Disclaimer: WookieeBeta still does not own Yuugiou. And she is still not happy about it.


Changes in Latitude, Changes in Attitude

Chapter Ten: Business as Usual

By WookieeBeta


Three weeks passed. Kaiba won the Battle City competition by default, as each of the other competitors were either disqualified or forced to forfeit (Bakura, Isis, Rishid, and Mai lost their duels and were therefore disqualified; Marik was placed in a mental institution; Jounouchi was diagnosed with a concussion and had to forfeit; Yuugi hadn't made an appearance since the virtual world). Jounouchi had recovered from his injury, and Ryou had used the power of the Millennium Ring to release Malik and Mai from the Shadow Realm and restore his own yami to his proper Item.

Life was slowly returning to some semblance of normalcy.

"You know I could whoop your butt in a fair duel, Moneybags!" Jou yelled across the courtyard. The CEO kept his back turned. "What, you scared? Scared of facing a little ol' puppy like me? Wimp!"

"Put a sock in it, Katsuya," Kaiba yelled back. "I've got work to do. I'll take you out for a walk later, how does that sound?"

Ah, yes. Semblance being the key word. Kaiba's near-disappearance had brought Mokuba and Jou together, and as a result the blonde and the brunette had been forced to learn to tolerate each other. Kaiba had even agreed to pay for Jou's hospital bills, seeing as how the blonde certainly couldn't pay for them himself, and his father couldn't either.

"Only if you feed me first!"

"Burger World at three-thirty?"

"You're paying!" Business transactions concluded for the day, Jou turned back to his lunch and his open algebra book. "I hate logarithms..."


Absently picking up his own sandwich, Kaiba flipped open his laptop and settled in for half an hour of uninterrupted work. No one would bother him during the lunch period; they knew better. But today he wasn't quite as pressed for time as usual. His new Board of Directors was reasonably competent; so far they'd only had to turn to him once or twice, and even then they'd carried out his instructions thoroughly instead of forcing him to do it all himself. As a result, he was actually managing to keep more or less ahead of schedule, and therefore had the luxury of spending an entire half-hour on his own personal project.

A few clicks later, he'd pulled up a map of the world's underwater currents and overlaid it with a previously charted map. There were a few noticeable variations: One just off the coast of Taiwan, but that was a government project (he would know, he was indirectly funding a good portion of it), another just west of Great Britain that had been stationary for several years, and a third off the south coast of the United States. Hmm...interesting... That wasn't there yesterday. And the disturbance off of Nova Scotia is gone.

He pulled up another chart, this one of the topography of the ocean floor in the Gulf of Mexico. Over three thousand meters deep in some places - plenty of room for Noa's underwater base, he reflected. It didn't draw more than 500 meters, although it could withstand much greater pressures. But the disturbance in the north-west sector... More typing, more maps. There. Alaminos Canyon. Not too far off the coast of South Texas. The canyon had already been extensively studied; there would be no activity there for several years at least. It was perfect.

Too perfect.

Kaiba frowned. He'd managed to track the base down, yes, but that still left one question: If he'd defeated Noa and destroyed the Big Five permanently (which he assumed was true, given that he hadn't heard anything from or about them in weeks, and they were not the type to stay quiet long), then who precisely was moving the base? And with such precision? It just didn't make sense.

But it didn't matter. He would destroy the base and its internal computer system regardless.

He smirked.


A/N 1: Two things. (a) Logarithms are truly evil. (b) The Alaminos Canyon really does exist, and it really is in the Gulf of Mexico; however, anything else I say about it from this point on has no basis in fact.

A/N 2: Title change. – WB 09Nórui2006