I've had so many people asking about a continuation for this fic and, well, the bunny pen began to grow restless because of you all. The sequel is now live on AO3 with the title 'Luck of the Damned', and with all of FFN's issues lately likely won't be uploaded here unless the site sees some major fixes, but here's a preview for everyone subbed here.

Word Count: 1454/3914
Rating: T

Disclaimer: Of the few things I own, these fandoms are not on the list.


Being back in the office was strange. Well, it was a bit more than that, but strange was the simplest descriptor. Growing his reputation in the business world -however tenuous it tended to be- Seto Kaiba was no stranger to the eccentricities of the gaming industry he found himself so immersed in nor the machinations of the tabloids that scrambled to write puff and hit pieces alike in the wake of Battle City's conclusion.

The way it had ended was anticlimactic at best. But at the end of the day, Battle City was over. Well, it was on paper but the paperwork was as far as Kaiba was willing to involve himself post tournament. Really, Yugi and his little group should have counted themselves lucky that he had even done that much for them.

Nothing about that tournament had gone as predicted, for anyone. That it hadn't ended with the reclamation of his title was almost worth it for how thoroughly bothered one Isis Ishtar seemed to be by the whole affair.

"This is not what the Necklace foretold, Kaiba," she'd pulled him aside to insist once the finals had ended. "It was the Pharaoh's destiny to defeat my brother."

And yet, it was the mutt -Jonouchi- that had done it. For as much as Seto Kaiba did not like Jonouchi, not that he liked a great many people to begin with, he liked Isis Ishtar even less. He was everything that Isis Ishtar was not, and she believed in everything he'd come to despise. She relied on prophecy and took comfort in a future decided for her.

The only one who could decide Kaiba's future was Kaiba; that was a lesson he'd learned a long time ago.

He could stomach Jonouchi's victory against a single madman if only for the satisfaction of the way it flew in the face of the unending lectures of fate and destiny.

Beyond that, it wasn't a terrible outcome at the end of the day. Mokuba had finally honed in on a friend that wasn't involved with the nerd herd, and Kaiba certainly wasn't about to discourage it. Souta Higurashi was tolerable, and Mokuba certainly could have -and had- picked far worse individuals to befriend.

But with Souta Higurashi came Kagome Higurashi.

Now, Kagome Higurashi was strange. She wasn't intolerable the way Yugi's little group tended to be, at least. If anything, the thing he disliked most about the girl was that he did not know what to make of her to begin with. The only certainty was that he was stuck with her.

Not for the first time, Kaiba thought that it would not be madmen with magic or plots to steal his company, but a woman that would be the death of him.

That girl hadn't even ended up in his tournament as a participant, and somehow had turned it on its head. For all the oddities he was used to from the industry he'd taken by storm, a perky shrine girl was not a variable that he had planned for.

Convoluted plots to steal his company, he expected.

Madmen with artifacts that wielded dark magic, he'd grown used to.

Shrine girls who could apparently thwart that magic, not so much.

It was equal parts satisfying and maddening. Given the way Isis had continued to eye Higurashi after the confrontation with Marik, and even more so after Kaiba's duel with her, it was clear that she had determined that Higurashi's presence had changed things. It was probably more impressive that Higurashi hadn't liked the woman. She seemed the sort to make friends with anyone, possibly even one of the robots that maintained the ship, given the chance. Her immediate dislike of the curator had caught him by surprise.

Perhaps she expected that psychotic brother of hers to obtain a higher body count. Ironically, Higurashi had ended up taking the worst damage out of the lot. To that day, Kaiba wasn't certain whether he should have been concerned or impressed with how blasé she'd been about taking a knife to the ribs.

Of course, Higurashi was an anomaly in her own right.

For as overly chipper and friendly as she was, she had a temper to match. That in and of itself wasn't so strange - he'd gotten plenty of exposure to Anzu Mazaki's personality after all. However, unlike the equally feisty Mazaki, Kagome Higurashi had at least some level of experience to back it up.

And her little display with Ra during Kujaku's duel had thrust her right into a spotlight that hadn't even known she existed.

Mokuba's friendship with Souta Higurashi turned out to be quite the boon when the tabloids started questioning who she was. Taking on Souta Higurashi an intern for Kaiba Corp made for a convenient excuse, even if that wasn't the only reason for it. The Higurashi boy was surprisingly adept with technology and respectably well versed in Duel Monsters and a variety of other games - not that he could hold a candle to Kaiba. Granted, few could even hope to do that to begin with. Only Yugi had ever been able to rival him on that front.

With Battle City out of the way and the God Cards out of his hands, there was no reason for him to involve himself with them any longer. And he intended to keep it that way.

He had a company to run. He had goals beyond a championship title to work towards.

That was what found him in American city of San Francisco under the blazing sun of a Californian summer. Fire season be damned, his plans for launching the amusement park had been delayed long enough. He'd douse the entirety of the west coast with a fleet of his own aircraft if he had to.

This had been his goal for far longer than 'Number One Duelist' had been his title.

This was the goal he and Mokuba had decided on together, even long before he'd wrested the company away from Gozaburo Kaiba. It was the goal Gozaburo himself had despised. Lucrative investment or not, accomplishing the creation of Kaiba Land was worth it if only to spite the man.

It was just going on eleven in the morning when the first work crew broke for lunch, finally allowing him a moment of peace before he was to leave on the next inspection. Things might have gone a bit faster if Mokuba had joined him, but his brother had been eagerly at work on some video game he and the Higurashi boy had begun developing. Far be it from him to impede his vice president's own goals for expanding their market. It would seamlessly complement the virtual world project that had been shelved after the Big Five's meddling. He would have to revisit that project too, assess the damage that had been done as a result of their botched coup.

At least with Higurashi around, there wasn't likely to be any kidnappings due to magic, or whatever other nonsense followed Yugi around.

Kaiba idly wondered if he had time to acquire a cup of coffee.

Before he could decide, his phone buzzed, loudly demanding he return to work. Expecting another one of the many contractors that he'd been organizing that day, he didn't bother to look at the screen. If they had his number they were either important enough for it, or their systems had been hacked again.

"Kaiba," he answered with a grunt.

The familiar voice of his secretary at the Domino City headquarters echoed from on the other end. "Mr. Kaiba, there's a Kagome Higurashi on line 5 for you. She's really quite insistent, sir."

'Speak of the devil,' he thought. Then he paused.

Kaiba looked at his phone a second, then a third time. No matter how hard he stared, the screen still happily displayed a local time of 11AM. 'It's three in the morning in Japan…what the devil could she be calling about at this hour?'

Kaiba reluctantly accepted the call.

"Kaiba-kun," Higurashi's voice sang, the cheery tone sending a sense of dread crawling down his spine, "why is there a Petite Dragon chewing on my torii gate?!"

Kaiba blinked.

Kaiba pulled the phone away from his head to stare at it.

Kaiba blinked again.

Kaiba brought the phone back to his ear.

It must have been a bad connection. Surely, he'd misheard her. Higurashi might have been foolish enough to jump in front of a god card's attack without a plan, or to stitch a stab wound by herself, but he hadn't pegged her for delusional, despite her fantastical stories.

Kaiba closed his eyes and took a breath. "I'm going to need you to repeat that, Higurashi."


Check out the sequel and read the full chapter on AO3! - works/57018979

Any thoughts, theories, or questions, drop a comment.

~Huntress