Uploading this today because this week looks pretty bleak. Anyway, here we go.

Disclaimer: My only right is the ability to botch up the show by pretending to have the ability to write fiction at an adequately acceptable level. Yugioh soi-meme m'appartient pas.

Chapter 7

Thursday, December 2nd, 2004, 11:06 AM

The one person that Kaiba hadn't considered in the unfolding imbroglio was the man in charge of the company that had been recently taken over. That is, Ziegfried von Schroeder. Kaiba had barely thought of him since Schroeder's fall from grace at Kaiba's Grand Prix tournament for duel monsters back in late 2003. All relations between his own company and Ziegfried's were done by other people now, and Kaiba hadn't heard any real news since they were bought over, either. But the email he was now reading changed that. It was from Ziegfried.

Herr Kaiba
You may find it odd that I am contacting you in this way, or that I am contacting you at all. I do not wish to speak with you or to meet with you in person. Of course you know that I have failed to keep my family's company thriving and that it is now owned by Disney. I want to say but one thing to you; and that is to not trust the head woman, a French one. Her smiles are sweet but as for being genuine they are not.

Kaiba almost laughed at Ziegfried's command of the English language before he moved on.

She has met with you once, as I understand, and you may be meeting again soon. She pulls all of the strings. Do not underestimate her. Being allies is the first step to your company failing.
Do not respond to this message!

Ziegfried hadn't even signed his name, although the email gave him away. Kaiba considered the email for a moment. Ziegfried hated Kaiba, and the feeling was reciprocated, so Kaiba felt skeptical about taking any advice from him. Heck, the last time he had seen him he had died his hair magenta for dramatic effect, for god's sake. Apparently the last line of the email served the same silly purpose.

The only thing that really concerned Kaiba was the fact that Ziegfried knew that he and Ms. Hermand had previously met. Usually, if Ziegfried had been completely kicked out of the company, he wouldn't know about every single meeting that was occurring. He had to have stayed in some sort of position; they had to have compromised during the takeover. This entire situation entirely compromised Ziegfried's message, which warned of a complete takeover.

I know I can't trust her because I can't trust anyone, Kaiba thought as he selected 'delete' from the options above the message's text.

~ X X X ~

By one o clock there were already four people who had responded to the message that he had sent out requesting a new secretary to replace Hiroko. Kaiba knew that there wasn't too much time, and that if he wanted to focus on his argument for the meeting with Ms. Hermand the next day, he would have to not worry about all of the paperwork – that is, he needed to hastily get a secretary as soon as possible, that day even, even if it was only temporary.

He scanned the four resumes and their credentials. To his surprise three were men; only one was a woman, and hers were the worst of the lot. Kaiba spent maybe five minutes choosing the two 'finalists' out of the four. It only took him that long because one of the names had some serious credentials, but Kaiba already knew him.

He didn't want Joey Wheeler working for him.

But even the fact that he had applied, and for a secretarial job, was so completely outrageous and out of the blue that Kaiba just felt like talking to him for the sole purpose of rubbing it in to Wheeler that he was way over his head even walking into his building. So in reality, he had already chosen a secretary, some guy by the name of Yoori Kazuki. He seemed good enough; it was probably a step down for him to even be his secretary, although working for him could be seen as a privilege if you didn't know what you were getting in to.

Kaiba emailed Yoori and told him to report for the next day. He then made sure that his email was marked as spam by the computer to assure that he wouldn't be bothered by a thank you message. Finally, he emailed Wheeler and said only that "they needed to talk" at 5 PM that day. He didn't mention the job at all.

~ X X X ~

To Kaiba's chagrin he even recognized Wheeler's outfit as Kaiba met him in a separate conference room on the first floor of the KaibaCorp building, to avoid giving him the privilege of seeing his office. Wheeler was wearing the same T-shirt he had worn during the Battle City tournament, along with blue jeans. He still hadn't learned how to comb his hair. It was as if he wasn't even interviewing for what he thought was a job.

"Wheeler."

"Kaiba," he responded shortly. "Surprised to see me?"*

"No. I called you here. Now sit down."

The two moved in to the room and adopted seats on the complete opposite end of the table from one another. Wheeler didn't seem confident; but he wasn't meek. He was instead simply collected. Kaiba, on the other hand, was impatient and wanted to get this over with as soon as possible.

"You didn't get the job," Kaiba hissed as Wheeler looked like he was about to speak. "You're not here for that. So don't even try."

Wheeler blinked a bit, and then asked, "So why did you want to see me? Don't you hate me?"

Yes. "That's not the point." Kaiba gestured with his hand. "Why the hell do you think you could even get a job?"

Wheeler grew a bit angry now. "Why are you wasting your time with me if you know you're not going to hire me?"

"Because I'm done for the day, and you're a warm-up for a meeting tomorrow," Kaiba said, not half-lying.

Wheeler's face grew red, and the man stood, fists curled on the table. "I didn't want your stupid job anyway, Kaiba. I just needed to talk to you."

Geez. Another person sending him some harbinger of doom. Two in one day. Exactly what he needed at this point.

"I wanted to invite you to my wedding," he said, his voice shaking. Kaiba looked at him in surprise, then covered his expression with an impassive one once again and instead glanced at the engagement ring around his finger. Engaged in the few months since he last saw him? He worked fast when his mind wasn't caught up on Duel Monsters.

"So you're wasting my time to tell me you're getting married? What type of bullshit are you pulling, Wheeler?" It was Kaiba's turn to get angry.

"It's me and Mai," Wheeler retorted hotly. "I thought after all you've done for us you could at least come to the ceremony."

"All I've done? What the hell have I done for you?" Kaiba murmured coldly. "Why the hell am I interested in your life? And in that case why are you interested in mine, applying for a job and wasting my time-"

"Fine," Wheeler said, his head bowed, in an abnormally calm voice. He looked up and began screaming again. "Fine! Be that way, you rich, spoiled asshole! How else was I supposed to ask you?"

"You could have asked Mokuba," Kaiba informed him. "But then I would have still refused to come to your little satyr dance."

Wheeler was trembling with rage. "Don't you even know what it's like to love someone, Kaiba?"

Kaiba stared at him blankly. He ignored the question until Wheeler screamed it again.

"Get out."

"Answer me!"

"Get out."

"Damn it, Kaiba, answer-"

"If I answer you, will you go away? And not bother me with this wedding crap?"

Wheeler's eyes bored into his own, bubbling with fury. He looked like he was processing what Kaiba was saying.

"Yes," he said finally.

"Good. Your answer is yes. Now get lost."**

Joey blinked, and his voice was a harsh whisper. His voice was so low Kaiba didn't hear him, but he was too angry to bother himself to ask Wheeler to repeat himself. Instead, he clamped his fist around the handle of his briefcase, and moved stormily to the door. Just as he was about to slam it, he heard Wheeler's voice again.

"Why do you hate us all so much, Kaiba? Me and the gang? And Mai?"

Kaiba answered almost robotically to a different question. "When is it?"

"Hunh?"

"January? February? When?"

Kaiba didn't turn around when Wheeler's stunned silence turned into words again. He fumbled for the correct terms. "April. The seventeenth."

Kaiba remembered the one doctor that had taken care of him while he was in the hospital the previous week. "Tell her I said happy late birthday," Kaiba told him as his palm shut the door and his other hand turned out the light, leaving Wheeler to puzzle over how Kaiba could have known about it in the dark.

~ X X X ~

When Kaiba got back to his office, he found another message from Ziegfried von Schroeder waiting for him. Kaiba glanced over it quickly, but it basically said the same thing as before. The only new information was in the sentence

She's plotting with Pegasus too.

Plotting was a bit of an extreme word, he thought. Besides, if she is, it makes no difference to me. He waved his hand through his chesnut hair, as if to assure himself that he was approaching this situation correctly. I'll deal with things as they come.

By six Kaiba had asked for the chopper. It was a bit early, actually, for Kaiba to request going back to the mansion; he came up with the fact he hadn't spoken to Mokuba since he had returned to the states as the reason on the spot. This was true, and Kaiba thought it might be wise to spend at least some time on the phone and asking how things were going. The day had been an abnormally strange one, and he wasn't in the mood to keep his mind stuck on the day's events.

On the ride back he concentrated most of his energy on his 'early' morning meeting with Ms. Hermand, from Disney. Quite suddenly Kaiba felt as if he had been lazy, focusing on such trivial matters as finding a secretary when he knew that his company had a large deal with Disney on the line. He considered Ziegfried's two erratic messages again, but they simply reminded him to accept a conditional friendship. Not have an all-out one; that would simply be childish, along the lines of Pegasus if he acted like he spoke. Neither could Kaiba risk denying to get into a partnership with Disney that was "positive", because if he didn't, he had already told Ms. Hermand that the relationship with Von Schroeder Corp was negative, and the denial would seem more like an aggressive act than a polite decline. Kaiba furrowed his brow in annoyance at how freakishly annoying everything was.

"Everything", of course, referred to Pegasus bribing his secretary as if Pegasus was trying again to find some way to exploit Kaiba personally as a method of taking over the company. But Pegasus technically should be worried about his own hide with Disney in the playing park now.

Unless Ziegfried was right, and Disney and Industrial Illusions were in cahoots.

The initial aggravation, and potentially fear, that Kaiba felt were quickly drowned in the realization that Ms. Hermand was probably pulling Pegasus as she was trying to pull him. It may work on Pegasus, but it wasn't going to work on Kaiba. If she felt like removing KaibaCorp's rivals, one by one, for him, then he should have no problem with that.
After tomorrow's meeting, he'd have to wait and see.

~ X X X ~

Dear Seto

I heard about KaibaCorp's announcement that we're going international and I'm very excited to hear it! I also got your message that you sent a couple days ago. Sorry I couldn't reply to it sooner. Finals are coming up and I don't have that much time to get to contact you any longer. You didn't have to apologize, it was more my fault than anything that you went to the hospital.

Anyway I can't come back and see you over my main winter break I don't think, but don't think I won't be thinking of you! If you need any help, tell me. I may not come right away, but we're always together, big bro. Sometimes I feel like coming to California was a mistake, but I don't regret anything now. You taught me that.

I love you. You rock that competition!

Mokuba

A few notes and tidbits here.

* This little line was uplifted from Cible, by supersophieuh, before I started translating it. It's now called "Target", and the parts I've managed to type up so far are accessible from my profile page.

** This little exchange (Starting from the first "Get Lost" down to this point) is my twisted version of trying to incorporate some of the dialogue from one of the Yugioh Abridged Series Carols. The original exchange was between abridged Kaiba and abridged Pharaoh/Yami/Atem.

- I have no idea why I wrote Joey into this story at all. I think this is when my brain was winding down, lol. But anyway, there he is. I've admitted to Polarshipping (and not to Puppyshipping, even though that's what "Target" ends up being.) So now we've seen Kaiba, Pegasus, Joey, and Mokuba, and we've mentioned Mai and Ziegfried. Who else should I bring in? ^_^

- The chapter ends with a note from Mokuba. What could this be foreshadowing?