Chapter Eleven:

Seto glanced at the clock, realizing he'd done so several times already. It was only about three in the afternoon, he still had plenty of time, but Yami was taking too long. If he didn't make up his mind soon, Seto was going to have to go with trying to override the security system and stealing the diamond himself.

A knock on his office door made him look up. Mokuba came in, looking beside himself with glee. Seto blinked at him.

"What's that look for?"

"I did it," Mokuba said happily. He plopped down on the edge of Seto's desk. "I proposed to Marianne. She said yes!"

Seto leaned back in his seat and smiled. "Congratulations, Mokuba."

"Thanks." Mokuba let out a breath. "I've never been more nervous in doing anything. I took Marianne to the place where we had our first date, got the engagement ring from Cabot's Jeweler's downtown."

"You took her for lunch?"

"Uh, no. Actually, I got engaged last night."

Seto got the implication immediately. "Ah."

Marianne had been staying in Japan since last week, in the fanciest hotel in the city. Mokuba had been staying there, too, which meant only one thing. In order cover up the rather uncomfortable moment, Seto asked, "When's the date?"

"Marianne and I agreed on a short engagement. We've been dating for three years, we managed a long-distance relationship the last eight months, it seems meant-to-be. We chose November 8th."

Seto nodded his head. "If you want to do something, go ahead and do it. I'll fly Marianne's parents in from England."

Mokuba grinned at him. "Thanks. You know, it's the bride's parents who are supposed to pay for everything. Marianne's parents have almost as much money as you do."

Seto grunted. Marianne's father came from very old money, something about being descended from a Tudor family. It was true that he had a lot of money and if he wanted to pay for the wedding, Seto didn't care. Mokuba had a lot of money himself, being now a full-partner for Kaiba Corp. Seto still had more percentage of the company than his brother, but he had given Mokuba a real section of the ownership on his eighteenth birthday, rather than just the pittance he'd gotten when Gozaburo had died. Mokuba owned the amusement park and office in England, and Seto fully expected him to move there once he and Marianne were married. The two of them had already been accepted to Oxford University.

He was about to, for the first time, no longer have his brother always at his side. It was a strange thought, but he wasn't that upset. Mokuba was a grown man now and he deserved a life of his own. Seto had known this moment was coming for a while and no one was more practical than he.

"Is the wedding going to be here or in England?" He'd automatically said he'd bring the Coltranes to Japan, but most likely the bride would want to be home for her wedding.

"We're not sure yet. Either way, Marianne would like her parents here, to give them the news."

"Fine. Call them and tell them they can fly in whenever they need to."

Mokuba grinned again, looking very happy. "Thanks, Seto. Maybe we can get them in here by tomorrow night. Hey, can you have dinner with us on Sunday?"

Seto's usual distaste for going on his brother's dates wasn't the only reason he didn't want to go that night. He glanced at the clock again, before cursing himself. It was only twenty minutes later since the last time he'd looked.

"Mokuba, you know I--"

"It's not a date. Marianne's parents will be here by then and the two families need to spend at least some time together before the wedding. You only met Marianne twice and you've never seen the Coltranes at all."

Seto bit back a sigh. It was true; as the head of the Kaiba family, it rather was his duty to greet the bride's parents, especially since they were coming here to his home city. He nodded reluctantly.

"But I'm leaving it up to you to make the arrangements."

Mokuba laughed. "Yeah, I thought you would. Okay, I'll let you get back to work. I need to be going anyway, I've got a meeting with Icho for the redesign. See ya, Seto."

Seto nodded his head and watched his brother leave the room. Almost as soon as the door closed, like it had been planned, his phone rang and he answered it. He wasn't that surprised that it was Takanawa.

"Yeah?"

"You're running out of time, kid. By my watch, you've got nine hours. Figured out a plan yet?"

"Sure. Want me to spell it out so you can offer your great wisdom?"

Takanawa laughed. "I don't expect you to do it."

"Never expect anything about me."

"Hm, I'll take that to heart." Takanawa snorted in sarcasm. "Tick, tock, kid."

******

Seto had forced himself to return to work as usual after Takanawa had hung up. He'd finished out his day and returned home, finding that Mokuba had clearly chosen to spend the night with Marianne again. He ate the dinner his cook laid out before retiring upstairs and logging into his computer. He never did anything without a back-up plan, so if that punk decided to not help him, he'd better have a fall-back.

An hour later, he'd managed to hack into the museum database. He had taken great lengths to backtrack over his own hack, hoping it was confusing enough not to be traced. He studied the floor plan of the museum, checking where the diamond necklace was being kept. He was right though, the guard-shift roster was not there. He'd have to take his chances sneaking around like a silly fool if Yami didn't come through for him.

Seto backed out of the system and turned off his computer, leaning back in his chair and thinking. He'd memorized the location of the diamond as well as the general floor plan, so that part wouldn't be too hard. And movies had provided a broad picture of how to heist a diamond. He could enter through the delivery bay doors in the back and make it way up to the second floor, where the diamond was being displayed in the jewelry section. If he placed a virus in the computer's security with his laptop just before entering the building, he'd have maybe half an hour tops to secure the diamond. The security was multi-leveled, but he'd already been successful breaking through it once. There wasn't much in computer terms that could defeat Seto Kaiba.

Now for Takanawa. Tracking him down was going to be near impossible, considering he was still a mob boss, however low he'd been brought by the take-over of Kaiba Corp. Certainly he wasn't personally anywhere near Seto. Maybe brute force was the best way to go about this. The 'associate' was coming to Kaiba Corp. at midnight to pick up the diamond. There was a possibilty Seto could get the best of him; he was very strong and if he got the drop on the guy, even a weapon wouldn't matter. The associate was sure to be packing, but would he suspect a physical attack? If Seto did get the best of him, maybe he could force his boss' whereabouts out of him, or better yet, make him take him to Takanawa.

But there was a flaw in that plan as well, aside from the possibility the guy would overwhelm him. Idiots like this rarely worked alone and it would only take the guy raising the alarm to screw Seto. He was strong, but he certainly couldn't take three guys, particularly if they had heat on them.

Maybe there would be another way, if he could only think about it. Takanawa expected him to stay away from the cops, in order to protect his brother. As well as to help hide the indiscretions Seto himself had committed. He certainly didn't need the cops digging into his personal history. While he wasn't afraid of jail time, not with his influence and money, but Kaiba Corp. also didn't need the bad press, not when it was still recovering from a couple of bad fiscal years. The new parks were barely open and the corporation had done nothing new besides for several years. Maybe it was time to change that, get people interested again in Kaiba Corp's biggest merchandise line, Duel Monsters. But how to go about that?

The problem nowadays was the miserable dueling he saw going on. While Duel Monsters retained its cult following status, the few duels he'd witnessed taking place in minor local tournaments and such were laughable. The duelists were shoddy, weak, and spotty on the rules. With the reigning Duel Monster champion permanently off the radar, Seto himself busy with opening his parks, and Maximillion Pegasus basically out of the spotlight, there had been no one to teach the new kids how to do it right.

Hm... teaching kids how to do it right. That almost sounded interesting. It would give Kaiba Corporation another big slice of Duel Monsters profits if he could get Pegasus to agree to it, considering he still retained the game's rights. He'd have a lot of work to do getting it set up, but--

Damn it, he had to get his mind focused back on his current dilemma. If he didn't do this the right way, there wasn't going to be any point in planning for the future. He'd either be dead or in jail. He'd have to find out more about Takanawa's weaknesses and exploit them.

Well, the bastard had chosen to use Seto's only weakness against him, his brother. Maybe it was time to get down and dirty and turn the tables.

Seto logged back into his computer and went back to all the information he could find on Takanawa, searching for family history. He wasn't completely sure he had the right Takanawa as there were a few other entries under that name, but given the approximate age and the villainous background, he was pretty sure he did. This Hiroshi Takanawa had a deceased wife, a brother that had married though there was no listing of children for them, and Takanawa himself had only a four-year-old son by a twenty-three-year-old woman. Seto had to stare at that entry for a moment, unsure of the truthfulness. Takanawa had to be in his sixties. Randy bastard.

It was while he was in the middle of that that his home office door burst open without a knock and a certain someone came stumbling in.

Yami came right up to his desk, leaned over it with both hands splayed on the shiny wooden surface and declared, "I'll do it, Kaiba."