Chapter 28: Transparency
On the verge of telling Seto what she had been avoiding for months now, she was badly startled when a finger was suddenly shoved right over her shoulder past her face, clipping the tip of her ear, especially when her anxiety was up so high already. She had been wondering how to broach this subject for weeks now, and admitted that the longer she waited the worse his reaction was going to be to the news that she owned part of his company. Her guilt over that had been steadily growing, along with her fear of what his reaction would be, although she knew she couldn't reasonably take credit for the issue herself. What she did see as her fault, because it was her fault, was not telling Seto about it, which she knew very well she should have the moment that stupid envelope ended up in her apartment. Oh, he would have been furious she knew, but probably would have gotten over it fairly quickly had she been totally upfront about it from the start, especially since it was Pegasus who had given it to her. Now, well, she was simply lying about it and there was no way around that, but the longer she waited the harder it seemed to be to bring up. Seto had been good to her, far better than she deserved, and she was currently repaying that with dishonesty, which was fully detestable. It was only worse, in her mind, now that they were sleeping together and had entered into a relationship, and they really shouldn't have secrets between them. Certainly not secrets of this magnitude. It just wasn't how things were supposed to be.
She was starting to think the guilt of it was what was making her have such horrible dreams, or the very real fear she had that he would leave her over this, although that didn't seem fully right either. The dreams were too real, and the odd incidents she had been trying to write off were now too frequent to deny that she was either actually going crazy, which Mokuba had somewhat alleviated with his assertion that the shadows were real, or something else was going on. But pushing her unease about that away she had decided to tell him once the tournament was over the day after her birthday, only waiting longer because she was concerned it would throw him off his game. The last thing she wanted was to somehow destroy his focus after all the work he put into it. However, if Pegasus was here there was no way for her to predict if he was going to use that very information against her, or to eliminate Seto's control over himself at an inopportune time. The president of Industrial Illusions might have advised her to keep this to herself, to hide it from Seto, but that could have been so he could spring it on him and watch him self-destruct. She knew, no matter how badly he reacted, that hearing this from her would be a thousand times better than hearing it from Pegasus. Realizing she may have fallen into a trap he set she was feeling even more foolish about the entire thing. So when Seto told her he was in the city she saw no way around it anymore, not without making it even worse than it already would be.
Gearing herself up for the worst she was about to confess to everything when they were interrupted. She was so startled that her normal control over herself had no time to kick in. She cringed to the right, away from the appendage, fully expecting to be hit at the sudden appearance of a hand before her eyes, and knocked her glass over, sending water all over the table and splashing toward Seto. Navy eyes flashed in rage as he moved away from the water before it got on him, standing up abruptly, his chair scraping against the cement at the swift shove, even as he grabbed the foreign hand and yanked it away from her. Seto was glaring daggers at a short man as he shoved him away from her and the table. She didn't recognize him, but he was obviously a duelist as he had one of the duel disks on. About as tall as Yugi, or no more than a few inches taller, the man had on an odd looking fringed vest, matching pants, and a red beanie. His hair was brown with a strangely placed, dusty purple streak near the front, which matched nothing he wore and only stood out as awkward in her mind. "Go away." Seto snapped harshly. "I'm clearly busy."
The man sent him a look of irritation, not really bothered by being shoved away. "I'm challenging you." He growled as he shoved his finger toward her again, although he was actually pointing at Seto at a rather odd angle. She leaned back as he got too close to her again, not liking that at all, and Seto's temper silently exploded and he smacked the man's hand away none too gently.
"I would be more than happy to explain manners to you in a way you can understand." Seto growled.
The man puffed up and turned toward him, crossing his arms over his chest. "You can't say no. Those are your rules, Kaiba." His dark eyes glittering. "Or are you forfeiting to me?"
Seto raised an eyebrow, clearly indicating he thought this duelist was in way over his head. "I can see you're in a hurry to get knocked out of the tournament." He remarked, his voice bland, and she saw him noting that the man had only one glowing mark remaining. Reaching into his trench coat he pulled out his wallet and paid for their meal before she could get to her purse, being sure the bills were well away from the spilled water. She was beyond frustrated by the interruption when this conversation could already be done and over with, or at least the subject would be out in the open. She tried to ignore that she could have brought this subject up anytime they had been alone since they got back from San Fransisco, but couldn't in good conscious. No matter how rude or badly timed, this wasn't the strangers fault.
Seto must have seen the look of helpless frustration on her face because she saw him studying her closely, the way he did when he was trying to work something out. However, he clearly decided to deal with this duelist first so he could give her his full attention. Seto turned fluidly, his jacket snapping about him as he held his hand out to help her up, on the side of the table farthest from his apparent opponent so she would be well away from him, clearly noting her unease with all the swinging about. Slipping her hand into his she allowed him to help her up, taking her bag with her free hand as he spoke. "It seems I should have put a clause in the rules for rude interruptions." He commented dryly.
Despite herself her lip twitched up at the corner. "If you did I'm sure more than thirty of them would already be gone."
The duelist narrowed his eyes in annoyance, but she wasn't overly concerned. "Are we going to duel or what, Kaiba?"
"I wouldn't call what's about to happen a duel." Kaiba remarked as he headed toward the open square the restaurant stood along, weaving easily between the few tables that were between them and the area. "More like an exercise in futility."
The other man puffed himself up as she followed willingly after Seto, adjusting her bag on her shoulder as they went and liking that he still had her hand in his. Clearly, Seto was not pleased with the interruption, as she was about to tell him something, or the way the other man was acting toward them, which was more than rude. Seto was generally off putting to strangers, but he wasn't holding his tongue at all with this man. The duelist snapped. "I'm ranked eighteenth in the world!"
Despite herself her annoyance was diminishing somewhat. She still hadn't had a chance to watch Seto duel, and this would certainly be as good, if not better, than his game against Bandit Keith. While it wouldn't have the pomp or circumstance Seto relished in she would get better than a front row seat to this, and wouldn't have to worry about hearing over a crowd. "Are you really?" She asked with interest. He was high up if that were true, outdoing Keith by ten or twelve people, although she couldn't recall exactly what rank the other duelist was. Seto had told her, but she couldn't recall at the moment. "That's really impressive." She remarked. "What's your name?"
The duelist's face went red in rage. She stared at him blankly as they paused at the edge of the square, aware that the question had upset him, although she hadn't meant it as a slur. Really, she didn't follow professional gamers at all and knew virtually nothing about any of the duelists here, save for the ones she had meet at school. But even so she wouldn't have been able to comment in any way on their decks, save for Seto's since she had seen it. Within moments the duelist was yelling, beside himself at not being recognized. "Are you serious?" He turned to Seto. "Is she serious?"
"I might need a reminder as well." He commented in a bored sort of way, and she could tell he was feigning ignorance to annoy the other man. Seto didn't forget anything, at least that she had seen so far, and was sure he knew who this was. He probably knew every card in his deck as she found it likely he had committed most of the duelist's cards and strategies here to memory before the competition started. It was just something he would have done.
The shorter man was fuming. "I'm Rex Raptor!" He snapped. "You dueled me in the international championships the year you were ranked first in the world!"
Seto walked by him, not at all concerned with him. "I've beaten hundreds of duelists." Kaiba stood at one end of the square as she moved out of the way when he let go of her, ready to watch a few feet to his left, right out of the area the projections would start displaying. "I only bother to remember the good ones."
The sharp words cut at Rex and he seethed. He quickly moved in front of Seto, clearly here to prove something, and both of them raised their hands to activate a duel, Seto's whole demeanor radiating how uninterested in this whole process he was. Tiny projectors shot out and landed on the pavement, booting up quickly as they connected to the Kaiba Corp mainframe and began to broadcast. Rex drew fast, notably so, and was laying a card down before Seto had gotten two cards out of his deck. She'd never seen anything like that, but saw Seto's eyes narrowing at the action. It was the first emotion other than boredom or dismissal he'd sent the other man since he challenged him. She figured it meant something to him, but not really to her. Since that was the case she simply watched, making note to ask Seto about it after the duel. Unfazed by Rex he continued to draw cards at a normal pace. "I lay one card face down and play Kiteptera in attack mode!" Rex asserted loudly.
She looked up at the large winged dinosaur, having never seen one like that before. While Seto had a great deal of cards for her to look at and pick from, she hadn't spent much time on any monsters but dragons. She supposed she might have simply overlooked this card when she was making her deck. "Is that all?" Seto goaded.
"Yes, go!" Rex insisted, and all at once she realized what he was trying to do. Really, it wasn't a good strategy, and made her think he was relying on being irritating more than his own skill.
"Do you really think you can hurry me into something?" Seto asked him casually, easily seeing that Rex was trying to agitate him and get him to do something foolish. If Rex thought he could get Kaiba to do anything he didn't want to he was clearly out of his mind. This had not been a well thought out strategy on his part at all. Seto would move at his own pace regardless of what anyone else said or wanted in any sort of interaction at work, or out of it. There was no way a duel would be any different, and now that he knew would likely be obstinate about it and go even slower. This man seemed desperate. "You're not going to make me go any faster hurling cards around and yelling like a maniac." Seto went on as he drew his sixth card. "But as you have no skills I don't know what I was expecting."
Rex growled, irritated Seto had worked that out so quickly, and he drew his sixth card. "I'll lay two cards face down and summon Battle Ox in attack mode." A fearsome, plate armored, minotaur wielding a dangerously sharp axe flashed to life before Kaiba. The beast bellowed and rotated the axe dangerously in one hand, his nostrils flaring, clearly ready to behead the dinosaur at Seto's command.
"Hey, check it out!" A familiar voice called out before Seto could order an attack. They all glanced over and she saw Tristan, Mai, and Bakura walking into the area. "Kaiba's dueling Rex."
She smiled happily and waved, drawing their attention to her. She was pleased to see them, as she had always got along with Bakura and she considered Mai a friend. She had been a bit worried that she had rubbed Bakura the wrong way at Kaiba Corp the other day, but he appeared pleased when he spotted her. "Hi, guys!"
"Hey, hon." Mai replied, clearly happy to see her as they all headed over to the sidelines to join her. "I heard you entered."
Relieved that the other woman didn't appear angry over her taking Joey down, she smiled back, noting Mai also had on a duel disk. "It's been pretty fun so far. How are you doin-"
"Do you mind?" Rex snapped, interrupting the conversation.
Mai raised an eyebrow in annoyance. "No one was talking to you." The blond pointed out. "If I were you I'd focus on your duel. Kaiba's going to wipe you out I'm seconds rather than minutes."
"I doubt that-"
"Destroy his monster." Seto ordered with a flick of his hand. His Battle Ox lunged forward and sliced the dinosaur in half, dropping Rex's life points by four hundred points. It wasn't much, not when they started with five thousand, but it wasn't nothing either.
Rex huffed, but didn't seem overly concerned. Seto just looked ready to move past all of this. "I special summon Swift Gilasuarus from my hand. Doing this allows you to draw a card from your graveyard, but since you don't have any you don't benefit. And since that was a special summon I get to call another monster to the field. I summon Torakodon!" Two new dinosaurs appeared on the field. Both looked as if they had been based off of a velociraptor. One was brown with mottled green arms, and the other was bright blue with stripes running down its back. They hissed, bobbing around one another as they flexed their claws.
"Neither of those cards can stand up to my Battle Ox." Seto remarked impatiently. "So hurry up and sacrifice them to call whatever it is you foolishly think you can beat me with. I'm already bored with this match."
Rex tossed a card down. "Let's see how bored you are dealing with my Super Ancient Dinobeast!" His two raptors vanished and a large grey dragon with minuscule wings appeared on the field. The monster looked as if it had been calcified or something. She didn't really have a better way to describe it. However, what was clear was that it was substantially more powerful than either of the monsters he had sacrificed to bring it on the field, as well as Seto's Battle Ox. "Destroy his armored cow!"
A blast of green energy shot out of the dinosaurs mouth and the Battle Ox was hurled backward before it vanished in a flash of light. Seto's life points dropped by a thousand points and she frowned. Seto was nonplussed and beside her Bakura also didn't appear overly impressed. Rex, on the other hand, was gleeful. "Still bored?"
In response Seto raised a single eyebrow and drew another card from his deck. "I'll lay another card face down and summon Kaiser Sea Horse in attack mode." A water warrior, his scaled armor shimmering blue and green appeared on the field holding a very dangerous looking triton. Turning it's head the warrior nodded in deference to Seto before turning forward and waiting obediently for an order. "Then I'll end my turn."
Rex frowned for a moment before looking as if he had won the lottery. "It's so tragic when you forget to change your monsters to defense mode." Seto said nothing and she came to the conclusion that Rex was less intelligent than she thought, even after that failed attempt to rush Seto into something. With three face down cards on the field she certainly wouldn't have assumed he forgot to flip his monster to defense mode. This was obviously a setup and Rex fell right into it. "Attack his monster Dinobeast!"
Before anything could happen Seto flipped over a trap card, which appeared to only surprise Rex. "I activate Threatening Roar." A terrifying bellow went off, so loud all of them covered their ears to try to block it out. The dinosaur hissed and took a step back, it's attack stopping dead.
"Attack!" Rex yelled again.
"My trap card prevents you from attacking me this turn." Seto told him. "Try to keep up."
Rex pressed his lips together as Seto drew a card. He smirked and she knew he was about to decimate Rex. She had no idea how he was going to pull it off, but she knew he was. "I summon Lord of Dragons in attack mode." A caped warrior wearing the skull of a dragon as a helmet appeared on the field.
"Well, that didn't take him long." Mai commented.
"No." Bakura agreed.
She frowned over at them, really curious. She'd never had him call this monster when they were playing together. "What's he going to do?"
"Just watch." Bakura advised.
Tristan shook his head. "You would think Rex would have seen this coming."
Turning her attention back she saw Seto flip over a card. "And I activate The Flute of Summoning Dragons." A large horn with the face of a dragon on the end shimmered into the hand of his armored warrior. "This spell card, in combination with my Lord of Dragons, allows me to call two dragons from my hand to the field." Her eyes widened in shock, as that was an impressive effect, and she had a feeling that she knew what was coming. Excitement filled her at finally getting to see one of his favorite cards on the hologram at last. "I summon the Blue Eyes White Dragon and the Blue Eyes White Dragon!" With twin roars two giant white dragons appeared before him and she felt an increasingly familiar surge of sickness before her entire being went slack. Her mind went hazy as she stared up at them and Seto made a harsh motion. "And then I activate Kaiser Sea Horse's special ability to call my finally Blue Eyes!" A third mighty dragon appeared, joining the other two and filling most of the square as the water warrior dematerialized as Kaiba sacrificed it.
Mai let out a low whistle, clearly impressed. "I'll give Kaiba this, he does know how to show himself off."
She felt something as she gazed up at the dragons, and the scratching in her mind, that horrible feeling of wrongness, began to take over. Seto smirked as his three dragons shifted about, undulating around one another, around him, with savage eagerness. Inexplicably captivated by him she stared at Seto as white scales parted around him, and suddenly found she was looking at someone else entirely. She quivered at the confusing sight, blinking rapidly, and not fully comprehending what it was she was seeing. It wasn't as if anything had overtly changed. He looked the same all the way around, from his clothes to the arrogant smirk of triumph on his face, but she also saw someone else. It was as if sitting right inside him was someone else, someone standing in the shell of him, which was a baffling as it was terrifying. As he raised his hand, making a harsh slicing motion, she recognized the other man that had now appeared in her disturbingly real dreams twice now. "White lightning attack! Destroy his dinosaur!" One of the dragons let out a blast of absolute power, engulfing the Dinobeast in white energy and vaporizing it. She flinched all over as she was suddenly assaulted by a strange image of another Seto, standing before her in the desert with his hand outstretched, his eyes warm, as white robes fluttered around him.
The vision flashed and faded in an instant as Seto barked out a final command. "Now, hit his life points directly!" The other two dragons roared in agreement and blasted Rex. He let out a cry as his life points dropped to nothing. Blinking rapidly she saw that Seto was back, but unease settled firmly in her belly even as he turned his duel disk off and casually dropped his arm.
Rex stomped about, fuming, as the small projectors zipped back to the sides of his duel disk. As they locked in place Seto moved forward to collect his prize as a fourth light began to shimmer on his wrist. Rex, on the other hand, was cursing as all the light on his vanished. This guy was clearly a sore loser and wasn't happy to have been knocked out of the tournament. Seto obviously didn't care how he felt about it. "I'll take your Water Hazard spell card." He said, holding his hand out impatiently. Her suspicions that he knew every duelist's deck here was confirmed as he named a card that had never appeared on the field.
"Not that one!" Rex protested.
Seto raised his eyebrow. "As you don't have a second mark to give me you owe me the card. Or would you like to discuss a breach of contract with my law team? As I recall you did sign one."
"Give it up, Rex." Tristan called. "At least go out with some class."
Rex glared at him but yanked a card from his deck, shoving it at Kaiba. Seto took it between two fingers and tucked it into his deck calmly. Turning, he walked over to them, or more like her as he wasn't giving much attention to anyone else as Rex stormed off. "Nice duel, Kaiba." Mai commented, and his eyes came up. He nodded to her slightly, which was about as civil as he tended to get with most people. She thought he either respected Mai for her stubborn independence and unwilling to follow others, which he admired in everyone, or was making some sort of effort as she had mentioned that she and Mai often spent time together. Mai, who was either used to his behavior or was unfazed by it, went on, her pretty heliotrope eyes studying him. "It's good to see you haven't let yourself slide while you were out of the competitive scene." Her eyes glittered. "I hope this time around we get to duel."
Seto's eyes flicked to her wrist, noting that her friend also had a fourth mark. It seemed she was no longer in the lead, but thought it likely she was still hanging at the front of the pack, which was very odd. Despite Seto's strange confidence that she would get to the finals she hadn't actually expected to get even this close. She really had thought she would have been knocked out by now, but was apparently doing pretty well so far. "I'm sure it would be more entertaining than battling the mutt you drag about behind you."
Rather than getting upset at the intended jibe she sent him a sultry, predatory smile. "Some men like being on a leash, Kaiba." Her gaze flicked between them for a millisecond and she was sure Mai had worked out that they were together, although how she managed that when all he had done was walk over to her was a mystery. Maybe Duke had mentioned it to her at some point. "Maybe you should give it a try some time, hmm? It can be such fun to let someone else take control."
Seto narrowed his eyes as she tried to fight back a blush at the suggestion, and she thought for once he was stumped coming up with a witty comeback. Bakura cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Yes, quite. I suppose we should be getting along then." He said, clearly ready to flee from this conversation. "We were going to meet Duke to see how he was doing."
"Devlin entered?" Seto asked neutrally. "I didn't see him at the opening."
"Strange thing that." Bakura agreed. "As he generally sticks to Dungeon Dice Monsters, but I think he's trying to draw in more people by showing off." He shrugged. "And he never manages to get anywhere on time. I think he must have been the last one to get one of your new duel disks."
Seto said nothing to that and Tristan cut in. "See you around then." He began to walk off. "I'd invite you, but we both know you'd say something oh so charming to excuse yourself."
Kaiba narrowed his eyes, but shockingly held his tongue again. Bakura and Mai followed after Tristan. "Let's meet for dinner after the tournament, hon, it's been weeks. A girl would start to think you found someone else to occupy your time."
"Okay." She agreed, sure now that Mai knew. "Good luck."
"Who needs luck with this level of skill?" Mai asked saucily right before they turned a corner and vanished.
When he was sure they were out of earshot Kaiba reached into his pocket and pulled his cell phone out. She watched him curiously as he dialed a number. Within seconds someone picked up. "Is Devlin registered?" Seto asked before the other person could say anything. There was a brief pause and she heard a muffled voice she thought was Mokuba. "I've been told he's participating and has a duel disk. Find out where he is and call me back." Another muffled response and he hung up, shoving the phone away.
"He's not registered?" She asked, more than a little surprised.
"No."
She didn't understand that at all. "Then he must have one of the stolen duel disks. But why would he steal one? I'm sure he could have gotten into the tournament without stealing one." She knew Seto wasn't a huge fan of Duke, and he certainly drove her up the wall when he put his mind to it, but he did have talent. He was surely better than Rex Raptor, and he had made it in.
She saw thoughts whirling behind his eyes. "That's a very good question." After several moments he returned his attention to her, only to find her studying him intently, although she saw nothing to indicate he was anyone other than he was. Still, the feeling of wrongness hadn't gone away despite seeing nothing to show anything was wrong. Reaching up he tucked her hair back behind her ear. "What did you want to tell me?"
At the reminder her stomach churned, but she gathered herself together, although she lost eye contact with him. "I should have told you before." She admitted at once, knowing that was true. "But things kept coming up."
Seto was frowning. "What are you talking about?"
She took a steadying breath and looked back up at him. "When Pegasus brought me up to his office he had paperwork for me. I thought it was a trick until we got back and someone had slipped it under my door."
His frown deepened. "What kind of paperwork?"
"He gave me ten percent of Kaiba Corp in stock options." She stated, knowing that if she hemmed and hawed around it anymore it would only agitate him. "I don't know how he managed to buy it without you knowing about it, but he had all the stocks signed over to me when they got me up there." Seto was staring at her blankly, it was the first time she had ever seen that happen. "I still didn't think it was real until my lawyer verified it with his company the week after it happened. He said it was an apology to you and Mokuba for whatever happened between you. He said he knew I would keep it safe and that you couldn't buy any more of your company without people getting nervous about it. He also said you would never take it from him for whatever reason you have, so he gave it to me to give to you if you needed it for some reason."
She waited for him to do something and after several moments that felt like a lifetime he spoke, his voice clipped and his tone direct. "I specifically asked you what he wanted, what he said to you." He said at a normal volume, which actually made the whole thing more upsetting than if he was yelling. It hardly helped that his eyes had frosted over dangerously.
"I didn't think it was real." She whispered. "That's, it's insane. Why would anyone do that? I wasn't lying to you. I didn't know what he wanted most of the time I was there. He kept flipping between flirting, and teasing, and threatening me like it was all the same to him. I didn't want to upset you over nothing when you were already so angry." She shook her head, watching him anxiously in her confusion, not trying to hide anything. "I didn't know what to do after that, or how to bring it up, and I didn't have anyone to ask what to do with it."
"You could have asked me!" He yelled, his voice rising abruptly and lashing over her like a whip and she cringed. Seto clearly didn't care that they were out in public, or that the shouting was drawing some attention.
"I know I should have-"
He rolled right over her words as if she hadn't said anything. "I have given you every reason to trust me! I have gone out of my way over and over to keep you safe! I've risked my personal and professional reputation to keep you from being deported and placed back in foster care! What would compel you to keep this a secret from me?"
This was going even worse than she had imagined, and she realized too late she never should have brought this up when they weren't somewhere private, even if no one was within a thirty foot radius of them. Obviously, this was never going to go over well no matter how it was presented. "Seto, I swear, I wasn't trying to keep anything from you." She protested weakly, having no defense, only excuses. "I was going to tell you the night I met with the lawyer, but you had finally asked me over and I didn't want to ruin it." He said nothing and she went on. "And then… then we hardly talked the whole week before you dueled Keith." Her cheeks flushed in remembrance. "And then I was in the hospital-"
"And then in my bed." He concluded icily. "What opportune timing."
She recoiled at the implication that she had slept with him to gain anything other than an increase in their bond. "I've never asked you for anything." She whispered, her eyes filling with tears. "Not one thing, not even when I was practically starving." His eyes were as cold as they had ever been, although she knew he couldn't deny that was true. "Why would this be any different?"
"I'm sure I could think of millions of reasons." He retorted pointedly.
Her lip quivered horribly as several tears slipped down her cheeks. "How can you say that to me?"
He turned slightly away from her, obviously trying to put space between them without it looking like he was. "How long have you worked for Pegasus?" He demanded. "Is he the one that changed your records for you?"
"What?" Panic began to set in as his paranoia appeared to take fully over. "I don't work for Pegasus!"
"I don't believe you." He stated, his half averted face contorted in anger and betrayal.
Her stomach churned, but she could see even as he said it that he didn't believe it. "Yes you do." She replied, refusing to allow him to be obstinate about this of all things no matter how upset she was. A tear tracked down her cheek even as she fired back. "I haven't sold any of the stocks or spent any of the money from the dividends. I don't want any of it, I didn't ask for it, and it doesn't matter to me. And you're right I should have told you. But I didn't know what to say or how to bring it up. I thought you might fire me or to tell me to leave." She hated to admit that she had been afraid, but she had been, she had been terrified and still was. She realized all at once why this had been so hard for her. "And I didn't want to have to go so I didn't say anything. You and your brother are all I have. You're the only two people that have cared about me at all since my parents died. I would never do anything to hurt you, or Mokuba, or your company and I know you believe that, and it has nothing to do with us sleeping together." He was still facing away from her, but some of the anger had drained away, even if he was looking past her. "And maybe Pegasus was the one that changed my identity, I don't know. I never met whoever did it. That wasn't how it worked and I didn't want to make waves, I just wanted to get out. I met whoever it was in a chatroom online and showed up where they told me to. I dropped my money off and the next day I got everything I asked for delivered to me by a courier. I was out of the country three weeks later, the day after your recruiter offered me a job."
He pressed his lips together and looked away from her, clearly furious, but also struggling with what she had told him with such honest sincerity. She waited, more than ready for condemnation, or the dismissal she had so feared, and found herself staring down at the ground uncomfortably. Finally, he let out a breath and she saw all the fight just drain out of him when she glanced up at the sound. When he turned back to face her his expression was a cross between irritation and acceptance. "Do you have the actual paperwork for the stocks?" He asked at a reasonable volume. "I need to work out how he managed to buy that much without anyone noticing. A paper trail would be helpful."
She felt herself calming marginally. "They're in the safe in my closet. And my lawyer has a copy."
Reaching up he began to rub at his temples. "You have the paperwork for literally hundreds of millions of dollars worth of stocks in the easily movable safe in your bedroom?" He sighed, as if he didn't know what else he should have been expecting.
"Ummm." When he said it like that she felt a bit sheepish, but sensed his acceptance of this whole situation in a rush, which helped her regain nearly all of her composure. "Yes? But, I mean, it's fireproof." Her voice dropped a little as she reached up and wiped at her cheeks. "So there's that?"
"Why aren't they at a bank in a safety deposit box?" He asked as he dropped his hand, clearly striving for patience.
"No one actually thinks I have anything to steal." She pointed out. "And, I was supposed to drop them off the second day I was in the hospital and obviously couldn't, and sort of, never got around to it."
He opened his mouth to say something then clearly thought better of it and tried again. "Anyone with any sense would sell them and walk away." He told her, but if he thought she was foolish or right for not selling she couldn't tell. "You'd never have to work again."
"It's only in my name because you wouldn't take it from Pegasus." She told him, really believing that. "And I only took it because I was afraid of what he might do with it if I didn't. It's not really mine."
"Every business law in existence says otherwise." He told her. She shrugged in response and he shook his head a little, obviously still processing this.
"I honestly don't want any of it, Seto." She told him, and she meant it. All this seemed to have brought her was trouble and massive amounts of stress she didn't want. She found being poor and at the brink of malnourishment to be less anxiety provoking. "I'll sign everything over to you today if you want me to, or to Mokuba. If anything happens to me it's supposed to go to him anyway."
Seto titled his head slightly. "You made your will out to Mokuba?"
Her lawyer had insisted she needed one, and when asked the only people she could think to give anything to was one of them. "Pegasus wasn't exactly wrong about your shareholders." She had been to one or two meetings with them when a visiting business person was there to translate for them. She found them to be some of the most boring meetings to attend, but also understood the importance of them. "You would have bought more of the company if you thought it was smart, and you haven't. I know you probably would have bought it for Mokuba too, if you thought it was a good idea, but I thought it was a safer option than leaving it to you. You'd be able to play it off easier and both of you would still have control of Kaiba Corp."
He watched her intently for a moment. "You realize that the money from the dividends has nothing to do with your ownership of part of the company."
"It's not mine." She said again, fully believing that. "It should be yours."
"That ten percent was never mine." He told her. "All of it was a publicly accessible stock. Before it was in your name anyone on the planet could have purchased it and received that money." Annoyance crossed his face as he no doubt realized Pegasus must have benefited from his hard work. "That money is yours."
"I never could have afforded the stocks to begin with-"
He cut her off. "There's no reason you shouldn't spend that money on whatever it is you want." He told her. "And there's no reason you shouldn't take advantage of that madman, or a basic economic mechanic."
"It's not right." She disagreed.
"Why?" He demanded.
She thought that was a ridiculous question. "I didn't earn it."
"You earned it by owning the stocks." He pointed out logically.
"Seto, you can't be serious." She replied, not believing that somehow, this whole thing had flipped on it's head and he was insisting it was right she owned ten percent of Kaiba Corp. She hadn't at all planned for a reaction like this.
"I'm very serious." He disagreed and she saw him coming to a quick conclusion. "The stocks are safe in your name and gives me more opportunity to push out new products. If you aren't going to dump those stocks if something flops the overall losses are severely reduced. It gives me a distinct advantage in the long run. I would think that hefty margin of error alone is enough to say you earned it."
She was dumbfounded. "What on earth would I spend that sort of money on?"
"Buying your apartment or paying off your car would be a good start." He told her as he turned on his heel. "Come on. I want that paperwork somewhere safer. We can take it to Kaiba Corp and put it in the vault until after the tournament."
She scrambled to catch up to him as he simply took off. "No landlord in their right mind would sell me a single apartment."
He let out a low huff and muttered to himself. "I'm starting to agree with that."
"What?"
"Never mind." He waved it off. "I'll contact the owner for you. I'm sure we can work something out, or you could simply buy a house."
She wrinkled her nose a little. She had turned that idea over before, but it was all so much work and maintenance, and while she might like that one day, right now it wasn't very appealing. At the moment it was easy for her to let someone else take care of things when they broke, to rely on the security built into the building to keep her apartment secure when she wasn't there, and to leave everything to be passively monitored by someone else if they went on a random business trip. Having an apartment was such a lovely convenience she was loath to give it up. "I like my apartment. I can call whoever owns the building myself at any rate."
"The subway will be faster." He remarked as they approached a terminal, letting that go with ease. "I walked here."
"I did too." She agreed, knowing the train would take only five minutes or so when it was at least a twenty minute walk there. She was sure Seto wanted to take care of this quickly so he could get back to the tournament. They headed down the stairs and she shot him several glances as they went, wanting to be sure he was really over this, and also still stinging a little at the argument, for all it appeared to be over. Seto was clearly deep into his head and didn't notice as they quickly paid their fair and got onto a car at the front of a train that had pulled in as they walked onto the terminal.
Sleek and aerodynamic she had found the trains here fascinating since she first saw them. There was nothing like this mass transit where she was from, not in such a small place as her hometown. She knew New York had a system like this, not that she had ever been there or seen it. It was efficient though, and the lines were well placed throughout Domino. You could get practically anywhere on them, although they tended to get rather crowded first thing in the morning and anytime after five or so once people started getting out of work. She had really wished she had known about them when she first got here as it would have stopped her from spending her money on a car. Still, it was nice having one and she hadn't sold the car back as she was able to afford it after Seto had given her a raise when she started tutoring Mokuba. Despite the cost, it was a freedom she found difficult to let go of when she valued her freedom so heavily.
When they got on the car was empty, which she found a bit odd even with it being an odd time of the day between lunch and late afternoon. With the tournament going on she thought their would be a bit more activity all around, but maybe everyone was above ground looking for entertainment. Moving to the center she reached up and took hold of one of the handrails. Seto stood next to her with his arms crossed, swaying ever so slightly as the train started moving smoothly forward. They were both quiet for several minutes before Seto brought himself out of his head. Glancing over at her he reached up and rubbed his thumb over her cheek. She was sure they were still blotchy from the crying. His eyes caught and held hers and he spoke abruptly. "It would take a truly extraordinary event for you to lose either of us." She stared up at him. "You're our family now as much as we're yours." Her eyes softened and she leaned into his hand. "Although I understand why you were afraid to tell me-"
The train suddenly jerked hard, slowing without warning as it's breaks squealed, and Seto stumbled back, falling to the ground with a thud. She managed to stay up only because she was holding onto the rail. She was trying to right herself, reaching up with her other hand as her knees buckled below her. Before she could get a firmer grip the train rushed forward again. The sudden change in direction, when she was trying to right herself to accommodate in first shift, threw her. She let out a yelp as she lost her grip and hit the ground. She slid all the way back to to the end of the car, her back hitting the door uncomfortably hard. Seto grunted moments after she heard a thud, and when she looked up, the speed having leveled out, she saw him at an awkward angle against one of the rails with his trench coat wrapped around it. She realized he must have hit his ribs against it as he was pulled backward by the force. "Are you okay?" She asked with worry.
He pushed himself up with a glare, apparently miffed that the principles of physics had dared to challenge his dignity. "Are you?"
"Yeah." She agreed as she got to her feet, her back sore from the impact, but she knew there wasn't any lasting harm done. "That probably shouldn't have happened." She commented with a wince. Seto was glancing around quickly, after looking her over briefly, and she glanced out the back of the car, and then did a double take. It took her a moment to realize what it was she was seeing, because there wasn't anything there. There was nothing behind them, nothing at all. The other cars of the train were gone, the tracks were gone, everything, even the tunnel, appeared to be gone. Her eyes went wide as she stepped fully in front of the small window, seeing only swirling darkness. "Seto?" She called, backing away from the window, a sense of dread filling her.
"What is it?" He asked distractedly, having been trying to see up into the front of the train, no doubt looking for the conductor. Before she could answer the darkness began to ooze up between the cracks of the door, and somehow seeped through the edges of the window, tearing the back of the car away as if it had never existed. She stumbled back away from it with a cry of fear and Seto grabbed her around the waist, pulling her back to his chest, and jerking them both away from the shadows. As she watched the darkness wrapped up around itself and began to hiss and howl at them both, the same way it had in the mansion months ago now. The difference was, this time she swore she heard them whispering threats at her, although she could barely hear them over the hissing, the words disjointed and jumbled over one another in a hundred different voices and twice as many dialects.
Half turning she shoved her shoulder into Seto, driving him even farther away from the inky mist. A terrible understanding suddenly crashed over her as she managed to piece together a few of the languages into a distinguishable statement. "They're here for you this time!" She told him, her voice laced with panic, the fright driving her good sense to keep the knowledge of these haunting mysteries to herself.
The push didn't put enough space between them and this living nightmare. One of the shadows wrapped around her ankle and yanked her down hard, ripping her out of Seto's grasp. She was slammed to the ground with jarring force, the air driven from her lungs by the impact, and was dragged backward away from him. Letting out a shout Seto lunged forward after her, managing to wrap his fingers tightly around her wrist, and then shoved his other hand out before him as he pulled her back toward him hard. In it, was the strange, golden rod that had sent the shadows after her the first time. Snarling a curse a blast of golden light began to burn the shadows away. Within moments she felt the vice like grip on her ankle vanish, and her body dropped flat to the floor, and then the shadows were gone.
Lifting her head up slowly she found the rod directly in front of her eyes. Breathless, she looked beyond it, at Seto, and found his double staring back at her.
Author's Note: I know you all know, but seriously, the holidays are nuts! Sorry for the delay! The next chapter should be up much faster :)
