Yami got dressed quickly and stepped out of the closet right into Kaiba's chest, and his nose stung.

Warm hands came down around his body to give him a hug, and Yami let Kaiba's scent wash over him like a comforting blanket.

"I thought about what you said, and you don't have to," Kaiba began, but Yami looked like he'd already made up his mind.

"I have to, even if I don't want to," Yami said stiffly, gazing at Kaiba's tall figure in the mirror behind him. "They'll keep sending men if I don't, and one of them will get lucky. You have Mokuba to think about. Don't be stupid about this, Seto."

Fucking crap, Kaiba raged as he followed Yami out of the closet and out of the room, down the hall and back into the library where his monstrous gun was still leaning against the bookshelf, untouched.

Kaiba bit the inside of his cheek as he watched Yami heft it onto his back and say, "clear the way for me into my room. Mokuba won't ever see her."

Nodding, Kaiba turned around to see Mokuba standing in the doorway of the library, staring at them with wide eyes. "See who?" the kid asked snottily, and Kaiba ran forward to block his view, but it was too late. Mokuba's mouth dropped open, and he pointed at the enormous weapon sticking out from behind Yami's slender form, letting out an excited cry.

"COOL! Is that real?!" Mokuba screeched as Seto grabbed him around the arm and dragged him down the hall. He twisted his head around to see Yami smiling dryly at him before he was shoved into his room.

"Guns are not cool," Seto said shortly before he shut the door in Mokuba's face, hearing his little brother huffing at him from the other side while Yami dashed down the hall and locked himself in his room with a click of the door.

"LEMME OUT! I WANNA SEE IT!" Mokuba cried, pushing the door open again and stomping on Seto's toes as he ran back into the library, ignoring Seto's panicked shouts, "stay out of there, kid!"

And he skidded to a halt, seeing blood stained on the couch by the reading nook that made his blood run cold.

Oh crap.

The code word of the day had not been a drill.

That was real blood…right?

"Mokuba!" Kaiba dragged his little brother out of the library and closed the door heavily behind him breathlessly, seeing Mokuba's eyes glassing over strangely, so he knelt frantically to rest his hands atop Mokuba's shoulders, giving him a squeeze.

"Hey, kid. We're turning the library into a gym," Kaiba said evenly, repeating what he'd heard Yami say earlier, and he wondered if Mokuba could hear him.

"Mmm... Okay Seto. Got it…" Mokuba said robotically, and he turned on his heel to walk back into his room, shutting the door with an audible click!

Yami heard all of this from his room while on the ground, with a blanket spread out on the ground while he had his gun in pieces, his stomach swirling with dread. He'd managed to avoid children in his entire career, and Mokuba was a perceptive one, hard to fool and easier to negotiate with when met with the truth.

His door opened and Seto walked in without knocking, slamming it shut behind him and freezing on the spot at the sight before him. Pieces of the gun were laid out methodically before Yami's knees, looking like a threatening jigsaw puzzle while a small wrench hung loosely from Yami's fingertips and a cleaning cloth lay folded atop his knee.

Yami grimaced and went back to it, hearing Seto sigh and speak up.

"Do you have a plan?"

There was a tense silence as Yami put the first piece back together and nodded solemnly.

"There's always a plan," he replied calmly, giving Seto a firm smile. "Keep you and Mokuba safe. Eliminate the target. Survive the flight out of the country while evading authorities and live to see next week."

Kaiba bit the inside of his cheek and sat down on the couch behind Yami to watch him continue reassembling his gun, his heart clenching with a strange feeling.

"You don't have to do that anymore," he said quietly, staring at the back of Yami's neck where black hair erupted from the base. "You have me—"

"You are a liability," Yami replied automatically as another piece of the gun clicked into place and he peered into the mechanism, wondering if he needed to clean it further…

"Are you fucking serious?" Kaiba seethed, wondering if he needed to expose more of his dirty secrets to win Yami's trust. "I can fly you anywhere and keep it off the books. You're safer with me."

"You're not," Yami retorted, giving Kaiba a strained look over his shoulder. "…safer with me. At all. I'm a danger to everyone—"

"Come here," Kaiba snarled as he got up from his seat to grab Yami by the arm, pulling him out of the hall and past Isono who stared at them blankly.

"Master Kaiba." He said, dipping his head down dutifully while Yami tried to give him polite eye contact, but he was yanked away by the master before they could even exchange words.

Confused, Yami struggled to keep up with Seto's long strides as they strode across the expansive grass surrounding the mansion, heading straight for the line of trees at the edge. Isono was following them at a distance, and the manservant caught up after jogging lightly, passing Yami quickly to take his place beside Kaiba.

"Shall I get the broom? Or some gloves?" The manservant asked Kaiba, and Yami's confusion rose. What was happening? If Seto was dragging him out here to prove a point about something, could it have waited until he was done cleaning his gun? It gave him anxiety to leave the pieces all out there, exposed. He knew no one in the house would touch it, but still….

They stopped in the midst of the towering trees, the heavy scent of pine clogging Yami's senses as Isono stepped forward and began kicking a few fallen branches aside as if to clear a path for them, and Kaiba joined in to help, bending down to drag a particularly large one away from a rusty metal handle peeking out from the dirt underneath.

Intrigued, Yami watched Isono take off his blazer and use it as a barrier to grab the handle to pull the trapdoor upwards. Dirt cascaded down from the sheet of metal that met Kaiba's forehead, and Yami could only gape. So, Seto had some dirty secrets too. Was this bunker related to his stepfather somehow?

Kaiba grabbed his phone and used it as a flashlight, muttering to himself, "is the back-up generator still working? I'll check. Everything should still be connected. I didn't cut power off to this place when I rewired the entire house."

Isono gave Yami a meaningful look before stepping down into the darkness first, and Yami hastened to follow, feeling Kaiba step down after him and close the trapdoor above their heads, sealing them in the dark, musty underground tunnel that sent a cold shiver of anticipation up his arms.

"Ever wonder why I have so much grass, but I never plant anything or keep animals?" Kaiba asked conversationally, giving Yami a dry smile as they approached a large metal box.

Isono popped it open and began flipping switches. A low hum filled the air, and lights began flickering on one by one to reveal a monstrous lab split into two parts by a thick, glass wall. One side had dark screens hanging across all the walls along with several dusty swivel chairs, and the other was unmistakably a shooting range, some of the targets going further than the eye could see because the bunker went all the way under the Kaiba mansion.

Stunned into silence, Yami watched Kaiba kick a nearby wall, causing a door to pop out with a stiff creak, and guns of various shapes, sizes, and lengths were extracted and set down on the counter by the first target booth, along with ear mufflers, eye protection, a digital distance calculator, and boxes of spare bullets.

"Same as usual, Master Kaiba?" Isono asked quietly, stepping past Yami and reaching forward to pick up one of the small handguns with ease, and Yami could only stare.

What. Was. Happening?

"Yeah," Kaiba replied flatly, handing his manservant a pair of ear coverings and Isono slipped them on unceremoniously, nearly mussing up his carefully styled hair as the band pressed down from above, and a pair was shoved under Yami's nose too.

"Bet I'm a better shot than you," Kaiba challenged playfully, trying to bury the pang of anxiety that ripped through him briefly as Yami snatched the earmuffs out of his hands and picked up a gun at random, weighing it in his hands before grabbing a clip and shoving it in with force.

As he passed the counter, he grabbed a pair of clear eyeglasses and pushed them onto his face, his expression unreadable.

Steeling himself to perform well, Kaiba made sure to pick the same gun Yami was using before he slid the glasses higher on his face and stood in the target booth beside him, taking up a wide-legged stand and aiming for Yami's target out of spite.

Yami lowered his weapon in mild amusement as he watched Kaiba land precise hits on his board, and his amazement for the CEO rose as Kaiba walked down along the barrier, planting bullets into the other bullseyes in the distance with terrifying accuracy.

Very cool, but… Yami raised his gun and let his breath out slowly. Live targets were different from flat boards, mannequins, or even fancy ones that moved with sensors.

Perhaps Kaiba was showing him this to put him at ease?

He aimed directly at his own board to carelessly land a few hits, feeling Isono watching him like a hawk.

Kaiba walked back over to take a look at what Yami had hit, and Isono maneuvered the board to come inching closer, showing no change in the pattern of holes in the bullseye.

"Where are your marks?" Kaiba asked sourly as he lifted one of his earmuffs, and he heard Isono let out a strangled gasp that made his blood run cold too when he realized… Yami had shot directly into the holes he'd made. His aim was…unearthly.

"You're a great shot," Yami praised lovingly as he lifted one of the ear coverings off to give Kaiba a wink. The pattern of bullets in the center of the board was impressive and comforting to see. Fine. This changed his mind a little about Kaiba being a duck, sitting pretty in a shiny tower.

"H-How?!" Isono sputtered, leaning over the counter to breathe on the board, fascinated. "That's incredible."

"Then why were their faces so fucked up?" Kaiba growled, asking even though he didn't want to know the answer. If Yami had such godly aim here, why were the Joker's Pair such a messy kill? Was it out of spite?

"I'm rusty," Yami answered guiltily, giving Seto a wide-eyed look. "And I was aiming at them through the roof with a heat sensor that might've been going bad since it's been sitting in storage for a few years."

"Sure, blame the equipment," Kaiba said nastily before he could stop himself, and Yami let out a nervous laugh, adding, "okay, you got me," Yami nodded handsomely, giving him another wink. "I wanted to make sure they were absolutely dead. You were in the room. I wasn't taking any chances."

Kaiba nodded stiffly and tossed the ear mufflers aside, clicking the safety on and setting the gun down heavily on the counter to cross his arms and glare at Yami.

"So you'll let me come."

"What?" Yami blinked, taking off his gear too and gingerly folding the clear glasses onto the counter, his heart thundering.

"I said…you'll let me come… with you," Kaiba said through gritted teeth, seeing Isono's eyes widen fearfully over Yami's shoulder.

"You may stay on the plane," Yami began, but to his rising dread, Kaiba cut across him.

"They're in Japan. All 5 of them."

Isono's eyes widened further and he broke out into a cold sweat. If he wasn't mistaken…This sudden target practice and then mentions of the Big 5 could only mean one thing.

"The client never comes with me," Yami responded coolly, and his stomach curled with dread at where this conversation was going.

"That's what I am to you? A client? I've been upgraded from target to client?" Kaiba retaliated cattily as Yami reddened and crossed his arms too, mirroring his stance.

"Don't get involved," Yami said stiffly, trying to use a metaphor he knew Kaiba would understand. "I'm a disposable moving piece on the board…. Like a rook or a knight. You are—"

"Don't you dare say I'm the fucking king!" Kaiba snarled, his ears reddening at the insult.

"You are an easy target!" Yami cried anxiously, uncrossing his arms in exasperation. "Your patterns are predictable. Home, car, shiny tower, car, meeting room, plane, car. I could hit you anywhere between those times, and if not, find you easily at home, at the tower, or in any of your planes!"

"That doesn't explain why I can't come with you to watch your back," Kaiba frowned sourly as he glared at the tips of Yami's spiky hair, hating how Isono could hear them fighting. "They're slimy monsters. You don't know them like I do."

"I've been fine solo up until this point, thank you very much," Yami enunciated, feeling Isono shifting uncomfortably behind him. "You can't leave your schedule or the real authorities will catch wind of it and figure out that you put the hit on them! Stay in your shiny tower and watch from afar… Where it's safe."

"Say shiny tower one more time," Kaiba threatened, feeling like he was losing. "If they hurt you, I can't guarantee I'll survive it. I'll kill them myself."

"Do it then," Yami said loftily, secretly touched at Kaiba's concern for his well being. "But do it afterwards,if they manage to hurt me. Which they won't."

They glared icily at each other before Isono cleared his throat and moved between them to pick up the weapons, emptying them steadily and cleaning up the mess of shell casing on the ground.

"Then I want constant updates," Kaiba growled, breaking the silence first.

"Done. A recording and a photo of the body with unencrypted metadata are my usual confirmation methods," Yami began, and Kaiba hissed at him, his blue eyes flashing dangerously.

"I want updates of you. Not of the targets," Kaiba growled, and Yami's eyes widened as he nodded, taken aback by the sudden protectiveness.

H-How sweet. Seto really cared about him.

"Now I want to hear every second of your plan," Kaiba insisted, grabbing Yami by the arm and dragging him through the tunnel and up the steps to the exit. "And you'll brief me if anything changes. Anything. Even if you take a piss two minutes before the time you planned, I want to hear about it."

He hovered his palm over the reader and the trapdoor above their heads slowly creaked to life, and Yami nodded absently, feeling warm all over.

This was the partner he deserved.

Seto was a once-in-a-lifetime love of his life because of this.

Yami gazed happily at the way Seto's pale hand was wrapped around his wrist, and he hastened to fall into step beside Seto's long strides across the grass, seeing Mokuba waving at them from one of the top balconies.

Kaiba sat back in his seat with his fingers laced together tightly over his mouth as Yami pointed at the blueprint projected on the wall before them, talking fast while he went over the main facets of his plan.

He had to admit, Yami's strategy was brilliant. Meticulous. Flawless.

He couldn't have done better himself and this put him at ease.

Yami had even accounted for one of the 5 getting away. Fine.

4 out of 5 dead was still pretty good.

"I'll have them done within a week," Yami said confidently, turning the projector off with a click of the remote, throwing the room into darkness. "My only stipulation is that you and Mokuba…stay here at the mansion. You will work from home this entire week. I will update you from a secure line as you requested."

Yami crossed his arms stiffly and narrowed his eyes at the CEO. "Promise me that you'll remain here. I won't survive losing you both."

Kaiba swallowed thinly and nodded. Aw. That was touching to hear.

There was a tense silence before Yami broke it first and said, "I'll make preparations. See you in a week." And he strode out the door, leaving it open behind him while his footsteps echoed down the hall.

That's it? Kaiba reeled as he jumped to his feet, chasing after Yami down the grand staircase, seeing Yami already halfway out the door.

"Wait!" Kaiba called desperately, wondering why Yami didn't give him a kiss or even a hug before he left. It was like the warm, loving Yami he knew had vanished in an instant, leaving behind this eerie, robotic man in his place.

Yami stopped on the front step and eyed the CEO standing on the top step and hated how his heart skipped a beat at the sight. Damn. This was going to be troublesome.

He'd fallen so deeply in love with Seto that his emotions might affect this last job.

He needed to put them aside and see Seto as a client in order to succeed.

"Come here," Kaiba said gruffly, rushing down the last few steps to join Yami at the door, trying to wrap his arms around him in an embrace, but to his rising dismay, Yami dodged him and gave him a tense smile.

"We'll celebrate when I return successfully," Yami said delicately, aware of Seto's rising frustration. "I'll see you soon. You forget what I am, Seto."

"Oh yeah? And what's that?!" Kaiba called as he grit his teeth and clenched his fists at his sides, watching Yami climb atop the motorbike and shove the angular helmet onto his head, spiky-hair and all.

"A weapon!" Yami shouted back, his voice muffled through the helmet and over the rumbling of the engine as he started it with a deafening roar. "Don't frown like that! You'll wrinkle your complexion!"

And he backed away from the fountain and did a lap around it before zooming to the front gates that were slowly opening.

Kaiba gripped the doorframe and watched Yami's slender form disappear down his long driveway and his eyes watered dangerously.

Shit. In all of his two heavenly years together with Yami, they'd never spent more than a few days apart. A week now felt like an eternity.

Kaiba sat at his desk and stared blankly at his screen, wondering what he should do now.

It had been three days without Yami and Mokuba.

He felt lost.

He'd done everything Yami had asked him to do—called in to take a week of work at home, gave his secretary a week at home as well, and enrolled Mokuba safely at a science camp in the mountains. Yami assured him he'd sent two spotters and their children to enroll as well. One spotter was ex-military, and the other was ex-yakuza, so if anything were to happen, Mokuba would be fine.

His phone was deathly silent, and it was setting him on edge.

Yami said that no news was good news, and that important updates would come once a day, and they did, in short, unhelpful sentences at exactly 12:00 every night.

"at storage unit picking up more supplies. Goodnight"

"staying at undisclosed location. Goodnight"

"spotted all targets today. Everything as planned. Goodnight"

Jesus. It was like getting updates from a bot. He could probably guess Yami's next texts.

"Pissing. Goodnight." Or "I don't miss you at all. Goodnight."

Sighing, Kaiba pressed his face into his hands and felt a tiny stress headache throbbing at his temple. This could not be good for his health. Time for a relaxing alcoholic drink.

He got up to serve himself a glass at the wet bar just as his phone pinged, and he dug it out with furious excitement, his heart falling when he saw it was just Isono, alerting him about a doorbell notification.

"Master Kaiba, no need for alarm but there are people at the door claiming to be from the Intelligence Agency. How to proceed?"

Shit. This again?! More assassins?! Kaiba bit the inside of his cheek so hard, he tasted blood as his ears rang tinny with a mixture of fear and adrenaline.

Yami hadn't planned for this. Neither of them had, and they hadn't come up with a plan to deal with this when they still had two bodies dissolving in acid in the basement!

"I'll tell Yami," Kaiba wrote back hastily and was about to tab away from the text when Isono's response came lightning fast.

"NO. He said not to text him unless it was an absolute emergency. These are real agents. I ran a facial scan on them 5 minutes ago. They've been sitting by the gate for the past 10 minutes."

Oh my fucking god, Kaiba raged. He stormed over to his desk to pull up the doorbell feed, and sure enough, three black cars were lined up outside his gate, one with the window rolled down, and a woman wearing a neat pantsuit was standing by the intercom.

Well, this wasn't an emergency, but Yami had said to update him if anything off script happened.

This was off script.

Kaiba texted Isono, "fuckign fine. Let them in, we have nthing to hide" and texted Yami immediately afterwards in a frenzy.

"hey. Real agents are at my door now. We didn't account for this, hope you have a plan."

And Kaiba set his jaw before adding another text, "miss you" and he clicked his phone off before he could feel tears building behind his eyes.

He got up to wash his face and to make himself look presentable. More acting was required of him today and Kaiba vowed to protect Yami with all his might.

Downstairs, Isono was bowing the agents into the mansion and kept his eyes downcast at the tips of their shiny shoes, his mind racing with dread.

Oh hell. If these agents were here to search the premises, they would find the bodies of two criminals chopped up in pieces and in various stages of decomposition in their basement lab.

None of them were holding a warrant, but there was an alarming number of agents.

Isono counted eight.

Two stayed by the door in a defensive stance and refused to come inside.

Two stayed at the foot of the grand staircase, also taking up a wide-legged stance and impassive expressions, while the rest trooped up the steps in a neat line.

Kaiba froze anxiously in the hallway on the third floor as he watched the suits march into his home, so he jogged down the stairs to receive them, half-wondering if their earpieces would work in his mansion since he'd installed signal jammers at Yami's insistence.

The agents spotted the CEO coming down the stairs and converged around him protectively. Isono shoved his hand into his blazer pocket, clenching and unclenching his fists as he watched them escort the master to the sitting area by the fireplace on the second floor and stand in formation around him.

"Mr. Kaiba, good to finally meet you," the woman wearing the neat bun said, bowing, and her colleagues all followed suit.

Kaiba broke out into a cold sweat and nodded. Okay…

She sat down on the ottoman before him, pulling out an electronic pad while her two other colleagues flanked the couch he was sitting on. Kaiba shifted anxiously, aware that he was being surrounded.

"Are you comfortable?" She asked as the last agent sat directly beside him, causing Kaiba to tense further.

"No. I'd like to know what's happening," Kaiba replied coldly, crossing his legs gracefully and lacing his fingers over his knee. "Start talking."

The woman grimaced at him and pulled up a mugshot of the two trespassers they had murdered. One man and one woman, both smiling in a crooked, deranged manner for the camera. Classic criminals.

"Cool," Kaiba commented, and the woman's eyes widened with shock before they narrowed disapprovingly.

"Not cool, Mr. Kaiba," She said stiffly as she lowered the pad. "These two are international terrorists. They gassed a pachinko parlor four days ago. Word around the street is…they're after you. They're extremely dangerous individuals and we're here to offer you protection."

"Word on the street?" Kaiba raised his eyebrows, trying not to laugh. Wow, the authorities were really behind if they thought those two were still a threat! And that was four days ago.

"We're working closely with some yakuza," the woman replied honestly, leaning forward to show an image of a young man with light brown hair styled into a single spike. "In exchange for our protection, he gives us information."

"I feel like I'm in a movie," Kaiba commented, and he earned a stiff grunt from the agent sitting beside him.

"Please be serious, Mr. Kaiba," the woman frowned delicately and held up the now-familiar blurry photo of Yami scowling up at a security camera. "They are linked to this man. Half of his file is missing, which he likely destroyed or had redacted by another country's agency, but we know that he is a highly trained assassin. He's a walking monster, Mr. Kaiba, believe me. If you've seen even half of his—"

"Okay tell me about it," Kaiba said curiously, leaning forward with a tense smile. "I've got all day. I'm not going to go anywhere with you until you tell me all of it. What has he done? I know those two are terrorists. I saw their faces on the news."

There was a tense silence before the man standing behind the woman spoke up for the first time, his eyes downcast as he recited from memory, "…He's wiped-out whole organizations, government or otherwise, from the top down. Heartlessly. He has extensive knowledge ranging from explosives, tactical combat, to encrypted technology. He's a real threat to someone like you, Mr. Kaiba. Even you cannot hide behind all your computers with this man around. For every measure you have, this man will have a countermeasure."

Kaiba gripped his knees tightly. Y-Yeah he knew that.

Yami's countermeasure to the Joker Pair invading the library was three holes in the roof…which were still there if the agents wanted to look around.

They'd recognize the bullet holes immediately and ask questions.

Shit.

"And I can see that you're afraid now…" the woman said, tucking the pad under her arm, looking satisfied. "Will you come with us to the safehouse we have prepared?"

Kaiba blinked and shook his head stiffly.

He wasn't going anywhere.

Yami said to stay put, he was going to stay put or it might fuck with his plans.

"This house is safe," Kaiba said nervously, hating how his emotions leaked. Damn, he wasn't as good of a liar as he thought he was. The memory of the two dead bodies in his library were still fresh. Thank god Mokuba wasn't here.

"Then why don't you sound like you believe your own words?" The man standing behind the female agent challenged, letting out a stiff sigh. "Please, Mr. Kaiba. We know you are a proud man. This will not be seen as a weakness. If anything were to happen to you…we would've failed doing our jobs."

"I'll be fine here. Take me by force if you want but I'm not moving from this spot," Kaiba said calmly, keeping his fingers laced tightly around his knee, seeing the men around him tense.

The woman sighed and stood up, stepping aside and letting her two colleagues advance on the CEO with their hands folded in front of them in tight, defensive stances.

"Then by force it is," she said coldly, her demeanor changing instantly. "I'll wait downstairs for him to come willingly. Mr. Kaiba is a smart man." And with that, she walked down the grand staircase, her heels echoing behind her.

Kaiba blinked rapidly and saw multiple hands reaching for him, so he rolled away from the man sitting beside him first, and tried to leap over the back of the couch, but he was caught around the waist, so he kicked out and saw Isono's shadow punching an individual somewhere on the floor below, and pained grunting echoed throughout the house.

"He's struggling. Backup needed," the man holding Kaiba around the waist snapped into his earpiece but received nothing but silence. Something sharp stung him in the ribs, followed by a rough stab to the groin, and he doubled over in pain, wheezing as his co-workers scrambled to detain the CEO who was putting up a magnificent fight.

Kaiba sprinted over to the kitchen and pulled the oven open, praying as he shoved his hands into it, his fingers grazing over the gun. He thanked Yami privately in his mind as he spun around to aim it at the first person he could see, but a man had come at him sideways, keeping his elbow locked and shoving him to the ground with force.

Hissing, Kaiba struggled to unclip the safety, but a shiny shoe came down on his shoulder, pinning him down in place while another man picked up the gun and set it on the counter, panting with exertion.

"This fucking psycho has guns in his oven…" the man muttered as the CEO shouted curses at him from the ground.

"I'm suing you! Every single damn one of you! Get off my property!" Kaiba spat as he was rolled onto his stomach and handcuffed forcefully. "I can refuse protection! I said fuck off!"

"You pointed a weapon at an agent. We can hold you for 48 hours," the man at the counter replied coolly, pointing at the stairway. "Let's go. We've secured the target. Epsilon team, do you copy?...Hello? Epsilon team leader, can you respond? We've secured the target."

The target?! Kaiba reeled as he wondered if these men were more low-grade assassins who Yami could wipe in seconds.

As they were walking down the stairs, Kaiba was relieved to see Isono creeping up at them with a gun aimed at the agent directly in front of him. His manservant looked roughed up, with his hair a mess, his tie askew and a splotch of someone else's blood on his sleeve, but otherwise unharmed.

"Release him, or I'll fire," Isono said quietly, immensely thankful that Yami had suggested Kaiba install signal jammers in their living room, specifically for this event. Their team coordination had been thrown off…slightly, giving him this opening.

"You're outnumbered. Put it down," the man in front of Kaiba said tiredly, holding his weapon up at eye level. "Back down and we won't charge you for harassment."

"Release him, or they'll fire too, and they shoot to kill," Isono replied coldly, jerking his head at the upper floor balcony to his left, and Kaiba saw Yami's burly security guards leaning over the railing with long range rifles.

Holy shiiiiit…. He did not personally approve those for his security team?! They had laser sights as well, their red dots hovering threateningly on the agent's black sleeves, and the man behind him gently released him.

Oh thank god.

This was Yami's countermeasure. Nice.

"Uncuff me," Kaiba said coldly, and the man behind him slowly reached down to fumble at his cuffs. The metal grazed his knuckles painfully before they fell away with a clink, and Kaiba shoved past the man in front of him to rush behind Isono to the safety of the first floor, running right into the female agent who was standing by the elevator. Oh shit.

He wasn't going to hit a woman, but it seemed like today was his day. Kaiba ducked down behind his fists and saw her raise her hand as if she wanted to slap him, so he dodged her, but she managed to hit him anyway, squarely on the side and something stung him through his clothes.

Oh ….Shit!

"Mild sedative," she hissed, raising her hand again, and Kaiba could see tiny pinpricks of something pinned between her closed fingers. "Stay calm or I'll hit you with it again and you'll really pass out."

Kaiba cursed and wobbled on his feet when his head rushed.

Author's note:

Oh nooooooooo! Kaiba can't catch a break!