Chapter 6
Seto Kaiba sat in his desk at Domino High School. He wasn't exactly sure what was going on. He was all set to humiliate his archrival on a scale grander than anyone had ever been humiliated before. He was, as always, rich and handsome. Yet he couldn't shake the feeling that SOMETHING was wrong. It had been a tiny little nagging feeling in the back of his head starting the last time he had seen his deck, but he hadn't really had time to notice it until now. It bugged him all through the day, so much so that he totally ignored the events of the day, which would have amused him tremendously had he been paying attention.
Yugi had, typically, walked in to school and sat down with his friends. However, when Laryssa had walked in, Yugi had, seemingly against his own will, reached into his pocket with his right hand and removed a small, one shot self-defense gun. He then proceeded to aim it directly at the exchange student's head, when his left hand slapped his right arm. The gun went off, the bullet grazing Laryssa's hair.
All three of Yugi's friends gazed at their violent little pal in dejection. Yami was at it again.
Laryssa, for her part, didn't seem to notice.
Yugi removed a knife from his other pocket and lunged at her, but braced his legs against a desk, doing his best to try to wrestle the knife away from himself. He then growled and slammed the handle of the knife into his own face, distracting himself long enough to leap at the English exchange student.
The knife slashed, glinting in the fluorescent lighting.
But Yami's aim wasn't particularly good. He had only hit her hair, slicing off a good five inches of it. Far from killing her, this new 'do' made her look even better than before.
Yugi bit his own hand, and the knife fell from his grasp. He tried to pick it back up, but successfully kicked it away. Snarling in disgust, he punched himself in the stomach, and grabbed a pen off a desk, making as if to stab Laryssa. But he punched his own face twice, and threw himself out the window.
Ten minutes later, dirty, bleeding, and shredded, Yugi came stomping back into the class, carrying the Millenium Puzzle in his hand rather than wearing it. "… AND I'LL DEAL WITH YOU LATER!" He roared at the golden pyramid, and slammed it into his backpack. He spent the rest of the day asleep at his desk, totally ignoring both his friends and his newfound crush.
Laryssa apparently had no idea she'd almost been killed three times.
At the end of the school day, Kaiba walked out to his Ferrari. Mokuba had gotten out of Elementary School fifteen minutes earlier, and was waiting for him, when Yugi came running out of the school. Kaiba started at his rival's appearance. His clothes were torn, his eye was black, and his lip was bleeding badly. Kaiba vaguely remembered him getting hurt somehow, but he had been distracted.
"KAIBA! How can you DO this to me?!"
"What?"
" 'What?' 'WHAT?' THIS TOURNAMENT,
THAT'S WHAT!"
"Oh, that! Well, Yugi, this is my payback to you for beating me!"
"But… you beat me in the Duelist Kingdom! Isn't that your payback?"
"Yugi… you have perhaps heard the proverb 'Revenge is a dish best served cold?'" Kaiba began. "Well, when I beat you… it was beautiful. I had you stomped. You were on the ground CRYING. I, essentially, had a big plate of perfectly chilled revenge. And I want more. This tournament is my way of setting up a huge buffet of revenge, and I'm going to walk up and down it and pile my tray with all the superbly cold revenge I can stomach, and wash it down with a glass of iced revenge juice."
"… You are pure evil." Yugi declared.
"What can I say? I've always been a big supporter of 'eye-for-an-eye' justice. Except it's not mean enough. I've always thought that if they take your eye, you should take both their eyes, and that's just so they don't have to watch the creative ways you maim them next." Kaiba revealed, and got in his car and drove off, leaving Mokuba behind in the heat of the moment.
"… Mokuba?"
"Yeah, Yugi?"
"Is it me, or is your brother completely insane?"
"… I'm not really sure. Fifty-fifty chance he's a maniac."
"Ah. You know, you'd think beating me and almost getting my Grandpa killed would be enough revenge for beating him in a card game."
"Oh, no!" Mokuba said brightly. "Seto can hold a grudge for YEARS! I remember when I was three, I ate a cookie he wanted, and for two years he wouldn't call me by my real name. I was just 'Cookie Thief'. He would tie me to a chair and throw cookies at me, screaming things like 'WHAT'S THE MATTER?! THE COOKIES DON'T TASTE GOOD WHEN THEY'RE NOT STOLEN?!?!?!?" Mokuba roared the last in a passable impression of his older brother's voice.
"Great." Yugi groaned. "Just great."
Nine hours later…
Seto Kaiba was tossing and turning in his huge bed. He normally slept quite well after a busy day of making money. And today he'd been extra busy, planning his tournament. But he couldn't shake that sinking feeling. SOMETHING was wrong.
His Deck. That was it. Whenever he was feeling bad, his deck never failed to cheer him up. He got out of bed, went to the wall, and undertook the massive security process necessary to get into his vault. He deactivated the machine guns, disarmed the poison dart launcher, and looked into the silver box expectantly. Suddenly, the reason for his strange feeling became abundantly clear.
His deck was gone.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
!!