'm with you!"
Ryou shrugs, the best he can anyway. "Natsumi and Kaiba then?"
Kaiba nods, then turns to Natsumi. She's staring out the window and speaks without looking at them.
"... Sure."
What on earth is her problem? Seto knows he's not the only one confused. Terumi pouts while Ryou frowns. Maybe she's possessed and Seto must be subconsciously more comfortable with all this than he thinks because the thought is entirely plausible.
They split up after Ryou checks the hallway again - evidently he has the same concerns that Seto does about the extent of the Time Wizard's abilities. The increasingly distant chatter of Ryou and Terumi only highlights the quiet that now chills him and Natsumi.
Roughly five minutes pass. Seto's made a few marks on the page, but that's only when Natsumi picks them out in the first place. Things that Seto doesn't notice at all, like a pair of two left shoes in the shoe lockers by the school entrance, or one of the signs on the noticeboard written entirely backwards. They all seem kinda small and ultimately harmless and Seto is pretty sure they're not just dealing with one spirit. Perhaps some straggler picked up on the larger spirit moving in on the school and decided to have some fun.
Natsumi grows edgier and snippier with each thing she has to point out, like she cannot believe how much Seto is missing.
"I expected better from you, Kaiba. Considering Bakura gave you special treatment and all, I figured you'd have some experience."
She's brave, braver than most. She'd be popular with the secretaries back at Kaiba Corp.; every single one of them was hired on the basis that they weren't intimidated by him at all. As it is, Seto's a little too distracted by the increasingly creepy halls of the school to be offended.
"He didn't give me special treatment. He asked if I wanted to come along to fill Yumi's place, that's all. I'm convenient."
Natsumi gives him a glare suggesting he's anything but, her eyebrows furrowing as whatever anger's been building up these last five minutes suddenly bursts out of her with a snarl.
"It's bad enough when someone as cute as Bakura's around, but you too? She's never going to even look at me!"
Natsumi slaps her hands in front of her mouth as her outburst echoes, her face paling and Seto doesn't figure out what she just admitted until she bolts, fleeing down the hallway.
Oh.
Oh.
Seto reconsiders his earlier thoughts on friendship. Love is the ultimate clusterfuck, especially if it's apparently unrequited. He chases after her, partially because the idea that he's going to mock her or that he might reveal her secret isn't something he wants her to torment herself with - he's the first to admit he can be a jerk, but he's not that kind of jerk - and also because the hallway is a whole lot darker and colder when he's the only one in it.
