Seto sat in his dressing room sipping his coffee, trying to clear the tired haze that sat at the front of his mind.

He could hear the rushing around outside his door, and he opted to ignore it.

The screen mounted on the wall was playing the performance of the musician, bringing the mood of the crowd up. His company had provided free clappers at the door, so the many white and blue sticks were waving in the audience, creating a clamor that made him mute the screen.

Leaning back into the couch, Seto pulled out his phone and anxiously checked it.
Yami assured him everything was going to go great, and even offered to meet him in the car on his way home.
A photo of tanned, bare legs underneath the covers was sent to him 30 minutes ago.

It made him feel marginally better.

There was a soft knock at the door which made him glance up, and he wondered who it was. No one was supposed to come get him for another 30 minutes.
This was his 'meditation time'.

He was about to shout, 'go away!' when the door swung open, and a man wearing a bright orange high-visibility vest stepped inside and turned to face him with a toothy grin.

Tufts of white hair were sticking out from underneath the bandanna with a worn insignia, and even though the man was wearing a mask, his thick beard was still visible along the sides of his square jaw.
Yami's grandpa.
What the fuck?!

"Ah you're still alive," the old man scoffed, tossing the pink box for pastries he had been holding in his hands onto the coffee table in front of Seto's knees. "There. For you, since my grandson is slacking today, it's my job to make sure his pet doesn't die."

Seto narrowed his eyes and didn't move, half the mind to call security to throw his old man out. How did he get past…his security?!

"Oh he's thinking," Solomon narrated tauntingly as he tapped a thick finger to his temple. "How did he get in past my guys? Half of the city's police are here, and yet this old man slipped through? One word for you. Age. I'm invisible once I carry a broom and a dustpan."

Seto blinked and gripped his phone tighter, wondering if he ought to call Yami instead.

"Open it. You're on stage in 25 minutes, I checked," Solomon growled, his angular eyes gleaming with malice. "I had this made especially for you. It took 22 hours of printing and another 56 of planning. Go on. It won't explode. You and Atem both think I enjoy gifting bombs. Not in this country, boy."

Seto grimaced and slowly reached for the pink box, eyeing the cute donut illustration on the front. Nice. This was Shizuka's favorite donut place.

He opened the box and stared blankly at the square, chunky, blue and white plastic brick that was sitting in the wax paper.
…Okay. Ugly.

"Do I need to show you how to use it? Go on, you're a smart boy," Solomon huffed as he crossed his thick arms across his chest. "Hurry up. You have 8 minutes to figure it out."

"Why?" That was the first question that dropped from Seto's mouth.
What the fuck was this thing?

He reached for it out of curiosity and was caught off guard by the surprising weight.
Ridges from the 3D printer were visible along the surface, and there was an obvious indent for him to slip his thumb into the catch. The brightly colored blocks were reminiscent of a simple rubix cube, so Seto played with it cautiously, using a bit more force to grip a section that slid back, and a loud click echoed in a similar way when he would rack a firearm.

Seto glanced in his hands and realized he'd maneuvered the plastic brick into…a crude, rectangular gun.

S-SERIOUSLY?!

"A 3D printed brick-gun. Congrats," Seto said dryly, turning it upside down in his hands to see if the trigger would move. "You're looking for a backer? I don't invest in violence. And… Will this even fire without blowing your hand off? Come on, old man."

"Hmmm, I don't know," Solomon wiggled his fingers beside his face in a playful gesture. "Try loading it with a nine millimeter bullet."

Appalled and exasperated, Seto put the gun back into the box and gave the old man a cold smile.

"I see that's what you're spending my money on. This shit," he said, eyeing the screen on the wall and seeing the musician still performing energetically. "The checks are supposed to be for food. But fine, I'll have Yami test it with whatever 9mm bullet we have lying around when he feels like playing with a 3D gun."

Solomon held up a firm finger and shook his head. "No. I said this is for you. And I made sure to arm you earlier. Look inside your fountain pen. Did you bring it?"

Seto felt the floor sink beneath him and he slowly inched his hands into his inner blazer pocket for the fountain pen he'd brought on a gut feeling, and he hated how that gut feeling was happening right now.
Because Solomon's note had said, "I hope yousurvive your phone release."
Indicating a threat he needed to overcome.
And he knew Yami couldn't shield him forever.
He was retired…
It would be unfair to ask him.

Setting the glass pen onto the table with both hands, Seto felt an odd sensation like he was floating out of his body, watching himself obey the old man when asked to take the pen apart.

Inside, wasn't an ink cartridge.
It was a shiny, gold-cased bullet.

9 millimeters.

"Now I'm going to leave and impart with you the knowledge I taught my boy for his own safety," Solomon said as he walked to the door to rest his hand on the handle. "Shot in the head, doesn't mean dead. Got that? Always leave the scene untouched aside from the shells, and don't leave any tells. That's all."

Stunned speechless, Seto could only nod. Wait a fucking minute. Was this a gift?
Or was he being…trained to take Yami's place? Because no?!

"I'm not taking his place," Seto said firmly, but he heard his voice shake at the end. "I'm not Yami. You can't…fucking train me to be him because you're bored."

Solomon let out a barking laugh and shook his head, "no, fool. You are his pet. He tamed you well enough, and it's my job to arm our pets. Our pets bite back. If you don't, you're just an eating, drinking, sleeping, liability. Learn to protect yourself, since the people after you won't stop because my boy let you live. Understand? I know there's a child living with you. Do it for him too."

And he opened the door to walk out, closing it with a tight slam!

Letting his breath out in a furious huff, Seto pulled out his phone to take a photo of the fountain pen with the bullet inside to show Yami, deciding not to include the 3D printed gun in the background just yet.

Insanity.

He was in the middle of composing the text when he heard a knock, so he glanced at the time on his screen, hissing in annoyance. He still had 15 more minutes.
Why were people continuously bothering him?

"Come back later, I'm masturbating!" Seto called as he sent the text with a shaking thumb.

The door was opened anyway, and a man wearing a staff cap and a mask gestured for him to get up.

"Mr. Kaiba, we're switching you out of his room briefly," the man said bowing so low, Seto couldn't see his face, but what hedid see was the end of a koi's tail tattooed on his wrist that disappeared when the edge of his long sleeve covered it when he straightened out of his bow.

"No one fucking told me about that. I'm not moving from this location," Seto replied through numb lips, and felt a crushing feeling closing in on him. It felt like the four walls of the room were suddenly moving closer to box him in.
The name tag on this man said "Matsuda", but it was a metal pin, not the hand-written name tags he had been seeing all day.

This man had a clipboard, but the schedule printed on it was blank squares, colored carelessly with color pencils in an odd pattern, with orange as a main color.
Orange was not a main color on the staff schedules.

Fuck. Was this what Solomon was talking about?
That old man was making him fucking paranoid.

The masked employee hissed and bowed again, gesturing one stiff hand out the door, "Mr. Kaiba please, we are on a tight schedule as you know, so please come with us to save the immense trouble that the entire staff is going through right now. We merely need to move you for 10 minutes before you go on stage."

I'm being kidnapped?Or am I paranoid? Seto wondered how he could refuse further, and he glanced at the donut box where the colorful 3D gun sat obviously on the surface, and he nodded.

"Okay one second, let me finish eating," Seto said as he moved to palm the bullet still in the fountain pen up off the table while closing the pink box slightly to obscure the brightly colored brick from view. "It's two bites."

The man nodded and stepped out, waiting by the hallway, and Seto moved to slam the door, keeping the pink box balanced in one hand while he tucked the gun into the back of his belt. It looked obvious when he turned to look at himself in the mirror.
Fuck no.
If he went on stage like this, people would see.

On second thought, he put the gun back in the box and decided to throw it away on his way out.

"Mr. Kaiba?! We are extremely late! ...Please! Ah, Miss Maeda is paging me, asking about your status!" The man called, and Seto yelled back, "ALRIGHT FUCK!"
Miss Maeda was the event organizer, and he talked to her a total of 3 times.
She had no business paging him.
His escort on stage was security.
That was the solid plan.
So this…masked man was…not part of the plan.

Keeping the gun inside the box, he pulled the door open to pick a fight with the masked employee but received a shock when a man wearing full-body armor towered before him and shoved a knife underneath his jaw, the blade nicking his skin and giving him a sting of pain.

Seto grit his teeth in fury, the bullet clenched in his left fist while he balanced the pink box on his forearm on his right arm.
Alright, funny joke.
Was this Solomon's idea of a joke?

"Yami?" Seto tried hopefully, and he felt the knife dig harder into his jaw, making his skin burn. Oh fuck.
And there was no way this tall giant was Yami.

"Don't call for your mommy," the man under the helmet said gruffly, jerking his head to the left. "Walk."

Swallowing thinly, Seto nodded and slowly eased forward, feeling the man step behind him and give him a push while there was another man in full-armor down the hall, and a chill went down his spine.
He saw two groups of his security unconscious and propped up against the wall by the bathroom as he walked by, and he bit the inside of his cheek.
They were ambushed while taking a piss.

The sharp edge of the knife dug into his back as the man poked it into his suit, and Seto hissed.

This man was cutting him up before a presentation where cameras would be on his face. And he had his makeup done 30 minutes ago!

"You're making me late," Seto commented as he kept his grip tighter on the pink box, now realizing that was his salvation. "This isn't the way to the main stage."

"Shut up." The man behind him growled, and he heard him give a gruff command under his helmet in English. "Is the closet ready? I'm itching to kill this VIP. Hallway C, secure?"

There was a pause, and Seto tried to drag his feet as much as possible, walking slowly while trying to devise a way to pull the gun out of the donut box. He had to wait.

They led him down another hallway that had the lights turned off, and Seto did his best to remain calm. Calmness was his biggest weapon. If he felt fear, they would win.
As far as he knew, Solomon was still in the building, probably watching, testing him. Otherwise, why would he drop the gun off moments before the man knocked?

Unless the old man was in on it…
That would break Yami's heart.

A yellow door of the supplies closet was propped open, and Seto was shoved inside with a stumble.

A go pro was propped up on thin legs of a long tripod, the red light in the corner blinking ominously to indicate it was streaming live, and Seto bit back a horrified hiss. They better not be streaming this on the screens in the Dome.

He was trying to release a gaming phone, not get murdered on livestream.

His ass hit the metal chair and he still kept the pink box in his lap, miraculously. Somehow.

"Okay… What?" Seto asked, boldly crossing one leg over the other while he glared at the full-armored freak. "LARP often? You must all be virgins." He aimed this comment at the other full armored man by the closet door, blocking out the light completely.

His eyes widened when the man holding the knife drew his gun and aimed it at him. Blinking in shock, Seto dove to the side while clutching the donut box to his chest and heard the gun fire and hit the wall behind him with a sharp clack.

Plaster from the wall flew in every direction, and Seto scrambled to get the gun out from the donut box, his hands completely firm as he dumped the bullet out of the pen and shoved it into the gun's chamber.
It fit perfectly.

His heart was thundering in his ears. He wondered how he hadn't been shot a second time, and raised his head to see someone tackling the man down.
That person was wearing a wire.

But it gave him an opening to aim his weapon at the second, full-armored heathen who was pointing a weapon at him, missing when he shot.

The scent of gunpowder stung the back of Seto's throat when the bullet hit the wall behind him again, and he had to wonder what kind of low-level grunts had been sent to 'exterminate' him.

Keeping the 3D gun steady in both hands Seto stayed down low on one knee while he aimed his one shot at the man's helmet and prayed the gun wouldn't burn his hands off and that the bullet would penetrate the military helmet as he squeezed the plastic trigger, and the loudest bang caught him so off guard, so he dropped the gun the moment after he fired, causing the pieces to shatter at his feet.

Stunned, Seto stayed unmoving.
He saw blood from the man lying twitching on the floor, and he eyed the gopro, reaching over to knock it over, hating how he didn't know where the stream went and if everyone in the Dome had just seen him murder a man.

"SETO!" He heard Yami's tell-tale voice echo from the hallway, and he didn't dare call back.

He would wait.

Yami leapt out of the elevator and saw one of Odion's full-armored right-hand man twitching from a wound, trying to sit up, so he drew his weapon to end that man's suffering. He stamped his foot down on the man's throat and turned his own head away to avoid the pieces of helmet flying back at him as he fired into the man's visor and saw the body lie still at least.

Blood was puddling out from underneath man at an alarming rate, and Yami's fear was at an all-time high. Was he too late?! Seto hadn't replied to his call.
If he turned around to see a bloody body in the closet, he was turning the gun on himself in his grief.

Seto stayed frozen on the floor in the empty closet, his ears humming at the sight of another full-armored monster. This one was ruthless, having snapped the man's neck before putting a couple bullets in him.
But the body-type of this person was slender.
They had small hands even though their body was bulked by gear.

"Seto, are you hurt?" Yami held his hands up in a defensive position, relieved to see that Seto was only bleeding from a tiny cut on his handsome jaw. Thank goodness he was alive, but that was too many close calls!

At a loss for words, Seto merely nodded and kept his hands away from any part of his face, not wanting to spread the gunpowder residue around. He knew better than to do that.

"Stay there!" Yami cried as he ran off after Pegasus, who was giving chase to Odion, and their footsteps echoed loudly down the hall.

Seto stared at the body lying on the ground in front of him.

…He had killed that man, he was pretty sure he had been dead or dying before Yami came to step on his neck.

To his rising disbelief, Solomon appeared, still wearing his high-visibility cleaning vest and carrying a broom while wheeling a janitor's cart behind him.

The old man bent down and lifted the corpse up to fold him into the blue trash can with a loud, cheerful whistle, and placed the plastic lid firmly over the man's booted feet. Then a mop was slapped wetly down on the ground, and Solmon sponged up the puddle of blood in a few swipes.

He only had to dunk the mop back in twice before the floor was clean again.

Then he strode into the closet with the dustpan to sweep up the glass and plastic remnants out from around Seto's legs, even picking up the go-pro and compressing the tripod down.

Solomon lifted the blue lid of the garbage to dump it all unceremoniously in with the man's body, pushing the cart away with his whistling echoing down the hall.

Seto blinked, his body numb with shock. He could hear more people running and shouting, "you there! …Janitor! Have you seen our CEO? …Seto Kaiba?!"

"Ah yes. Young man is in the closet," Solomon's deep voice replied over the loud rumble of this cart's wheels over the tiled floors. "He's having a crisis. I couldn't help him."

"Closet?!" Someone yelped, and the pattering of feet arrived at the doorway of the closet.
Seto was faced with his PR team and Isono, who had the phone to his pale face, a bead of sweat shining on his forehead by his tight hairline.
W-Wow… uh, they were all standing in place where a man had just died.

"Don't stand there," Seto said, more to Isono than anyone else, and he was surrounded by hands helping him to his feet and then patting him, and someone even patted a tissue at the cut on his jaw that had stopped bleeding.

He was deaf to their worried questions and was swept back into his dressing room where the makeup artist was standing anxiously by his door with a sponge in hand, and the cut stung when she dabbed at it, but it was over fast.

More Domino police arrived in formation to walk him up the hallway, into the elevator and up another set of stairs. He was being questioned by officers while the makeup artist was passing a wipe over his hands and patting make up to his knuckles.

"Mr. Kaiba, did you see what happened with your security team?"

"Were you in the closet to hide? Or is it pressure? No harm in admitting it, sir."

"Where were you for the past 20 minutes, Mr. Kaiba?"

Dazed, Seto let them talk and didn't even see their faces or even bring himself to answer. He felt like he was in a weird trance, watching himself moving around, stepping out of the elevator and only briefly snapping out of it when a camera flashed, and the photographer asked him to smile for a pre-event photo.

The police dispersed around him and he managed to turn the corners of his mouth upwards into a smile for the five photographers that had press badges swinging from their necks.

He walked up behind the stage-hand who was gesturing for him to come forward, and he was given a 2 minute waiting time, then a cue to walk up onto the platform to the deafening cheers of the crowd.

The clapper noise was overwhelming.

Seto saw Mokuba and Shizuka in the VIP quadrant, waving and jumping ecstatically.

The entire world was smiling at him and his ears hummed. A staffer ran forward to hand him an ear piece which he neglected to put on, so he accepted it with both hands, aware that the entire arena was watching him place it in and then take up the mic that had been offered to him by the MC, who he realized with a jolt… was Pegasus, wearing a flamboyant, flashy, red suit.

Seto blinked and he stared, then remembered he was on stage.

He turned to face the glittering crowd and lifted the microphone to his lips, hearing a quiet settle over the crowd as they waited for his words.

"...Can't believe we're here," he said, off-script for a moment, his voice cracking, and that was received with clapping and cheers, making him feel extremely light-headed.
He had just killed a man and grazed death.
If he was any more twisted in his own brain, this applause could be taken as positive reinforcement that he did the right thing. And if that wasn't enough, he saw Mokuba and Shizuka cheering energetically from the VIP seats right in front of him.

It made his heart flutter and Seto turned to face the crowd with even more enthusiasm, going through his presentation as he'd practiced, feeling sheer triumph.
This was what it felt like to own the world.

Author's note:

Seto's dark side comes outttttt :O