Chapter Four:

Inheritance

Kaiba sat in the office once belonging to his father, and rubbed his fingers on the edges of the Blue Eyed White Dragon card. The second one. The holographic gleam of the white scales and the blazing, blue eyes dazzled him. The elegance. The sheer strength.

He had sworn before to have nothing to do with that card. Then again, he had also sworn to build the most powerful deck around his first blue eyes. And what was more powerful than a second?

Besides, there had been something infinitely satisfying about taking it.

It was just a few days passed when the board members lined up behind Kaiba Seto and declared their allegiance to him. His foster father's face twisted and grimaced. Was it frustration? Rage? Hate?

"From today on Kaiba Corporation is mine," Kaiba had said, leaning back slightly and folding up his fingers. "This is the method you taught me."

Those hard eyes gleamed. They broke. Kaiba could still see them: wild, tiny specks under bushy silver brows.

"Seto," his father cried, "it looks like, in this game that we played, I am the loser!"

His mouth jutted wide; a demented grin curled at the edges.

"Each gamble has a risk and a gambler has to be ready to lose. The person who loses has to quietly comply and accept their fate!"

…The shattering sounded like cymbals clashing at an orchestra's climax. The white shards of glass, reflecting sunlight, seemed to hang breathless in the air, even as the dark, heavy suit plummeted down, down, down….

The plastic rustled faintly over the broken window. Kaiba smiled as he took out his laptop. There was no rush to fix it, no rush at all.

He heard the intercom buzz. His secretary's voice hung in the air. "Matsumura to see you, Mr. Kaiba. He says he has information regarding your uncle."

Uncle? Kaiba put his deck in his suitcase and snapped it down loudly. "Tell him I'll see him now," he answered darkly.

0 0 0

Matsumura Huyu was an older man, around fifty, with thin hair and bland clothes and an unpenetrateable, serene demeanor. He looked out of place as he shuffled slowly into Kaiba Corp, a sad, slumped, brown figure amid sharp-edged steel and glass. He sat at the table and calmly removed a yellow file folder and a pair of glasses from an old leather bag.

Kaiba flipped his laptop monitor down coolly. "I don't like it when detectives snoop in my personal life," he said. He gazed through him.

Matsumura did not flinch. "Then that's why your other detectives never found anything," he remarked mildly. "Tell me," he said, wiping the lenses of his glasses, "what do you know about your inheritance? From your biological father, I mean."

"What does this have to do with ruining Torao?"

"Everything. What do you know?"

Kaiba shrugged. "Between me and Mokuba, it was somewhere around $500,000: $200,000 from the insurance, $300,000 from the sale of land and property." It had been a large sum at the time. Now it was nothing. Pocket change.

"I see," said Matsumura. "Then you don't know about your other inheritance."

"What other inheritance?"

"15 of the stock of Ueda Industries."

Kaiba blinked. "What?"

"Split evenly between you and your brother, of course." Matsumura unfolded his glasses and put them on his face. He took out a notepad from the file folder, and licking his fingers to turn the page, he read what was scrawled there.

"It began before you were born, when your grandfather died. Your grandfather was an old-fashioned sort of man or else, he recognized that his second son had the habit of spending himself into huge debts; either way, he left most of the money to your father, the oldest. At this time, Torao was dating Ueda Tamako."

Kaiba tapped his fingers impatiently. The detective ignored him.

"Torao convinced your father to invest all of his inheritance into Ueda Industries stock. Since Ueda Industries was just starting up, he ended up with about 15. Torao was able to afford about 3. The company grew nicely and your father and your uncle made good dividends.

"Eight years ago, as you know, Ueda Industries was facing bankruptcy. Tamako's father, Ueda Nobunaga, was becoming senile, but he wouldn't step down. With 40 of company stock, he was the majority shareholder. Your father held onto his 15 but was not interested in company politics; he wanted to sell. Your uncle would have been happy to buy it from him, but he had spent all his money, and your father wouldn't hear of him taking out a bank loan. The two argued vehemently for many days."

Matsumura glanced up; he had pale, watery eyes.

"Then, suddenly, your father died. Car accident, as you know—nothing shady about it. But, apparently, shortly afterwards, Ueda was forced to retire. Torao was named president, both because he had played a large role in the coup but also because he was the second largest stockholder, with a grand total of 18 of company stock."

"Stock that wasn't his," said Kaiba.

"Precisely. Your father never left a will, but it's common inheritance law in Domino that, in an absence of the will, all property goes directly to the next of kin, in this case, the children of the deceased. Substantial sums of money and stock go into trust accounts until the children are 18 and can claim it. Although I believe that just this year, a law was passed stating that assets such as stock, which are unstable, can be sold by the child's caretaker and the money placed in a trust fund."

"Hm." Kaiba folded his fingers along the desk. Now, he knew why his uncle was interested in Mokuba: he could legally sell the 7.5 back to himself and there would be nothing either Kaiba or Mokuba could do about it.

Kaiba tapped one finger softly across the heavy wood. Something didn't make sense. Torao had been perfectly happy to hold the stock illegally for several years now. What's more, as president of Ueda Industries, Torao should have acquired more company stock by now; 7.5 wasn't that substantial. Unless…

"How much stock does Torao claim to have now?" Kaiba asked.

"Not including the 15 he stole, he holds 43. His father-in-law died and bequeathed the rest of his stock to his only, beloved daughter Tamako."

Kaiba smiled. "I see."

Now he understood perfectly. If Ueda, as legal guardian, could control Mokuba, he'd have 51.5 of company stock. He'd have the majority stockholdings, and this meant no one could remove him from presidency. It also meant any takeover of Ueda Industries would have to go through him first.

But why worry now? Ueda Industries was on the rise; no one threatened to take the presidency from him. Besides, he claimed to hold 58 of the stock already. He was untouchable. Unless he thought someone knew.

Was it that the law was finally catching up to him? Perhaps. On the other hand—Kaiba grinned—it could be that his estranged nephew had just taken the largest company in Domino from the most powerful man in town, and his own foster father. Perhaps, Torao was afraid he'd be next.

Checkmate. Kaiba knew precisely what to do.

"Good work," he told Matsumura. "That's all the information I need. You may go; your payment will arrive in the mail within a week."

Matsumura gave a slight bow. He loaded his folder into his bag with painful slowness. Kaiba walked over to a panel in the wall and pressed a small button.

"Yes, Mr. Kaiba," said his secretary from the intercom.

"Send my limo and forward the rest of my calls to my mansion. I'm going home for the day."

"Yes, Mr. Kaiba. Right away, sir." The intercom buzzed.

Kaiba opened his suitcase, put the laptop inside. He could still hear the faintly musical sound of the plastic rustling against the wind. He snapped his suitcase shut. Matsumura had already left and shut the door.

Torao was weak. Kaiba would strike quick. The incident of his uncle would be resolved within a week. Kaiba opened the door—

His secretary, a frail, pretty woman, barely older than he with a bad habit of talking too much, was exercising her vice now. She was sitting at her desk talking idly to Matsumura, who nodded, his watery eyes giving nothing away.

"Oh no," his secretary was saying, "usually he spends all day in that dratted office. But his brother's been having some trouble with bullies, so now he's going to pick him up—"

Kaiba slammed the door. His secretary jumped. She gulped. "Mr.-Mr. Kaiba."

"Funny," he said coldly, "I don't recall giving you permission to blab my affairs to total strangers."

"Yes, sir. It won't happen again."

"No, it won't." The secretary made a strangled look, and Kaiba turned to Matsumura. "As for you," he said, "you've been useful, but you've been dismissed. So mind your own business."

The detective gave another little bow. And without even bothering to explain himself, he slowly shuffled to the door.