MythCreatorWriter: Its okay, my author's notes are usually all over the place so I shouldn't be talking. Hhahaha, I know, a calculator… sometimes I think my plot devices are absolutely hilarious XD Mokuba is just gonna keep feeling like crap the rest of this story, really. I mean, the kid's losing his brother! What crap, ya know? Proof reading still be painful, but I'm still gonna try and do it. Consequences is back!... sort of. Hahaha, thanks for the review!

Xblackrosefirex: Hey! Oh my gosh, it's been forever! Great to get a review from you again! I'm sure being in college will do that X.X Which is partly why I'm not super excited about it… hopefully I'll still have time to write though(I'm sure I will, I always do:]) Thanks for the review, welcome back!:D

SelenaKaiba: Makes YOU want to shoot Gozaburo, imagine how I must feel!(actually I feel pretty damn good, writing him makes torturing children fun!) Just kidding. Yeah, and I hate that storyline with the molestation. I stand by my opinion that I could see it happening in some sort of alternate universe, but for the character that he is, it doesn't suit. He's too proper. He's not a sexual deviant, he's a teacher. People are odd. Anyhow, thanks for the review!

Lace Kyoko: Thanks a bunch for the review! I know exactly what you mean with the siblings thing… and calculators do save lives. Especially for me(I'm absolutely terrible at math, to the point where it's depressing almost) It's so awesome to have a Blink fan reading my stuff! That brings a smile to my face, for sure :] Thanks again for the review and enjoy the chapter!

Fourteen

Walking through the corridors of the mansion, it was as clear as day the changes that had occurred within the young boy that transformed him. Seto, as he was walking straight forward, placed each and every foot exactly in front of the other with such ease it seemed it had been programmed into his memory. His shoulders had broadened and were in perfect alignment with his lower hips; perfect posture. Seto's white business suit fit him wonderfully and matched right down the very shoes he was wearing; he had been raised to look his best and walk with a purpose.

Although Seto's eyes were determined, ready for almost anything, he wasn't actually aware of what was about to happen. Gozaburo had called Seto to the living room moments ago. Hobson hadn't told Seto his reasons behind this action, Hobson just advised Seto to move quickly and not keep the man waiting. It wasn't dinner time which meant Gozaburo had a proposition to pitch to Seto. Whatever it was, Seto was ready.

Seto stopped when he reached the two large doors at the end of the hallway. Seto took one and pushed it open. He immediately saw his step father sitting at one end of the table, the spot he always sat in. Seto expected that, but what he didn't expect was to see Mokuba, sitting at the other end. Mokuba looked up at him as he walked in.

"Ah, there you are Seto. Sit down," Gozaburo said, signaling the chair across the long table from him right by Mokuba. Seto said nothing and obeyed. As he walked to his chair, his eyes caught notice of the man standing nearby Gozaburo to his right. It was Lector, Gozaburo's right hand business man. Out of the five board members of Kaiba Corp, Lector was the one Seto saw the most. Seto wasn't sure why, but whenever Lector was around, Seto felt the need to be competitive and aware.

Seto sat down in the assigned seat next to Mokuba. He knew not to say anything since he was not allowed to, but he could feel Mokuba's curious eyes being drawn to him. Seto hadn't seen his younger brother in almost a year, so it was a bit of an awkward affair to encounter him once again without the ability to talk in Gozaburo's presence. His attention was brought back to the issue at hand when he felt his step father's eyes watching him from across the table.

"Now Seto, you are now fifteen years old, I have watched you progress and make use of the skills I have taught you here in this house for the past five years now. It has also come to my attention that you have reached the point where you can acquire a perfect score in any given test for all your classes. This is why I believe it is time to bring an end to your formal education." Seto loved the sound of that; he had come to hate school work and all of his professors. This was a glorious assessment; but Seto was smarter than that, he knew there must've been a catch to all of this.

"I believe that now you are ready to begin learning a thing or two about the real world. And to do that, there's something I must give you." Gozaburo raised his hand; within his clutch was a small, yellow bell. He jingled it a bit and the door was pushed open. Hobson walked in, wheeling a dolly with a blanket over it. Hobson pulled away the bed sheet and revealed several neatly stacked piles of money. "I'm entrusting you with ten million dollars."

Seto's eyes went wide, as did Mokuba's, as they stared at the large pile of money. Never in their lives had they seen so much money in one place. It was incredible and somewhat frightening at the same time.

"Don't get too excited, for I have one final lesson you must learn. That is that nothing comes without a price," Gozaburo said, calling back Seto's attention. Seto held back the surprise and went back into his serious mode. "I am lending you this money in order for you to pass your final test. You have exactly one year to repay the money, but you must repay me with ten times the amount." Seto was shocked, but not surprised. Somehow he could see his step father giving him such a task.

"If you are capable of passing this test then you will have proven to me that you have the business skills necessary to call yourself a Kaiba." The name lingered in the air for a bit, it's meaning and power hovering between the two. The title of 'Kaiba' had been held with importance for generations beforehand, and Seto understood what it meant to have that name.

That moment Hobson moved forward, a clipboard was in his hand with a small paper attached and a pen in his other hand. He placed these two items in front of Seto on the table. Seto looked down at it briefly. "Now, in order to proceed, you must sign your name on this contract that formally states the rules and regulations of this task. Let it be known that if you fail, I will have no other choice but to send you back to the orphanage. Do you accept this challenge?"

"I do." Seto took no time to pick up the pen and sign off his name. Mokuba was peeking over from the side, eyeing the contract. Just as Seto has finished signing his name, the clipboard was taken from the table by Hobson. Mokuba was left to ponder what his brother had signed himself up for.

"Very well then, in addition to that, my assistant Lector has been assigned to help you with this project. He is the only one of my staff members allowed to be involved in this. Remember that you have only one year to pass," Gozaburo got up from the table, "I'm expecting only the best from you, Seto. I will hope to see such results, for your sake." Gozaburo walked out of the room, leaving Mokuba, Seto, and Lector remaining. No one said a thing, they all just sat there.

"Follow me," Seto said after ten painful minutes of straight silence. Seto got up from his chair and walked out of the room. Mokuba was quick to follow him from behind, and Lector had been following in the back ground as he pushed the dolly of money along too. Seto led them some way back down the hallway but took a different turn, back towards the boundaries of his own room. When entered, he went straight to his personal card drawer and opened it, taking out a stack of cards.

Mokuba stood awkwardly near the doorway of the room, watching his brother place the cards, one by one, below one another in a straight line as he began to make columns. He stood there, making sure to keep from disturbing his brother from the card organization he had going. At first, he had placed all one hundred of the cards face down on the floor of the room. But just as he had finished placing them on the ground, he began to unfold them and turn them over, one by one.

Seto did this in a slow and methodical manner, making sure to unfold each card at the same rate as the others. His eyes followed each card as it was turned over, even as his legs soon began to give way from kneeling for so long. Seto didn't seem to notice this pain in the lower half of his body, for his eyes continued to follow the calm and predictable pattern as his mind worked. Seto made decisions best when organizing his cards or building a deck, this was the set up that would help him devise his plan.

Mokuba walked over to his brother's side, looking down. He cocked his head to the side, staring at the cards very intensely trying to understand their meaning. Looking at each card, though, Mokuba could not figure out the relevance to the cards Seto had organized.

"So Nii-sama… what are you planning to do to make one hundred million dollars in one year? Do you think that's even possible?" Mokuba asked politely. Seto was coming close to flipping over almost half of the folded cards in front of him.

"It won't be a problem. You see Mokuba, business it just like a game." Mokuba turned his head and stared at Seto.

"A game?" Seto nodded, not turning to look at his brother back. He continued flipping his cards in the organized and timed manner. He stopped after he had flipped the fiftieth card in the pile.

"Look here. I have a hundred cards in front of me, right? So try to pretend that each card represents a piece of a company."

"Okay…"

"This is the part where it all becomes a game. What you want to do is own more cards than anyone else. If you're able to obtain that, you can control the company." Mokuba blinked for a moment as he thought it over in his head.

"Alright, so how many cards do you need for that?" Seto reached forward and flipped one last card.

"The magic number is fifty-one. No one can own more cards than you if you own fifty-one out of a hundred. That's how you win the game." Mokuba understood now. There was no other way anyone could own more than 51% of a company, and that was what Seto needed in order to take control. Seto turned to Lector, whom had been standing in the background silently with the money beside him. "Lector, I'm going to need you to go out and use all that money to buy 51% of a company for me."

"As you wish Sir, but what kind of company should I be looking for?" Seto smirked with confidence.

"Any kind, just make sure to buy a company that values its workers." Lector nodded with approval.

"Will do. I'll report back to you the minute I have found and bought the perfect company." Lector took the dolly and rolled it out of the room. Mokuba turned back towards his brother.

"Nii-sama, you're not going to go with him?" Seto was still staring at the cards intently.

"Nope. I trust Lector will be able to find just what I need. In the mean time, we'll wait here to see what he finds. It shouldn't take too long." Seto got up from his kneeling position on the floor, leaving his cards untouched and remaining in the position. Fifty-one were flipped up and forty-nine were folded down. "In the mean time, why don't we play a game of chess?" Mokuba looked up immediately.

"Chess?"

"Yeah, you still like the game, don't you?" Seto made his way back towards the shelves where he kept his chess board. Mokuba stood still, staring at his brother. Had Seto forgotten all about the incident that had happened nearly a year ago that partially included the chess board? Mokuba hadn't been able to forget the way that Seto had yelled at him that night, so full of hatred and honesty. The words had stung him, if not for what the actual words were, but the tone that he had used to say them in. Mokuba still found that he would wake up some nights from nightmares about it.

"...Yes," Mokuba gave a quiet reply. Seto, this time, found the chess board with ease and brought it down from the top shelf and walking it over to where Mokuba was. He placed it onto the ground.

"Good, so let's play." Seto placed the box of pieces beside it and both brothers began setting up the pieces in the correct order. Mokuba couldn't help but look up every now and then at his brother as they were setting up. His eyes would stare in curiosity at his brother work.

The way he moved, the way he looked; there seemed to be this dramatic change that occurred since the last they saw one another. His brother had truly matured into something more, something Mokuba couldn't quite put his finger on. Mokuba quickly looked away as Seto placed down the final piece.

"Ready?" Seto asked. Mokuba nodded and they began to play. In less than three turns, the game was over.

"Checkmate." Mokuba stared in disbelief at the board.

"What?" Mokuba was unable to comprehend what had just happened.

"I beat you. Wanna play again?"

"Uh, sure." Mokuba helped his brother re-set up the pieces on the chess board. Again, the game had ended more quickly than it took to set up. This time it had been less than two turns. Mokuba looked up at his brother with total shock. "You beat me… again. I wasn't even able to put up a fight. When did you get so good?"

"Probably from taking lessons in game theory, I seem to have a greater ability in that class than in foreign affairs, it seems." Mokuba looked up at his brother once more. His brother had beaten him with such ease, but Mokuba wasn't sure that this was the reason he was so shaken by his brother's victory. Maybe it was the way he had beaten him, that he had beaten him without a second thought to it. Seto was acting on pure impulses and self reliance, no more was he willing to make it easy for his younger brother. But was that really a change, or Seto just growing up?

"Would you like to play again?" Seto asked.

"No thanks," Mokuba said shyly, pushing the board away.

"Okay then," Seto said plainly as he began to put away all the pieces in the same box and fold up the board. Mokuba stared at his brother in disbelief. His brother was so different, his behavior, his tone of voice, his everything. Mokuba started to feel as though the changes that were evident in his brother could relate back to something else, something even more in depth than not letting his younger brother win. There was another side of him, Mokuba felt; that Mokuba had yet to see. This went beyond what had happened a year ago, in fact, it seemed it was much more serious than Mokuba had realized.

"Nii-sama?"

"Yeah Mokuba?" Mokuba took a deep breath. He couldn't believe he was actually about to ask this.

"Sir!" The door swung open and Lector stood there with a small brief case in hand. There was no dolly to be seen. Seto looked on at him from the floor.

"Well?"

"I found and purchased the perfect company." Seto smirked again.

"Excellent."

A/N: That last word reminded me of Mr. Burns from The Simpsons. No joke, when I wrote that I thought of it in Mr. Burn's voice and it was kind of creepy… especially since Mr. Burns is a billion years old and Seto is only fifteen… acting like he's a bazillion years old ;] That was kind of a bad joke, but you work with what you've got. So I envisioned that a lot of you would be disappointed in me because I took so long to update, but I never figured you'd be dead! Just kidding… although I haven't heard from any of you guys and it makes me cry :[ Probably my fault though, when you die on the internet for too long, a bit of every reader's soul dies too with each passing day. Wow, I just depressed myself. Anyhow, I feel I shouldn't ramble any further. It wouldn't be right to you guys. So instead I shall end this on a note of; well, I kinda get the feeling nothing happened in this chapter except what happened in the show, but I hope that didn't annoy you/bore you. I promise after the first couple scenes in the next chapter we'll get back to having more original scenes and such. It'll be awesome. Thanks for reading!

P.S: Ever notice how my author's notes gone on forever and about one third of it will actually be about the story? The rest is pretty much just useless nonsense, it's kind of funny.

P.S.S: Ever notice how I always have a P.S. at the end of every chapter? Kinda makes you wonder why I'm incapable of saying all my thoughts in one thing and just being done with it.

P.P.S.S: I'm pessimistic today for no apparent reason :] You guys, my readers, you guys are amazing. Thank you again.