Sorry for the late posting! Huge storms hit my area of the world and my power was knocked out for half a week! Thankfully I already have next week's chapter edited, so we'll be sticking to Monday releases!

"Good morning, Seto." The calm voice broke the steady silence of the room, as the lights gently rose to full brightness. "I noticed you awoke approximately 15.4 seconds before I was scheduled to wake you— Was your rest adequate?"

Kaiba's eyes flicked up to the projection that floated above his bed— A cyan-blue hologram with the initials 'KC' imprinted on it. Despite his latest tunings, the AI behind his virtual assistant still felt off— too robotic, even for him.

"Power off," he muttered as he sat up, catching a glimpse of the assistant disappearing.

Time to begin another day.

Despite the shaky start, the rest of Seto's morning went quite well. A productive workout, a pleasant shower, a good cup of coffee, it was all coming together. He even felt well-rested for once, which was rare for him considering the four hours of sleep he got on average.

As Kaiba entered his office, a cup of the blackest coffee in the universe in hand, he almost threatened to reveal a smile. Almost, of course, was the key word. He knew not to smile in front of the help. It made them worry.

Speaking of the help—

"Good morning, Mr. Kaiba." Kaiba's assistant, a lithe woman with brown hair, bowed low as she greeted Kaiba, even lower than usual, as he passed by.

Realizing she'd been left behind, the assistant shot up and quickly followed, going over the holographic tablet she held in her hands.

"What's on the agenda for today," Seto asked, taking his seat behind his desk and turning to face the window that overlooked the whole city. Despite how professional he was coming across, this whole dynamic was awkward, even for him. He hadn't had a human assistant in a long while, having replaced them with virtual ones years ago. The only reason he was trying this was for a bit of variety— It was a spice of life, as he'd been told.

Kaiba's assistant nodded as she began to list off the many things that were planned for him today. Meetings, negotiations, reports from research and development on new duel technology, it was all just a small part of his day. Nothing he had struggled with before, and certainly nothing he'd struggle with now.

A perfectly normal day, and thus, a perfect day.

Kaiba's assistant coughed aloud, pulling his attention from his train of thought. As he turned to face her, she tensed up, training her eyes down to the virtual pad she held.

"B-Beyond that, however, I have a few pieces of unexpected news to deliver to you," she said, stalling out as she began to scroll back and forth on the tablet.

"Well? Out with it," Kaiba ordered, making the assistant gulp.

"Well, firstly, I was asked by your brother, Mr. Mokuba, to inform you that Yugi Muto arrived in Domino City in the late afternoon yesterday," she began, looking up as she said that. "He's attracted a lot of attention from the local press and local… locals. Some of them have pressed the public relations office on whether you intend to challenge him to a duel, since—"

"Next item," Kaiba said with a grunt, turning away in his seat and holding down a sigh. A slight tremor appeared in his right hand, one he quickly calmed before interlocking his fingers together. He was retired from dueling, retired from his pathological need to be the King of Games. Some snot-nosed reporter wouldn't bait him into returning— He wouldn't allow it. "I said, next item."

The assistant gulped before continuing.

"Well, the next item of news is regarding the Kaiba Corp Underground Duel Arena that recently completed construction," she began, going over the background. "During its debut match, it was, uh, destroyed."

"It, was, what!" Kaiba spun in his seat, standing up in the same motion and towering over his assistant in an instant, sending her reeling with a yelp. Realizing he was traumatizing the poor girl, Kaiba took a deep breath, stepping back and anchoring his hands onto his desk. After giving her a moment to calm down, Kaiba continued. "What happened?"

"W-we aren't sure, yet," she began, pulling herself back into a more professional tone. "During the debut match, the challenger summoned a monster and from there the whole arena began to come down."

"Injuries? Casualties?" Kaiba asked then, sitting back and keeping his face pointed straight forward, away from the girl.

"Minor and none respectively," she answered. "Though some have publicly stated they intend to file suit for psychological harm."

"When don't they," Kaiba grumbled under his breath with a roll of his eyes. Taking a moment to think, he turned in his seat, finally facing his assistant. "What monster was summoned, and who summoned it?"

Kaiba couldn't believe he was asking this, but he knew how Duel Monsters could become more real than they appeared when the right people were involved.

"We're, not sure," his assistant confessed then, as she began to dig through her pockets. "Whoever it was, it wasn't the original duelist scheduled to duel that night."

Pulling out a small silver remote, the assistant took a breath before she pointed it towards the center of the room.

"There was, however, footage of the event." With a click of the remote, the room darkened, the windows behind Kaiba shuttering closed as he sat up. With a flash, a projection of a video appeared in the air, filling the breadth of the room as it began to play.

The sound of cheering crowds filled the room as the shot of two duelists appeared.

"The header of the night was one Joseph Wheeler, who was expected for the event," the assistant explained then, as the footage zoomed in on Joey with some dumb confused expression. "The other one is who we're trying to identify now."

And as the camera panned to the second duelist, Kaiba nearly shot out of his seat with indignation. His hands squeezed into a fist tight enough to crush diamond, as he recognized who he was looking at.

Jaden Yuki.

"I summon Raviel, Lord of Phantasms!"

Jaden Yuki, summoning a Sacred Beast.

"What the hell is this, kid!"

Jaden Yuki, destroying Kaiba's brand new duel arena with the card he had given him!

As the footage sputtered to an end, presumably as the camera broke along with the building it was in, Kaiba was left seething in the dark. And as the light slowly returned to the room, his anger did not ease. In one motion, Kaiba shot up, walking away from his desk and assistant and approaching the door that would lead him to the parking garage.

Perfect morning? No such thing it seemed.

"Cancel all my meetings, I have a punk kid to find!"

"Wait, Mr. Kaiba!" his assistant shot out, pulling from him a moment of pause, the last one he had to spare today. "There's one more item I must inform you about, and I've been assured you'll want to hear this."

Holding back a sigh, Kaiba turned, crossing his arms as he waited.

"You were delivered a personal message that the mail office told me was vital for you to read," she began, pulling the envelope in question from her pocket. That gave Kaiba a moment of pause he didn't know he still had— What would be important enough that the mail office would send it straight to his office? "It's from the President of Industrial Illusions."

Industrial Illusions? A dawning realization hit Kaiba then, as he came to grapple with the fact that his day was about to get much longer and much harder.

The assistant began reading the letter.

"Dear Kaiba…Boy, if you don't want copies of your precious Blue-Eyes to be given away with fast food meals, you'll— And I emphasize I'm merely quoting the message here, sir —You'll hop into your shiny blue I-have-a-superiority-complex jet, and come hear my proposition for you in person. Sincerely, your favourite person in the whole wide world, Maximillion Pegasus."

Folding the letter in question and slipping it back into its envelope, Kaiba's assistant finished the last of her job for the morning. And if Kaiba was any more vindictive, it'd be the last of her job forever. Deciding not to pour his wrath into her anymore, however, Kaiba turned away and left the room without another word.

He'd find something to crush to get his anger out eventually, it was only a matter of whether it'd be Pegasus's head or not.

End of Chapter 5