Disclaimer: Anything you recognize – be it character, location, idea or line – belongs to others; I may be playing with them but I make no profit from this.
Last time on Let the Games Begin
"Your company?" asked Hermione again, rather faintly. She looked like she expected the answer but wouldn't believe it until she heard it.
"KaibaCorp," the man said shortly, his attention already back to the laptop he was working on.
Terry's mouth fell in shock as Hermione's breath rushed out in a squeak: "No way!"
The man raised his head again to regard her coldly.
She blushed and babbled: "I- I mean… the Kaiba Corporation…" she trailed off.
Terry could understand. The KaibaCorp…! It was unbelievable!
"Huh… Hermione?" asked Neville tentatively. "What, exactly…?"
"…is Kaiba Corporation?" finished the girl a little shrilly. "Oh, nothing… it's just the most amazingly successful multi-national company specializing in the entertainment and gaming industry in the world! It produces all – and I mean all – the best and most advanced games! Their technology is at the cutting edge for every kind of gaming system!" she cried.
The man's mouth hinted at a pleased smile, which was gone a heartbeat later.
Terry was nodding along earnestly. He'd grown up with KaibaCorp games. They were the best, hands down. The logo was almost worshipped by children the world over, because it practically guaranteed that the game bearing it would be of amazing quality.
KaibaCorp gaming devices were the kind of things you longed for and moped over and pestered your parents about all year long, secretly hoping to find them under the Christmas tree or among your birthday presents…
He remembered watching with jealousy a classmate who'd received one, courting their favour to be able to play; he remembered also being the one envied and coveted when it was his turn to boast about one and graciously allow his friends to partake in the fun, all the while gloating about it…
And many adults were just as bad! The more complex and refined devices were even used in professionally played games – Terry's whole family enjoyed watching the live broadcasts of Duel Monster Tournaments and the worldwide known duellers invariably used KaibaCorp's Duel Disks (and the spectators invariably oohed and aahed in wonder at the amazing holograms which gave the card based game a whole new level of spectacular thrills).
Not to mention the absolutely breath-taking Kaiba Land Amusement Parks that had been built on a few selected locations around the world… Terry had never had a chance to get to one, but of course he'd seen the ads on TV and just like any other boy of his generation, had dreamt of going.
Well, any boy who grew up in a muggle home, he supposed. He didn't think wizards knew of Kaiba's entertainment empire… come to think, he'd never heard of amusement parks in the wizarding world at all.
Which goes to show magic isn't all-awesome. Just mostly so.
And this man sitting before them was so casually claiming rights over all of this… it could only mean…
"You're Setho Kaiba!" he whispered in wonder, eyes growing wide in amazement.
They were truly meeting him… The Setho Kaiba…
Terry's eidetic memory slapped together bits and pieces of articles about him – the muggle press seemed to like to hound him as much as the wizarding version hunted Potter, and his mother was no exception, avidly devouring every gossip printed about the man.
There were so many wild rumours flying around about him… introvert genius, extremely shrewd businessman, mastermind inventor with detached cleverness and steely self-control… fiercely loyal to his brother and a few hand-picked friends, but ruthless and implacable with anyone else… some even claimed he'd driven his own adoptive father to suicide, only to take over KaibaCorp and turn it into one of the most successful enterprises worldwide… and then he'd kept it steadfastly at the top for over a decade!...
And he was here, before them, in the flesh!
Taking part into this Shadow Game Tournament!
Terry shook his head in amazement. That was possibly the weirdest discovery yet… the man was just about the last person Terry would have guessed to be part of the admittedly rétro wizarding world!
"And this super corporation is… yours?" asked Potter sounding both impressed and a little sceptical.
The man sneered again: "I am CEO and majority shareholder and I have been since I was a teenager!" he snapped.
Potter raised his hands placatingly: "Ok, ok. Huh… good for you. Hmm…" he fidgeted a little.
The man narrowed his eyes at him: "Spit it out. I don't have all day."
"What the hell are you doing here?"
Terry almost jumped at the blunt question. Of course, Mr. Kaiba was completely unfazed and merely kept his gaze trained on Potter, waiting him out with the patience of a predator stalking a prey.
The Gryffindor elaborated, floundering a little: "If you're the top bloke in such a huge corporation I imagine you're insanely busy…"
His speech was interrupted by Malfoy's outburst: "I don't believe it!"
They all turned to him, vaguely perplexed.
"It's not true!" he reiterated, crossing his arms defiantly. He was glaring at Mr. Kaiba with a mixture of contempt, incredulity and hatred and looked an the verge of exploding with indignation.
Potter hesitated, then sighed: "What, exactly, isn't true?" he asked, looking resigned to wait out the blond's latest tantrum.
"He can't be as successful as she says!" exclaimed Malfoy indignantly, with a jerk of his head towards Hermione. "That's completely ridiculous!"
"Why not?" asked the girl, irritated.
"He doesn't even believe in magic!" shouted Malfoy, throwing his arms wide, his tone suggesting that it was the most heinous crime he'd ever caught wind of.
"Of course I don't. My mind is sufficiently refined not to need such platitudes simply because it is hard to find other explanations for the bizarre or fantastical events I have witnessed," retorted Mr. Kaiba pointedly.
"Platitudes!" hissed Malfoy, inflated like a turkey with offended ire; the man scowling at him looked almost as outraged, though much more collected.
Terry stuffed a fist in his mouth to keep from bursting out laughing.
"Right, well," Potter sighed wearily. Evidently, he didn't find the idea of a catfight about the existence of magic as hilarious as Terry did. "My question stays. Aren't you supposed to be making business deals somewhere or something?"
"Nonsense for unrefined mind, is it?" fumed Malfoy, mostly ignored by everyone, though Terry spared him an amused glance and noticed Neville sidling up to the blond.
"I mean, won't your, huh, board of directors or, or stockholders or... whatever, expect you to be working?" persisted Potter. "Making decisions and organizing stuff and generally making money?"
"I have a strong suspicion that you don't really know much of anything about managing a word-renown corporation," commented Mr. Kaiba coldly. "At any rate, my brother is keeping an eye on things."
"I'll give you platitudes!" Neville grabbed Malfoy just as the blond lunged for the man behind the desk, dragging his arms back and forcing the blond to abort his ill-advised attack. "Let me go, Longbottom! I'll show this worthless hmphmm…" Calmly, the tall Gryffindor muffled Malfoy's raging shrieks with his firm hand.
"And anyway, if you don't believe in magic, what the hell are you doing in a magical tournament?" went on Potter as if nothing was happening next to him.
"I don't know what you're talking about!" spat Mr. Kaiba, turning rigidly to his laptop. Terry caught some mutterings about 'midgets with unnerving puppy-eyes guilt-tripping rivals in helping out with their mad plans again'.
Malfoy jerked violently and managed to twist free of Neville's restraining grip: "Let me go I said!" he shouted.
He slammed both his hands violently on the desk: "If magic is just unrefined platitudes, then how do you explain this, you stupid muggle?" he shouted Malfoy. He looked beside himself with righteous anger as he whipped out his wand and pointed it dramatically at the sneering man.
Alarmed, Terry and Hermione both cried out to stop him. Potter, rather more practically, quickly raised a Salvio Hexia shield between the two.
Malfoy's bellowed Hair Loss hex bounced off it and hurtled towards Hermione, who shrieked as all her hair fell off, leaving her completely bald.
"Malfoy, you jerk!" she pounced on the blond and slapped him soundly.
He cried out and promptly dragged an annoyed looking Potter between him and the furious girl, holding him in place as a human shield behind which he cowered: "Give it a rest, you crazy wench! It's Potter who cast a shield, it's his damn fault…"
She whipped out her wand as she advanced on him, looking murderous: "Don't you dare…!"
Mr. Kaiba's calm, collected voice interjected with smoothness: "Interesting effect. A solution of metallic salts in thioglycolic acid and sodium hydroxide, I assume?"
They all froze and turned to him, wide-eyed and puzzled.
"I wonder what you used as catalyst…" he went on, unfazed. "Crushing the substance into a powder to increase the surface area of the reaction would not be sufficient to reduce the length of the telogen phase of the hair follicles enough… unless you're inducing hair loss during the anagen phase of the hair cycle? Preventing the matrix cells producing new hairs from dividing normally while the hair are supposedly actively growing, as occurs with chemotherapy drugs, usually results in hair shedding within a few days… I suppose an adjustment of the dosage to increase sensitivity to the drug in combination with a specific catalyst would easily be able to simulate an instantaneous, 'magical' effect. Rather ingenious, if a tad childish" he sort of praised.
Even Malfoy could find nothing to say to that and merely gaped at the genius in as much shock as the rest of them.
"The method of delivery, however," the man went back to sneering, "is rather pathetic. That weapon of yours looks like it was stolen from a blowpipe wielder in the Amazon – completely outdated design and no compatibility with any available upgrades to boot. I expect it's ridiculously hard to recharge…
Their jaws dropped a little further as he shook his head contemptuously.
Then he turned to Potter: "Your shielding device, on the other hand, is quite intriguing."
Okay. They'd officially entered the Twilight Zone. Terry rather wondered how he'd missed the signpost.
A/N: I'm having way too much fun writing Setho. Tee hee...