Seto's mind was still on the duel two hours later as he descended into the depth of KaibaCorp's honeycomb of testing labs with the self-assigned task of testing out the newest update of his Duel Monster's holograms. All afternoon, he'd been replaying the steps in his mind. Not in the obsessive, most likely unhealthy way that he often did with his duels with Yugi, but like he was solving a puzzle, analyzing the last game in order to predict the possible ways in which the next one could be played. It occurred to him that he was actually dwelling on a game he'd won, against Joey Wheeler of all people, and that he was, of all thing, anticipating the next duel, but he suppressed that thought quickly and concentrated on the issue at hand, which soon, instead, became the need to analyze the sudden, strange swell of that niggling feeling in the back of his mind that usually signified that something, somewhere had gone wrong.

It must be something about the duel, he thought. But was it something he himself had done wrong or a mistake made by his opponent? Typing in his pass code and pressing the down button to the deepest test lap, he leaned against the elevator wall and, closing his eyes, replayed the duel in his mind again, trying to pinpoint a moment that might bother him in such a way. He couldn't think of a single thing. It had been a genuinely good duel, with only a few minor mistakes (such as Joey underestimating his trap card, he thought smugly) that surely wouldn't trouble him this way. Had he forgotten something important? He pulled out his palm pilot and checked his calendar. There were no meetings scheduled for this afternoon. Mokuba's parent-teacher conference was scheduled for Monday, after all, just as he'd thought. It wasn't any of his business allies' birthdays or anniversaries. So what could it be? What was it that was making him feel so uneasy?

He shrugged.

'I'm worrying over nothing,' he told himself. 'There's no need to make such a fuss over a feeling.'

Some time testing the duel systems would help take his mind off of this weird sense of foreboding. He had been meaning to work on them sometime this week, anyway. These new holograms were going to look more solid and real than ever. He'd added quite a few twists to the appearance of the attacks, and he had to say, if the technology worked correctly, it was possible that this would be the most frightening and incredible Duel Monsters experience the player could ever get, short of fighting with the real thing. If everything went as he anticipated, there was a very real possibility that they were going to make Kaiba Land the most popular theme park in the world.

He'd been working for months, before and during Battle City, making concept drawings and encoding programs. His lab had finally finished the prototype his holographic projector design at the beginning of the week. Now all that was left was to test it out.

The experience with the Big Five and that accursed game hadn't been enough to stop Kaiba's habit of beta testing all of his inventions himself. There were a few simple reasons for this, the first being that, out of everyone on his team, Kaiba always felt that he himself was the most qualified to recognize and fix glitches and mistakes, because he had designed it, of course, and also because, well, he was Seto Kaiba, after all. If his employees were somehow smarter than he was, he was quite sure that they would not be his employees at all, but his business rivals instead. The second reason was one that he chose not to express to anyone but acknowledged only to himself. He had always had a sense that, as the creator of these products, he was, on some level, creating them for himself. 

So, it only made sense for him to test them himself. If he didn't like it, what was the point of making it, anyway?

Shaking his head as if to clear away such ridiculous notions, he strode from the elevator and into the room, which had been set up as a typical dual arena for this first test run. Locking the door behind him, he made his way up to the dual platform nearest the door, setting his briefcase on the desk portion. Opening it, he dug beneath the two Duel Disks to find the electronic tablet on which he had stored all the information for the game. He plugged it in, booted up the system, and tapped the tablet pen against the desk thoughtfully. Seeing the Duel Disks had brought his mind back to his earlier duel yet again, so in the end, he ordered the system to call the Red Eyes Black Dragon hologram for his first test.

The thing burst into existence, roaring so loudly that it actually shook the platform. He nodded, satisfied. Appropriate sound level: check.

Using the tablet, he rotated the hologram of the monster one hundred and eighty degrees, focussing on the small details of its scales and bone mass, using the pen to do the trimming and altering where he saw the need. If only it were possible to alter people in this way. Maybe then he could alter Joey Wheeler so that he actually had a brain, or at least a decent haircut. Then again, he thought, Wheeler as he was so much fun to mock as he was. It would be a shame to rob himself of such spiteful joy.

"It's never over..."

He had just began to go through the attack modes, making notes to make the blast of its attack look as if it got more distance and that the throat moved down in a certain way that signalled that blasts coming, when he had a sudden feeling of not being alone. He glanced up at the door, but found it to be still locked, and annoyed at himself for dwelling on his irrational thoughts so many times in one day, he turned back to the monster.

"...until I beat you."

The second he touched his pen back to the tablet, the Red Eyes Black Dragon exploded into a billion, impossibly bright pixels that lingered in the air, great chunks of golden light, drifting softly toward to ground. Seto blinked in surprise and was halfway to making a note of a major glitch in the program when he noticed the figure standing on the opposite duel platform.

But there it was, as real as he himself was: the slim figure of a young man, bathed in the dying gleam of the remnants of the dragon hologram, his hair a halo of light in its glow. A golden ring glimmering ominously from where it hung on his neck.

"How the hell did you get in here?" Seto asked, thinking of the elite security force, the different pass codes for all 22 section of the building, the still locked door.

Bakura laughed.

"I have my ways," he said, cocking his head arrogantly.

Seto set down the tablet pen calmly and, not seeking to hide his action in the least, reached up and pressed the button that he had sewn into his collar. At this cue, security alerts went out throughout the building, the room was bathed in red light, and the doors surrounded by sliding plates of bulletproof steel, as the famous KaibaCorp security system went into full out panic mode.

"Well," said Seto. "If you are as great as you believe, I'm sure you'll have no trouble getting past KaibaCorp security on the way out."

Bakura shrugged, completely unperturbed.

"In good time," he said. "Aren't you even the slightest bit curious about why I'm paying you this visit?"

"Not really," said Seto. "Now, leave."

"You have something that I want," Bakura continued, as if Seto had not spoken. "And I've come to take it."

Seto glanced quickly down at the tablet in his hand, mentally calculating the deficit that KaibaCorp would experience due to the loss of all of their research on this, their most promising project and that number's many, many digits flashing through his mind, and even more importantly than that, his imagination of the heartbreak on Mokuba's face, he quickly determined a plan of action. Reaching for the briefcase, he thumbed the catch open imperceptibly, keeping his eyes trained on Bakura's face.

"Is that so?" he stalled, waiting to hear the sound of his security guards' footsteps in the hallway outside the door, his only reply the wailing echo of the alarm.

Bakura laughed harshly, and, taking it as an opportunity, Seto pressed the button on the tablet that would start the shut down process.

"No need to be coy, Kaiba," said Bakura. "We both know that you have what I'm looking for. And we both know I'm going to get it."

"Over my dead body," spat Seto, unplugging the cord with one quick yank and sliding the tablet slowly toward the open briefcase.

"That can be arranged," Bakura said, grinning. "If you insist. But I have no intention of killing you just yet, so long as you cooperate."

Seto slid the tablet into the briefcase through the thin crack of the opening.

"And how am I to know that you won't simply kill me after I've given you the program?"

"Program?" Bakura spat, raising an eyebrow. "I see. Program, is it? Oh, you are a fool."

Seto narrowed his eyes.

"What do you mean?"

"Just that you have mistaken my meaning entirely," Bakura said casually. "You need have no fear for your precious technology, my dear Kaiba. The object that I desire is of a much more mystical nature."

Not ready to believe anything the thief said quite yet, if ever, Seto closed the brief case, and setting it gently on the ground, manoeuvred it with his foot so that it was behind him.

"I promise you," he said. "You aren't going to find anything like that here."

"No," said Bakura, tilting his head and grinning even wider. "No, but you see, I think I will. I have it on very good authority that my toy has gone to you for safekeeping, and I intend to get it by whatever means necessary."

"I'm afraid you've done all of this posturing for nothing," Seto told him. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"You should," said Bakura, tilting his head to the side. "But no matter. I have the means to retrieve what I want. The only thing standing in the way is you."

"And you want to duel me for it," said Seto, levelly.

Bakura's eyes glittered dangerously.

"Not this time."

The ring hanging from his neck began to glow with golden light, the charms hanging from it all lifting of their own accord and pointing straight at him and as Seto watched in astonishment, the light of the ring was joined by a matching glow in both of Bakura's hands, three pinpoints of gleaming light, which then seemed to spread to his entire body, until he was only an outline of light, so bright that Seto had to shield his eyes, and then, shut them, as the light seemed to only increase in intensity. He turned his head, and still it shone right through his eyelids, searing and impossibly bright. Pain shot through his eyes and then into his head, beating against the walls of his skull.

Sinking to his knees, Seto clutched at his head, trying to fight of a wave of nausea, his brain feeling as if it were trying to turn inside out. His every nerve ending singing in pain, he tried to press the button on his collar again, to signal a medical emergency, but his limbs were made of lead, his brain swimming with images, sounds, and emotions that all jumbled together, rushing through his consciousness with such intensity and speed that it left him dizzy and gasping for breath. He was barely aware of sliding the rest of the way to the floor, concentrating instead on making his hand move. Unable to reach the button, he simply grasped the locket with Mokuba's picture in it like a talisman, feeling the world tip and buck around him, feeling something in his mind threaten to wrench apart.

The last thing he was aware of before finally slipping into unconsciousness was the cool feel of metal in his palm and the sound Bakura's laughter in his ears.