Disclaimers: Yugioh is owned by its respective owners (sorry I am getting too tried to make some sort of creative disclaimer).
Chapter Six – Everyone's Fool
"The ministry of Egyptian Archaeology is a government agency, founded in 1858, to stop treasure hunters and tome robbers from robbing our tombs. Today, our services have extended to monitoring all archaeological digging sites in the world," said Isis Ishtar, a civil woman with long dark hair, in a modest dress and an Egyptian tan. Behind her were her two bodyguards.
She was a typical business woman, a special class of women that became more common everyday. Her smooth attitude was nothing new to Seto. He had, in his career, met many such women. What surprised him, however slightly, was her age. Consider her high position in the Egyptian government even Seto had to admit that Isis Ishtar was extremely young.
Her age and her accomplishments earned her a certain degree of respect from Seto. That and the promise of an extremely rare card kept Seto's attention to the speeches even if they were meaningless in his opinion. He decided to remain professional and relatively civil.
Relatively, that is, not entirely.
"If you are going to talk about mummies, Miss Ishtar, I am not interested," he interrupted coldly, "I don't care about some stupid three thousand years old mummies, or some broken stone tablets. I only care about state of the art technology." He added mockingly, "Unlike you my time is actually valuable. You are wasting my time."
The body guards behind the woman stiffened at the offensive tone. Seto smirked. The body guards glared. Seto's body guard also became hostile. Isis Ishtar closed her eyes and raised her hand to signal her guards to back down. She replied in relative good humour, "Mr. Kaiba, please do not worry. By the end of the night I promise you that you will not be disappointed. Besides, it is my knowledge that aside from state of the art technology you also hold interest in a certain card game."
Seto sneered.
If the curator was offended by his rude behaviour, she hid it well. She was able to put a smile on her face as she continued, "Do you know that Duel Monster Cards, originated in Egypt?"
"You are lying," he said flatly.
A sardonic smile crept onto her face. "The items that I will show you in a moment are from a tomb of an 18th dynasty Pharaoh, they are a part of a mural in the tomb." She smirked. "I wonder what sort of reactions you will have…" She turned to her bodyguards and signalled them to stay outside before entering a dark room alone.
He followed her curiously, leaving his bodyguard outside as well. The woman turned on the flood lights. Suddenly he could see large stone tablets in front of him. His eyes grew wide. Behind him a haughty voice asked, "What do you think these monster looks like Mr. Kaiba?"
"Duel monster…" Seto said under his breath, too shock to make any intelligent come backs.
"That is correct Mr. Kaiba, they are duel monster," Isis Ishtar said in mocking but weary tone, as one used to explain something to an ignorant child.
In his dismay Seto let the comment pass as he dumbly stared at the tablet. The woman continued peculiarly, "In Ancient Egypt, people believed that disasters were caused by evil monsters housed in human's hearts. The pharaohs and sorcerers sculpted pictures of the monsters on stone tablet in hope to seal these monsters away and maintain peace. It worked marvellously, and there was peace until the high priests exploited the tablets as means of power."
She turned and walked toward the tablet on her left. "This depicts the battle between the pharaoh and a high priest."
Seto slowly followed. He looked at the tablet of the pharaoh and the high priest. Instantly in brain made connections. He could recognize the pharaoh – but that was impossible. It was stupid. It must be a joke. It was Yugi. Unconsciously, he said his thoughts out loud.
"I don't know who Yugi is, but I have always thought that the pharaoh looked rather lively on this tablet," Isis commented quietly. She looked up at the characters on the tablet. "Egypt is a land of rich history. All I know is that he was a pharaoh from the eighteenth dynasty."
"A pharaoh?" Again he said his thought out loud.
"Yes, a pharaoh," Isis agreed.
"Pharaoh?" He repeated furiously. A joke? The minister was playing a joke on him – Seto Kaiba – he who everyone treated with utmost respect and seriousness? His voice raise as he continued, "That is Yugi. There is no way he is a pharaoh." The laws of science and logic would not allow such to be possible. It must be a lie! "You can't even convincingly prove that this tablet is three thousand years old! Any DNA from the people who carved out these tablets would be long gone! You cannot use carbon dating on these rocks! You can not prove that these rocks are really from The 18th Dynasty!"
"Mr. Kaiba, there is no need for you to be so sensitive," Isis said calmly, looking thoughtfully at the tablet, "This tablet may also concern you."
Seto followed her gaze.
There was a blue eye white dragon facing a dark magician. Below them was the pharaoh, and facing him, a young man. His mind began to make connections. The resemblances between him and the figure were remarkable, but his logic caught him quickly; the illusions faded and suddenly he was angry.
It was all a cruel joke the woman was playing on him and she was obviously enjoying the game.
Every summer thousands of parents would stress about getting their children into a Japanese private school. Japanese private schools, in general, are not hard to get into, after all, there are so many. The real reason why there are thousands of stressed parents is the fact that there are only a handful of private schools they want their children to be in. There are only a few schools that can actually guarantee a good future. These schools are all large, old schools with good reputations. They provide education not only in elementary and secondary level but also in kindergarten and university levels. Each year a few hundreds children would try to enter the school but only a few would be accepted.
One of such schools is the Rikkyo School.
If there were little students entering the school in the beginning of the year then there were almost no students entering the school in the middle of the year; however, occasionally, if the child is smart enough an exception would be made.
Seto looked up at the teacher. She was a middle aged woman, probably with a lot of experiences. He could tell she was a caring teacher by her voice and her manner in talking. The students instantly became silent when they walked into the room. The grade-five class stood up, bowed, and greeted the teacher. When the class settled back down on their seats she began, "We have a new student."
The class was dead silent. A new classmate was rare. They stared at their new classmate anxiously. Seto stared back at them steadily. After being at the center of unwanted attention he knew exactly how to overcome the curiosity. "My name is Seto Takashi," he said quietly before heading to his seat at the back of the classroom.
"How was your first day of school?" Gozaburo asked behind his desk, taking a quick glance at the boy who entered his office before returning to his stacks of paper work.
"It was good," Seto replied simply, he was not lying. The day went by much better than he anticipated.
"Your tutor will be here soon. As I told you yesterday, you will have tutors for extra education. This one is one of the top economists in Japan. You should be honour by his presence." Another thought came to Gozaburo, "You kept your name a secret I trust?"
"Yes, father, I did," Seto replied.
"Good," Gozaburo said without looking up. He began a long speech about his worries of rumours. He did not want to hear any rumours of his newly adopted son. He did not want anyone to believe that Seto was only admitted into Rikkyo Elementary School because of his newly acquired last name. For that reason, Seto was brought to school by one of the employees in Kaiba Corporation by foot each day until the right time arrived.
Seto, having nothing better to study but his adoptive father or his desk chose to look at the latter. The desk was made of dark red wood. On the desk there were three stacks of paper, a laptop, a pen holder, a burned cigar on the ash tray, and a picture frame facing away. He wondered what the picture was of. As if answering his question, the picture frame suddenly fell onto the floor, face down. Seto rushed to pick it up, but another hand, a bigger hand, picked the frame up instead.
Gozaburo held the frame lovingly for a moment before putting the picture frame slowly back on the table. Seto stared silently. Suddenly Gozaburo looked up. At first confused, as if awoken up from a long dream; then, a hideous expression grew on his face – "You are dismissed."
"This is the sixth floor, this is where the grade sixes studies," said Haruko, Seto's guide to the school. Seto nodded timidly. "I hope you like this school. It is a pretty big school. There is a lot of homework sometimes, but Hoshi and I still like school in general."
Hoshi spoke up, "I am sorry about not being able to do this tour yesterday." The girl gave him an apologetic smile. "We had track meeting yesterday at lunch, coach forbid us to miss yesterday's meeting. I am really sorry."
"It's okay," Seto said uncomfortably, his head bowed, not knowing how to treat the friendly conversations.
Suddenly the girls squealed. Seto looked up. Standing about twenty feet away from them, and engaged in a seemingly interesting conversation with the teacher, stood a tall, confident boy. "That's Kazuhiro," muttered one of the girls..
"Yeah!" chipped Hoshi, "He is the coolest, nicest, most gentlemanlike boy in our school. One year older than us."
"Plus he is rich and handsome!" Haruko added. The girls giggled.
Seto could not help but rolled his eyes. Silliness seemed to be one of human's nature. Another squeal broke his thoughts. Seto looked up again. Kazuhiro was approaching them. "Hello girls," he said charmingly.
Seto looked at the girls with their dreamy but shock expression. He was worried that the girls might faint, but they did not. Eventually they recovered themselves. "Hello Kazuhiro," they both replied shyly, both turning quiet red.
Seto almost laughed.
"Would you like to introduce me to your friend there?"
Still in awe, the girls did not response right away. Haruko was the first to answer, "He is Seto, the new student in our class."
"Oh! So you are the boy I have been hearing so much about in the last two days! The principle said that you are the smartest boy he has ever seen entering the school," Kazuhiro said quickly, as he shook Seto's hand. "My name is Kazuhiro, the student council president."
"Master Seto, you must quickly get change and get ready for your Karate class. The class will start in half an hour," Sho, the housekeeper said to the boy. Seto nodded wearily as he took off his shoes. "Then at four you have science tutoring, at five thirty you have philosophy class."
Seto sighed in despair and said bitingly, "And then at seven I have half an hour of dinner before I have to start on my homework, which I will have to do until at least nine and then –"
Sho put a comforting hand on the boy's shoulder soothingly. "Your mind is a gift from God," he said gently and quietly, "I think he have a greater plan for you. All the hard work you do now, I am sure, God will make sure good will come out of it in the end."
Shaking off the comforting hand from his shoulder, Seto snorted sadistically. He turned away from the housekeeper. "There is no God, Sho," he said remotely. "God is made up by people in denial to give comfort or to give explanation to what cannot be explained."
"Master only wants to prepare you for your future."
Without turning Seto replied in a voice layered with scornfulness, "And I have willingly brought this all on myself."
At one end of the long rectangular crystal table sat Gozaburo. On the other end sat Seto and Mokuba. The three ate their dinner silently. Until Mokuba, who was giving nervous glances at the "scary man" every five minutes, could not contain himself any longer and whispered bluntly to his brother, "I don't like him. He is always staring at us."
"Well, if you would stop glancing at him then he would stop looking at you," Seto replied, unaffected, and uncaring.
"That's not true, look he is staring at us again," Mokuba exclaimed.
"No he is not. Just be quiet Mokuba," Seto replied sternly, annoyed.
Gozaburo was curious about the whispering between the brothers. He began, "Why are you not eating Seto? You are eating even less than your brother. Do you not like your food? If you like something special just tell the kitchen." Mokuba recoiled. Gozaburo had a way to intimidate people.
Unaffected, Seto continued to pick at his food and replied softly, "No, it's perfectly fine. I like the food. I just never eat much."
"What were you guys talking about back then?" Gozaburo asked slyly in a casual tone after a few moments of silence.
The five year old did not know the definition of rudeness, especially when he disliked the questioner with all his heart. Mokuba immediately replied in utmost honesty, "I was just saying that you –"
"Serve the best food we have ever eaten," Seto quickly cut in.
Gozaburo looked doubtful. "What were you about to say before your brother rudely interrupted, Mokuba?"
Seto gave Mokuba a firm look. Far from stupid, Mokuba instantly sensed his brother's displeasure. "I was just saying that you must be really rich to serve us all these nice food." Mokuba lied and after he thought for a moment he added, "What is this dish of brown jelly-like substance?" The orphanage was certainly not a place of fine food.
"It is chocolate pudding," Seto replied, flushed, embarrassed by his brother's question. Chocolate pudding was nothing special; Seto had eaten the dessert many times in his youth. Unfortunately, growing up in an orphanage, Mokuba never tasted a large variety of food.
Gozaburo seemed rather amused.
Mokuba took a small bite before gulping down the rest of the dish. "Can I have another dish?" he asked, chocolate covered his face.
"Of course," Gozaburo replied, "But you must be a good boy and not bother Seto when he is studying, you also have to do all your homework, and listen to what I say."
The five year old thought for a while, and finally nodded. It was not hard to offend achild or gainthe child'slove. Gozaburo instantly won Mokuba over when he asked his servant to bring in another dish of chocolate pudding. He laughed silently at the naïve boy. It was so cheap to buy him over.
Seto frowned at his brother but said nothing.
Turning his attention to the heir Gozaburo said, "Well Seto, you better hurry up, your math tutor is coming in fifteen minutes," he said, taking a look at his watch. "You finished your homework in the afternoon, right?"
"Yes, Father," Seto said quietly, watching his brother happily eating pudding. A pang of jealousy hit him, but he quickly pushed the feeling away, they were inappropriate, after all. He stood up and glanced at Gozaburo's unreadable face before he added, "I will go get prepared now."
Award ceremonies – the birth place of jealousy.
"And this year top debater of the inner school debate is Seto Takashi," announced the principle.
Seto stood up slowly from his seat and walked up and across the stage to shake hands with Kazuhiro, the three times winner of the award. He did not know how to react when he saw the sour look on the older boy's face. They shook hands stiffly. When Seto once again turned to his schoolmates, the parents and the teachers, he thought he saw half of the female student population glaring at him with a bitter look.
Ignoring the glares, he received his certificate and went back to his seat silently. His classmates roughly slapped his back as congratulation. A faint smile appeared on his face.
The award ceremony ended with everyone enjoying western pastry and cakes. Seto walked around the hall alone quietly, occationally, he stopped to talk to his classmates to keep himself from feeling too lonely. Unfortunately, feeling out of place, these conversations were short living, and as quickly as the conversation began Seto would fade into the surroundings. Finally he settled down at a quiet corner and quietly took amusement in observing others.
He looked around the room and saw, not too far away from him his adoptive father engaged in a conversation with a stranger. He carefully listened in their conversation.
"What brings you here Mr. Gozaburo?" asked the man.
"Private business," Gozaburo replied with a mysterious smile. He returned civilly, "What brings you here?"
"My son, he attends this school," the man replied. "I think – " He noticed his son walking close by and called for him. "This is my son, Kazuhiro, Mr. Kaiba, he will inherit my company when the day comes," the man introduced.
"I recognize you. You are the one who went up the stages so many times today," Gozaburo commented as he shook hands with the boy.
"And I heard a lot about you from my father, Mr. Kaiba. He said you are one of the best business partners he has. I hope I will be able to work with you sometimes," Kazuhiro replied smoothly.
Gozaburo laughed. "So young and you already know how to please people. I think he will be a fine heir… My son is about the same age as you."
"You have a son Mr. Kaiba?" the man asked. "I never knew that before. Is he the reason why you are here today?"
"I adopted him just a few months ago. It was meant to be a secret, so I am not surprise you do not know," Gozaburo replied causally. "It took me a long time to find a kid who it would not be torture for me to spend time with in the orphanages. He is extremely valuable to me."
Gozaburo smiled wryly as he watched his son walked towards them. He proudly laid his hand on his adoptive son's shoulder, as if he was showing off his property. "This is Seto," he introduced proudly. "And this, Seto, is the world famous Mr. Hashimoto."
Seto's eyes grew wide – He heard the name Hashimoto before. He heard his names in the news and from one of his tutors. "The Hashimoto family owns one fifth of all Japanese high-tech industries in one way or another," his tutor's voice whispered in his head. He quickly bowed.
"Oh! So you are Mr. Kaiba's son!" Mr. Hashimoto said with a smile, "I should have known, after all, Mr. Kaiba would only make the brightest to be his son." Mr. Hashimoto turned to his son, who had an astonished expression on his face. "Kazuhiro, you are going to the national debate with Seto right?"
The boy nodded dully, but the two adults already walked off, talking about businesses, leaving the two equally surprised boys staring at each other. In time, they recovered enough to realize how quiet the hall grew. Everyone seemed to be staring, stupefied. The girls seemed on the verge of squealing, the boys simply stare, but either case they gave the two the highest respect.
There was only one solution to a tense situation such as this – laughter. After bringing the whole hall into laughter, Seto smirked and said, "I hope we can be friends instead of rivals, Kazuhiro Hashimoto." He put an emphasis on "Hashimoto".
Kazuhiro smirked back.
"We will go over some trigonometry next class. I think you already know how to do them, of course, but we will still go over them, just for revision. Bring you calculator. Good night," the math tutor said.
Seto bowed and walked out of the study, holding his books tight against his chest. He looked at his watch. It was nine thirty. He should be able to finish his homework in an hour and a half. He bit his lips and sighed as he slowly walked back to his room.
"Seto," muttered a small voice behind him.
Startled, he turned around. "Mokuba!" he exclaimed in a loud whisper. "Why are you here? You should be in your bed by now!"
"I followed you here," his little brother in his pyjamas replied. He paused and pointed at the door he asked innocently, "What is in this room? You come here everyday."
Seto rolled his eyes. "There's nothing worth seeing in this room," He said irritatingly and quickly changed the topic. Gently laying a hand on his brother's shoulder, he led his brother back to his room. "Now, come on, you should be sleeping by now."
The five year old shook his head and refused to move. "I don't want to."
"Mokuba, you must, you have school tomorrow," Seto said patiently; lightly pushed his brother toward his bed.
The little boy refused to budge. "But big brother I don't want to, can you play with me for a bit? Or read me a bed time story like you used to?"
Remembering his pile of homework still lying unfinished on his desk, Seto shook his head. "No, Mokuba, I am busy."
Mokuba pouted and exclaimed sulkily, "But you have been busy for the last five weeks!"
"Well I can't help it if I am busy," Seto defended himself. He bit his lips and urged, "Come on, you should be in bed now."
His little brother ignored him and grumpily turned away.
"Mokuba…" Seto kneeled down and turn the boy toward him.
The boy looked at him and moodily looked away. Refusing to answer and refusing to move.
"I have a lot of homework these days. I don't have time to play any more," Seto said softly, overlooking his brother's tantrum. "From now on, if you want to hear a bed time story, tell one of the maids to tell you one. Marie is a nice person. She would tell you a wonderful story if you ask."
"But I want you to tell me a story. I don't want anyone else to tell me a story," Mokuba replied moodily without looking at the listener.
"I can't Mokuba. Can't you see I am busy all the time? I hardly have enough time to finish my dinner," Seto asked timidly.
"That's not fair!" Mokuba cried.
"No. Life is not fair," Seto agreed coldly. The sudden change of mood scared Mokuba and in an instant he found tears swelling in his eyes. Seto sighed and stood up. Peering down at his brother he added bitterly, "How about this – We switch place – I would get your toys and chocolate puddings while you would get my homework and books?"
Mokuba shook his head silently. With his head bowed he sluggishly walked to his poster bed. Satisfied, Seto walked out of the room. When the door closed, the five year old could not longer contain his tears and he cried himself to sleep.
Upon reaching his own room, Seto slammed the door shut and threw his books on his bed. He stomped toward his desk and began on his homework, still fuming. "He has no right to say the world is not fair," he muttered angrily to the empty room. "I was busy because of him; I am only obeying Gozaburo because I want Mokuba to grow up with a good home, good food, good school, and good environment…"
"I am not doing any of the work for myself… right?"
"Miss Ishtar… As the minister of Egyptian Archaeology, if you only invited me here to talk about magic, and fantasies, then you are wasting your time," Seto said wryly, "I can be working on my holographic machines as this very moment." He turned around, annoyed, irritated, and began walking out of the room.
Isis replied in an unconcerned manner. "You must have heard about the three dragon God cards…" Seto stopped walking and listened. Isis continued, "These cards are extremely powerful and have the power to do good or evil. Pegasus J. Crawford realized that and was scared of their power. He wished to destroy them. But he failed, so he entrusted the cards to dispose to dispose in the Valley of Kings where they came from…" She sighed. "But they were stolen."
"Cards that even Pegasus feared… who stole them?" Seto asked, finally in a respective tone free of sarcasm.
"Ghouls…" Isis replied softly, "I trust you have heard of them."
"They are the underground organization that steals rare cards and sells them in the black market," Seto replied, in equal softness of tone.
"Mr. Kaiba. I need your help. For the sovereignty of the Egyptian government and the wishes of Pegasus J. Crawford, I wish to regain the stolen cards." She turned to look at the tablet. "I have a feeling that this tablet will attract duellist from everywhere."
Seto smirked. "So what you are implying is for me to change this city into a duelling stage," he continued smugly, "You are hoping that Ghouls would follow the rare cards owned by the duellists to this city – for example my blue eyes white dragon."
"That is why…" Isis said as she took out a card. "I am going to give you this card."
Seto unconsciously gasped. It was The God of Obelisk. He shakily took the card from Isis's hand.
"I thought the God cards were stolen…" Seto commented, flabbergasted.
"All but one," Isis replied. "To retrieve the other two, I am going to lent you this card."
The word "lent" rung in Seto's ears. He chuckled. "You are going to trust me just like this, Isis Ishtar?" He smirked. "What if, when I obtain the other two God cards and refuse to give them to you…" His smirk widened as his voice became sardonic, "What can you do then?"
Isis smiled and replied in an assured voice, "I trust you."
Seto snorted but said nothing. How naive it was for her to trust him.He was certain about two things in his mind, the first was that Isis Ishtar was unquestionably losing inher own game, the second was that she wasundoubtedly afool.
Not the end
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