"Seto...Seto, please…"
She was in a glass entrapment in a room filled with white. Several men and women in glossy lab coats stood before her, behind them security personnel. She felt like a lab rat in a high-risk experiment. She wiped away the fog from her breath and banged on the glass with her fist. It was so cramped in the entrapment. She was suffocating and they were just watching her, their expressions ranging from impassive to amused. She banged on the walls again. They were thick, much too thick to be splintered by her puny fists
"Seto, let me out!"
She wasn't the only prisoner in the room. There was another glass entrapment a few feet away from her. Within it was a young man with tan skin and dark teal hair that rose in spikes along the back of his head and then slithered in gold ringlets along his back. There was something distinctly antiquated about his clothes and the way that he held himself. And yet he couldn't have been much younger than her. Upon her arrival and subsequent racket after being thrust into the entrapment, he had smiled at her and told her that it was rather unreasonable to try and reason with a madman. He had been talking about Seto.
"Seto, please. I need to pee."
Mokuba looked up at his brother, for a brief second exposing his discomfort with the situation then looking back towards her with a purposefully blank expression. Seto stood at the back of the group with his arms crossed over his chest. Mizumi stood next to him, her cheeks flushed beneath her tan sunglasses. It almost looked as if she had been crying. This surprised Marie, but it was Seto's expression that alarmed her the most. He was staring at her, unblinking, failing in his attempts to keep the rage from creeping onto his face. It was hard to believe that only a few hours ago they had been chest-to-chest in the backseat of his car. If she breathed in real deep, she could still smell his cologne along her arms. The loss of his trust and intimacy enraged her and she began to bang harder on the walls of the entrapment.
"Let me out you fucking son of a bitch, let me out!I can't breathe in here!"
"Where's the key that you took from my brother," Mokuba's voice rang out through the speakers in her entrapment. All other sounds from the outside world were cut off.
"Key? What fucking key? Let me out! This is insane! This is illegal! This is-" her voice rose in pitch and she began to hammer at the glass walls, even harder now. She spit on the glass and wiped it away. This caused a ripple of laughter to erupt amongst the people in the room. One of the security guards grabbed the mic from Mokuba and spoke into it in a venomous tone.
"You're in Kaiba County now, lady. You abide by our laws-"
Mokuba snatched the microphone back and glared at the guard. Kaiba hadn't spoken a single word. He stood there staring at her, his eyes dark with hatred and this drove her mad with anger. There was a hiss from above her and a green-tinted mist erupted from the ceiling. She held her breath for as long as she could before she was forced to breathe in. This mist traveled through her nostrils and made her dizzy, subdued.
"What the fuck makes you think I have some kind of key?!" she slurred as she crumpled onto the floor. "What the fuck-"
"There's no use in disputing it," Mokuba said. "We already know. You can imagine our disappointment when Mizumi told us about your meeting earlier today."
"Wha-"
"Marie, we let you into our home. We thought that we could trust you," Mokuba said. Such an authoritative voice coming from such a small boy. His eyes hardened and she saw on his face the exact expression of hate that his brother was wearing. "We thought that you were one of the good ones."
"I am," she whimpered before her eyes fell shut. Whatever was in the mist was making her feel stupid and weak. "I...am…"
"No, you're not," Mokuba said. Seto's fingers were itching along the back of his hand, so hard that it made her cringe. He was beyond pissed. "Mizumi told us that she ran into you in a back alley last night," Mokuba continued. "She said that you were acting erratic and unhinged, and that you attacked her completely unprovoked. At some point during the fight, she noticed a key drop out of your pocket and recognized it as the one that Seto wore around his neck. How you got it, I don't even want to know. She said that she tried to retrieve it but at the last second a man on a bike took you away. One of Arronaxx's employees, no doubt."
She looked at Mizumi, her chest heaving. The other woman was avoiding her eyes and was instead staring blankly into a corner, biting her lip. Marie could see through her jaded victim facade immediately.
"You...bitch…" she rasped, clawing at the windows. "You absolute lying cunt of a woman-"
"Hit her again," Mokuba said.
One of the guards pressed a button and the green mist floated down from the ceiling. She choked and scratched at her throat, but there was no escaping it. The young man in the tube next to her opened his eyes and looked at her curiously.
"So I'm going to ask you one more time, Marie," Mokuba said. She was beginning to see why Kaiba had put so much faith in him. Mokuba was relentless. "Where'd you put the key?"
"Up my ass and around the corner," she said, even though every single word was a pain to speak. "Maybe your little goon-faced losers didn't check so thoroughly." Whatever was in the mist had clogged her mind and was causing it to move slower than usual. She was fading quickly, falling into a vortex of oblivion and confusion. She couldn't take another hit. Mokuba raised his hand and she braced herself.
"Stop," Seto said and Mokuba looked at him in surprise.
"Huh?" Mokuba turned to face his brother. "But Seto-"
"I said that's enough. All of you get out of my sight." The people standing around him hesitated and he turned upon them with a hellish fury. "NOW!"
They shuffled out one by one, Mokuba and Mizumi included. Mizumi cast a single pained glance over her shoulder- fake as a Kardashian's glutes - and closed the door behind them. Marie was left alone with Seto and the strange kid in the corner. Seto walked up to her entrapment and typed a code on the screen. The tubular glass walls rose to the ceiling and she crumpled across the floor. He knelt before her, dug around in his pocket, and retrieved a small plastic vial which he broke under her nose. The scent that followed was so overpowering that it made her gasp with her eyes rolling up into her head. It took a moment, but she suddenly became acutely aware of her surroundings. The smelling salts had effectively negated the effects of the green mist.
"Let me guess: Kaiba Corps patented chemical warfare," she said, admittedly salty. But he wasn't in the mood for jokes. He looked over at the kid in the other glass tube.
"I don't want to hear a single word from you, Aigami. Got that? I'll deal with you and the Millenium Puzzle later."
The kid smiled and put his hand to his chest. "As you wish, Seto."
Seto helped her into a sitting position and then crossed his arms over his knee. "I want you to tell me that this is all a bad dream," he said. "Tomorrow I'll wake up and realize that I was mistaken in thinking that you, of all people, would steal from me and try to ruin my company. I don't even want to think about the alternative."
She shook her head. "It's not a dream, Seto. God, I wish it was but the stakes are too high for me to pretend."
"So you admit that you have my key."
"Circumstances have been strange lately," she said carefully. "A lot of things have played out in a way that you would have never expected. But you're a businessman, aren't you? Let's cut a deal."
"You're in no position to cut deals with me."
"No, but I am," she said quickly. "You have no idea where that key is and I just might. Let's say for the sake of argument that I do know where it is. It could be on the way to Arronax right now and only my 411 can stop it. I have the upperhand, Seto. I always have when it comes to you."
"So what if I call your bluff right now and leave you in this glass cage to rot?"
"You wouldn't do that for the same reason that you stopped Mokuba."
"And what's the reason?"
"You give a fuck about what happens to me." Much to her surprise, Kaiba gave a mirthless laugh. "What's so funny?"
"You're trying to pull on my heartstrings again. I told you not to do that."
"Listen, Seto. Let's play like you're Justin Timberlake and I'm Madonna. We only got four minutes to save your world. There's a neutral third party involved in all of this. I'm not gonna say their name or how they're involved. Doesn't matter anyway, I know you've forgotten all about them. I need you to grant them complete and total immunity. I know you can do it, KaibaCorps is good at handling matters outside of duel disks and kids' toys. You run your own government over here."
"What are you getting at?"
"I want this person to get fake IDs, relocation to a country at my disclosure, and bodyguards at their disposal. I want you to put together a team that will make it so that it would seem like this person never existed in Domino City. But I want to run the lead on this team. No one except for me and this unnamed person will know where they went, where they are, or even who they were."
"You want me to help you make someone disappear..."
"Oh but you're not gonna directly help me, sir. You're going to give me the tools and I'm gonna do what I will with them. This matter will be closed off to you, permanently and forever. In exchange, you get your key."
"That's it?"
"That's all I want."
"And what about you?"
She shrugged. "I may never be able to prove to you that I'm innocent, and I'll probably be punished for it but that's okay. This person's livelihood comes first. You're a businessman. So use that big, business brain of yours and invest in my offer. It comes at no cost to you anyway. You get your key and I get this small wish fulfilled. It's a win-win."
"Okay, I accept your deal. Now tell me where the key is."
"Uh-uh-uh," she said, wagging her finger in his face. "Not so fast, Seto. I need insurance. Put that team together right now. And as soon as the person is up in a luxury plane flying away from all of this mess, I'll talk."
He stared at her, for once looking completely and utterly surprised at the turn of events. She licked her dry lips and continued. "Clocks ticking, pretty boy. That key could be anywhere by now."
Seto thought about this. She could see the cogs turning in his pretty little mind. The boy named Aigami was silent, listening to their conversations with a snide turn of his lips.
"Alright," Seto finally said. "I'll play your little game. You know, Marie, if I wasn't so pissed at you I might have actually been impressed."
"Once upon a time you told me that I had gusto. You weren't wrong."
"That may be true. How about this: I'm going to move you to a locked cell in the Kaiba Corps building. You can run your little operation from there. I'll give you the tools that you need but you'll only get two hours. After that, you're giving me my key."
"Fair," she said. "And Seto? One more thing."
"Make it quick."
"Once you do find out that you're wrong about this and I've been telling you the truth the whole time, you're gonna owe me. Big time. I'm sure that brand new sports car will look mighty fine in my garage"
"We'll see about that," he said, turning away from her.
X
Ryo sat swaddled in a blanket atop Marie's bed. He was sipping on Lavender tea that had long since gone cold and staring at his phone. Marie had been missing in action for quite a while after telling him that she was going out to retrieve Kaiba's key. But that had been hours ago. The first sunlight rays of the day were beginning to filter in through the crack in her Celtic Guardian curtains. He hoped that she was okay. Truthfully, he was waiting for a call. Either it would be her or it would be Arronaxx delivering the message that his time was up.
There was a sharp knock on the door. He jumped and banged his head on her low-hanging ceiling. This is it, he thought, as he pulled his feet up onto her bed, they've finally come to kill me. The knocking continued and the neighbors downstairs started to shout, admonishing such a terrible racket at such an early hour in the morning. The knocking was sharper now. Whoever was at the door was getting impatient. He looked around, searching for someplace to hide but there was nothing. Marie's apartment was woefully cramped.
Fine, then. If he was to die, then he might as well face it with his head held high. He tossed the blanket from his shoulders and padded over to the door in stockinged feet. A quick peek through the peephole revealed only the blurry figure of two women standing on the other side of the door. He pulled the chain lock and opened the door a fraction of an inch.
"Please tell me you've come to talk to me about our Lord and Saviour Jesus," he rasped in a frightened voice. The women looked at each other and grinned.
"Do we look like Jehovah's witnesses to you?"
She was right. The two women were exceedingly tall, easily six foot ten with dark skin and rich, curly black hair that made him extremely jealous. They were twins, judging by the identical red-lipped smiles on their faces. He looked them up and down, his amused gaze traveling up their long legs and black mini-skirt suites. One of the women reached into her coat pocket and retrieved a manila envelope which she handed to him unceremoniously. He shuffled behind the door and pulled the contents outs: several fake passports, a one-way ticket to Belize, and more cold, hard cash than he had ever seen in his life. His hand flew to his lips and he gasped. A note slipped out and he bent down to retrieve it. It simply read 'see you space cowboy' with Marie's signature at the bottom next to a heart.
"What is this?" He said, returning to the door.
"No idea. We were asked to deliver you the package and then escort you to the airport."
"But...I can't leave the house. There's men after me…"
"Oh, now see that's the fun part," the other woman said, pulling her coat away from her chest. The inside of it was filled with various guns of all sizes strapped down to the fabric. She closed it and gave her sister a wink. "I hope the men who are after you show their faces. They'll be some dead sumsubitches, I'll tell you that."
"Aren't you so glad you didn't become an accountant like daddy said?" Said her sister in a dreamy voice.
"Yep," the woman said, bending down to adjust the handle of a dagger that was peeking out above her garter. She straightened up and gave Ryo a sly look. "We don't know who you are, sir, but all we can tell you is this: we've been paid a lot of money to get you to your destination unscathed. Looks like you have a guardian angel in KaibaCorps. Imagine that. " Her sister giggled. "So. You bringin' anything with you?"
Ryo stared at them. It was almost too good to be true. A new identity, a ticket to Belize, two blazing Amazonian guard-goddesses that reminded him of Coffee from Cowboy Bebop, and enough money to buy a thousand Maison Margiela Tabi flats. Marie must have worked some wicked cool magic: all of his problems with Arronaxx were about to disappear.
He smiled, crooked his sunglasses over his face, and stepped out into the hallway in his socks. "Allow me to invoke the wisdom and energy of the One and Only Doja Kitty: the only thing I'm taking with me is this cute little ass in these True Religion denim - mm, mm, mm!"
X
Author's Note: Only two more chapters after this. Can y'all believe that?