Awkward couldn't begin to describe the run-in he had with Muto and her group of elements. Fortunately he knew enough about dealing with crazies that he could reasonably diagnose his previous behavior as a rather unpleasant psychotic break caused by the sudden transition from being the heir of Kaiba corp to the head of the company. Add in the sheer amount of backstabbing he had to deal with and the fact he had a bad initial reaction to whatever it was inside the duel monster cards until his flames learned how to deal with it's presence, and he didn't really have much of a chance not coming out of it unscathed.
That Muto or whatever the hell was possessing her through that pendant of hers managed to snap him out of it with relatively few side effects was something he chalked up to his usual luck.
His code of honor dictated that he return the favor...he could only imagine the damage he could have caused had he remained like that for too long.
Seeing her elements stiffen at the sight of him, Kaiba wanted to withhold a sigh. This was going to be a headache, he just knew it.
One duel later...
Kaiba made sure to step out of camera range.
Yugi blinked in surprise when she caught a card he threw at her...it took her three seconds to register what it was and her mouth dropped.
"My mind might have been suffering a psychotic break, but I didn't actually destroy the real card. It was a replica I ripped up."
Yugi's first response, once her mind processed this was...
"Wait, what do you mean psychotic break?"
"You do realize that I took the reigns over my company at thirteen following the death of my step father, and that his board of directors is full of nothing but backstabbing vipers, right?" he said, raising an eyebrow. "I was dealing with a particularly vicious and unpleasant set of circumstances that boiled down to me becoming a little too obsessed with obtaining the cards through whatever means necessary. Whatever you or that spirit possessing you did managed to finally snap me out of it."
Yugi paled.
"I'm not..."
Kaiba gave her a flat look.
"Muto, I may be many things but I am not an idiot. I looked over the tapes after the fact trying to figure out why my personality changed so abruptly and you quite literally grew at least six inches and dropped six inches between the duel. Your personality, behavior and demeanor changed so completely that you either have a split personality, or...and I'm mostly basing this on the police reports I dug up...you have a secondary spirit possessing you likely through that pendant of yours," deadpanned Kaiba. "I will say this though...unlike the other spirit I've had to deal with, yours seems more benign and protective than a nuisance."
"You've dealt with a possessing spirit before?" asked Yugi.
"When this nonsense ends, remind me to introduce you to Chrome and Mukuro. They can tell you more," said Seto cryptically.
"Why are you even here? I thought you were taking a break from dueling after the beating Yug' gave you?" said Jounouchi.
Seto's face twitched.
"I take particular offense when the head of a rival company decides to try and have my brother kidnapped, and conspires with my own board of directors to send armed thugs to either kidnap or do bodily harm to myself when I'm in an area only a select and trusted handful should be aware of," said Kaiba growling. "I'm not stupid enough to give him time to make another attempt...even if it means waiting until his little tournament is over to express my full annoyance with him."
Kaiba left before Yugi could properly warn him about Pegasus having the ability to read minds.
A few days later...
It was incredibly satisfying knowing that all the thugs on the 'kingdom' Pegasus had claimed for his own backed off the second they saw him.
Apparently word had gotten around he had a gun and knew how to use it...and that he had zero hesitation in doing so. Though the few idiots who got too close learned just how capable he was with his fists.
He loved misplaced aggression sometimes. And he had a lot of it to work out...if he ran out of his current lifetime's worth, he still had his previous one to use.
It took very little time for him to acquire the star chips to get into the castle. If it wasn't for the fact that they were being recorded he would have given the man a black eye.
It took him all of three minutes to figure out Pegasus likely had some artifact allowing him to read minds. He certainly wasn't flame active...Seto would have noticed that in an instant the second he got onto the opposing side of the dueling stadium.
Pegasus was clearly enjoying the fact that he was screwing over Seto's strategies before he could use them. The mental image of a Blue Eyes White Dragon (he really needed to find out why he was so obsessed over that creature in particular) wasn't scaring the pest off.
Which meant it was time to pull out what Seto considered the big guns...and it would discreetly reveal if Pegasus did have any underworld connections.
One minute the one-eyed nuisance was fine, the next he was sweating bullets like no tomorrow. His game-play began to seriously falter, his strategies fell apart one after another. He was having trouble looking Seto in the eye and the younger male had to smirk coldly at the sight of it.
It took everything in his power not to cackle darkly at the way Pegasus was reacting to the new mental image he had firmly placed in his mind to kick out the intruder.
Even a mental representation of a pissed off Reborn complete with murderous aura was enough to scare off a civilian.
As a test, Kaiba sent a bit of concentrated killing intent towards Pegasus. The man was clearly shaken...too much so for anyone used to dealing with the underworld.
The only annoyance was that the ended the duel in a draw, which meant Pegasus advanced automatically.
Seto walked up to the waiting area with an annoyed look on his face.
"At least he didn't trap your soul in a card," said Yugi quietly.
"What?" said Seto, confused.
"He trapped grandpa's soul in a card. It's why I'm even here."
"...I hate strange artifacts with random powers," said Kaiba. "Seriously, why can't humans leave supernatural powers alone?"
"Any advice on how to deal with his mind reading trick?" asked Yugi. Pegasus had been doing it to Kaiba earlier, but then the teen did something and scared the living daylights out of the man so he backed off.
"My method might not work for you...but there is something you can try that might scare him off for a little bit."
"What?" asked Yugi, eager for anything to give her an edge over his mind reading.
"The first is to switch with that spirit you have in the pendant regularly. If you time it right, he won't be able to read your mind with any reliability."
"What's the second?" asked Yugi.
"It'll take some embarrassment on your part, but it might disturb him enough to back off for fear of what else he might find," said Kaiba.
Yugi waited patiently. Kaiba leaned close and told her, mostly so her guard dog and cheer-squad wouldn't over hear what he had to say. It took all of ten seconds for her face to turn almost as red as her hair.
"Don't look at me like that. Do you have any idea how many disturbing fetishes you can find on the internet these days?" said Kaiba irritably. "And I know for a fact that girls are just as perverted as boys...you're just better at hiding it in plain sight and get away with far more."
Yugi's face was a bright crimson red.
"Okay, what the hell did you do?" demanded Jounouchi.
"I told Muto how to divert that pest's ability to read minds. It's either that or you really embarrass him with details no man ever wants to know about unless they're studying for a medical license."
Considering the expression on Pegasus' face (and the occasional one on the presumably male spirit trapped in Yugi's pendant) she took his advice on how to get Pegasus to back off.
Kaiba still felt darkly amused at her predicament.
The look on the Big Five's faces when he showed up, alive and unharmed, was almost comical...if it wasn't for the fact they had absolutely no idea how royally they had screwed up by trying to kill him off and kidnap Mokuba for their own purposes.
Seto did not tolerate fools who targeted children, and he had zero patience for traitors.
Admittedly, he knew he would have had to kill them off discreetly at some point, but they had pushed the timeline themselves. And unfortunately for them, he had a pair of rather murderous Mists all too happy to hide the bodies for him.
At least he wouldn't have to leave a money trail by paying off the Varia on a contract hit like last time. The agencies responsible for tracking that sort of thing were still investigating the number of deaths attributed to the case, and it was only his age and the fact that no one could believe a preteen boy would be capable of hiring actual hit men and professionals to kill that many people without slipping up somehow that allowed him to slip past their list of suspects.
While it was obvious that Gozaburo Kaiba was heavily tied into the case, his adopted sons were considered 'innocent' of the matter.
Seto had to snort when they told him the new virtual reality pods were ready to distract him. If he really was as game crazy as his 'former' self had acted, it might have worked.
However he was a mafioso, and more importantly trained by the world's greatest hit man. Such an obvious tactic was never going to work on him.
His smile must have looked akin to Xanxus (or maybe even Squalo) at his worst...they looked terrified and he hadn't even drawn his gun yet.
"Mukuro...feel free to dispose of the trash. Be as creative as you like and make sure you get enough evidence that we can rob their accounts later," said Seto.
"Kufufufufu... you say the nicest things, boss," said Mukuro, red eye gleaming with menace.
"Chrome, help me clear out their office. We might need to convince one of the idiot trio to help break into their computers later," said Seto.
"Yes, bossu," said Chrome dutifully.
The 'idiot trio' being Tsuna's special nickname for the trio of scientists known to others as Verde, Shoichi and Spanner. While they were admittedly geniuses at technology and software, Tsuna considered them a special brand of idiots because they often forgot basic necessities like eating, sleeping and bathing...that plus the number of times he had to tell them off for blowing up their damn labs for the umpteenth time...
It was their fault he ended up in his younger body, not that he was overly complaining now, mind you.
Considering he had already confirmed the location of two of the three 'idiot' scientists, it wouldn't take much to convince them to join his labs. Shoichi would be the easiest to get to, and it would be child's play to convince Spanner to come through him. Verde, on the other hand, might take a while to get.
It took all of two days to get Shoichi to join the famous Kaiba Corp research team...by the end of the first week it was harder to get him to remember to eat regularly than it was to get him to leave. He had the Big Five's computers cracked in less than an hour, and that was mostly him getting over the shock of being invited to the labs in the first place.
As he suspected, the now former CEO's of Kaiba corp had laid a particularly nasty trap for him...Shoichi (with help from Noah) found a bug in the system that would have held Kaiba inside the game in a way the numerous fail-safes wouldn't be able to log him out of.
Seto had seen "Sword Art Online"...it was why he hadn't made the system portable and why there wasn't a secondary generator for the pods. If something went wrong with the system, he wanted to make damn sure you could pull the player out without accidentally killing them.
On an unrelated note, when Mokuba found out his character was a princess that didn't even try to hide who the 'girl' was based off of (the character even had his name for crying out loud!) he teamed up with Mukuro and tried to prank the living daylights out of his brother for a week straight. Not that they succeeded... though they came close.
Still amusing to watch, in Seto's opinion though...and good training for Roland in spotting traps. Why, he could almost pick out Mukuro's illusions by the end of it!