A Past and Future Pharaoh

Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix

Original Beta: WhiteSwan

A/N: OMG this chapter had been terrible, I had to fix so much stuff! For all you who followed me through the years even through horrible chapters like this originally was. THANK YOU!

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Kaiba was in a mood.

The moment he opened his eyes and got a look at the space around him, his 'I am the CEO of this company and don't you 'dare' fail me' mood readjusted. Becoming a 'Who are you to tamper with my creations and endanger another human being' type of laser precision focused outrage.

The room looked rather ordinary, clearly the office of someone who often did work at home as well as in the office; it had a nearly Spartan feel. A feel that Kaiba knew and could navigate around blindfolded, from knowing how many steps it took to get around his desk, to how many folders were in each drawer of the room. He was so in tune with his office that he didn't even need to open his eyes to know that he was in it.

But there were two things that were very much out of place in his office and the first was that he was 'in' his office in the first place. The game should have placed him on a path outside the first city of the game, not in his office. Just the fact that he was 'here' told him that whoever was behind this was targeting Kaiba.

The second thing to tip him off was that 'he' was leaning against the door. He was not in two places at the same time.

"So, are you here to tell me what this is about? Or am I going to have to guess?" Kaiba began, rising from his seat while the holoKaiba gave a very good version of Kaiba's own glare. The hologram didn't move save to follow Kaiba with its eyes, like a camera with his face.

Kaiba stalked around his desk, this whole situation was worrisome. The dome that protected the player 'was' thick for their own safety. But wasn't so thick that a person could not 'hear' someone beating on the Pod. Yet Yugi had proven to be unresponsive to any outside sound. Which meant that during the visual presentation of the game, someone had apparently exposed Yugi to hypnotic visual codes that meant he was now fully asleep in his pod. Or at the very least he was still awake and unable to respond to the environment around him.

A mind trapped inside a machine?

This was not something Kaiba had much knowledge in, the use of Virtual Reality was still cutting edge. There wasn't many people who knew of it or how to utilize it, so the idea would normally strike him as preposterous. Who would have the time to, not only, master the necessary technology, but also completely take over a system?

It wasn't safe for Yugi or himself to be in the system and he needed to find Yugi fast. The hologram didn't react to Kaibas' motions so he strode to the door only to be grabbed by his wrist hard. The hologram didn't appear aware of its environment, merely a tool to block Kaiba from his goal. Making Kaiba realize that, if he wanted to find Yugi, he was going to have to find the Duelist as a mere player in someone elses' game.

Kaiba tried to yank his hand back, but the hologram had a firm hold on it, and used that hold to its advantage as it twisted Kaiba's arm outward. Taking a step towards the hologram he lashed out with a sidekick that brought his whole leg into the hologram's gut knocking it into the door behind it. But while it did let go of Kaiba's wrist, it also caught his leg, and yanking back a step on its own, proceeded to drop Kaiba on to his upper back and neck. The pain stunned Kaiba as his leg was dropped, letting the hologram take control; it picked him up by his hair and proceeded to slam it's knee into Kaiba's own gut as it dragged Kaiba over to his desk.

Gasping for breath, Kaiba struggled to get his bearings in the fight when as the Hologram grabbed his right foot and raised his hand for a strike to the kneecap. Instinct told him that the move would crush his kneecap and end the fight before he could even begin looking for Yugi. He yanked his leg back and with his free leg kicked out for the first thing his foot could connect with. He had to break the hold fast and the moment his foot connected with the Hologram's groin area he broke free and tried to finish the roll. That's when he realized that the Hologram could not feel pain, but did react to injuries, like someone under extreme mind control, where they didn't know that they were hurt. Just because the brain didn't acknowledge the pain didn't mean the bones didn't break.

"Great." Kaiba growled as he felt the hologram grab his coat when he tried to get up, pulling him towards it. He slipped out of his long white trench coat with a snarl before using it to bind up the holograms' hands. It was eerie the way that he was in a sense fighting himself, and ironic that he was fighting himself to find Yugi, but that would be thought about later. With a vicious yank he pulled the hologram towards him while slamming his foot into the Hologram's kneecap, shattering it into pieces and sending it to the ground. Anger fueled by the action of whoever hijacked his program, Kaiba didn't stop with just crippling his hologram. Grabbing it by its own hair he snapped the neck, letting it drop to the ground as a message for whoever thought they could just do this to him and get away with it.

Pulling his own coat back on, he stalked out of the office and down past rooms until he reached the garage. Resting inside the garage was a motorcycle that he had bought for some reason; Mokuba was going to have to remind him just what that had been sometime. He all but tore the keys from the a rack while in his mind he tried to think of where Yugi would go if he were lost here.

The data files all stated that Yugi had gone through the game like a regular gamer would, but at the end the game he should have been released. Instead, Yugi was now a prisoner inside a fake Domino City. Kaiba straddled the bike as the front garage door opened and perhaps he gripped the handles a little too tightly as he sat there waiting. But this game was his responsibility; the fact that someone had managed to hack into it and do this, meant it wasn't safe for presentation.

Months of hard work, planning and design now endangered by someone he didn't know angered him greatly. But if this were an attack on him, then more then likely the enemy would be at the Kaiba Corp HQ. After all the HQ was, for all intents and purposes, the core of the city, Domino was all but built around the company.

When Gozoboro had put his company in Domino it was with the idea that he essentially owned the city. So he would be able to grow the company to the proportions where he could, in a sense, own the world. That was why he ran a military construction company in the end, after all nations, first or last needed weapons. People would always find reasons to mass murder people so it was an eternal self sustaining business. Even the name of the city fit Gozoboro, just the starting domino he would need before he would take over another city and another until he had the world in his web.

Kaiba had known from the very beginning that as he accepted Gozoboro's ways of dealing with others that, he chose to live by the corporate sword and he was willing to die by it. Was it out of mercy that they choose to use Yugi instead of Mokuba or because Yugi was the only one in the game? If there was only one thing about him that didn't changed since the day he accepted Gozoboro as his new father, it was his commitment that no one else would be involved in his problems that no one else would suffer because of his own personal battles.

Yugi was very friendly, when Kaiba first encountered the tricolor haired teen, Yugi seemed determined to befriend every single person he met if at all possible. Kaiba could recall through out, before and after the Duelist Kingdom tournament, how Yugi seemed to attract people. By the time Battle City had come Yugi had an eclectic group of followers.

He'd found that Yugi loved a challenge, he loved strength and when he saw strength, for whatever reason, it drew him in like a moth to a flame. It was that attraction to intelligence and inner strength that could make him overlook Malik's assassination attempt, and even Kaiba's own callous treatment. Without those traits, Yugi didn't notice a person, an example being the mutt's mouse of a sister, who held no sense of independence or self esteem. Despite her being his sister, Kaiba couldn't recall Yugi making any attempt at friending her.

Nice thing about writing a motorcycle in the Virtual Domino was the clear and total lack of bugs. Since Kaiba wasn't wearing a helmet, and since this city wasn't supposed to even 'exist'. No bugs to fly into his face or cops to stop him from driving any damn where he wanted.

The streets of this fake Domino were empty of vehicles as were the sidewalks of vendors. The whole city was completely and utterly silent that was only broken by the sound of his bike. What kind of torture or punishment did whoever inflict on Yugi when they caught him? Yugi was still recovering from his loss and needed someone around; the absolute solitude 'would' get to him.

Unless he tried to leave Domino, was that what caused the read outs that Mokuba noted to happen? Did they capture him then? Mokuba noted that there had been a moment of sudden increase in Yugi's vital signs that had then faded away. Yugi was good with games, but would he be able to out play someone in something 'other' than a card game? Could that have been the reason for the spikes in the teen's vital signs?

With those thoughts in mind, Kaiba finally parked the bike before dismounting it and making his way to front entrance of Kaiba Corp. He stalked his way through the front doors and into the massive entryway of the building, heading for his personal elevator when the black television screens around him suddenly switched on, revealing a child about Mokubas' age with vivid green colored hair. He had the full slanted eyes of a full-blooded Japanese citizen; he almost looked like a Japanese version of Kaiba himself! If Kaiba still looked roughly around 13 years old.

"Hello Seto, welcome to 'my' company. I'm glad to see that the body you will be providing me is so well maintained."

Kaiba resumed walking towards his private elevator, "you're in my office aren't you? Well I'll be there in a moment and see if you have the nerve to say that kind of nonsense to my face in a few."

"Can't a penniless orphan like you figure it out? This is the Cyberspace, my office can be anywhere I want it to be, just like how 'I' can be anywhere I wish to be. Not that someone who lives in such a limited environment would understand. Here, I have had the leisure to learn all manners of technology, quickly and with an efficiency you'll never be able to match. All for this day to arrive, after all, he molded you like clay to be a host for me."

"A self aware bot, great, some idiot must have been bored in R&D again." Kaiba retorted, he really needed to spend more time in that department if 'this' was being created.

"You can deny it all you want murderer, but I know you're in here looking for that rival of yours, the one in black leather with a split personality." The other teen sneered, looking down from his vantage of the television screens mounted on the wall.

"Deny that you're, 'what' exactly, you're nothing but a Bot that's running out of control." Kaiba countered as he punched in the code to the elevator.

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised, father wouldn't entrust his plans to someone who shows so much inclination for treachery." Rambling as this guy was, Kaiba wondered which idiot R&D employee thought 'this' was a bright idea. But the idea that someone had the ability to construct a Bot smart enough to interfere with Kaiba's progress? The doors didn't open; there was no sign that the elevator was even coming, so Kaiba turned a cold glare on the stranger.

"So what exactly was your assigned ID when whoever made you?" he coldly asked.

"My name is 'Kaiba, Noa' I'm Gozoboros' biological son." Noa gave as an introduction, despite looking as old as Mokuba.

"You expect me to believe that Gozoboro had a 'son'? As much research as I did on the bastard there was never any word of him having a child." Kaiba retorted as he turned his attention away from the elevator and towards the television.

He stood there as imposing as he did where ever he went, arms crossed and shoulders squared. While the Botkid before him continued with a faint shrug as though the lack of public knowledge of his life was important.

"When you're rich you can hide anything, anyone, especially when you want privacy. But even then, you expect me to believe you would research his family life? The only reason Father was looking to adopt was to find a host body for me. Which you've done a fine job of sculpting that body into something befitting myself." Noa explained, his tone as lofty as those empty headed brats Kaiba occasionally was subjected to.

Mostly because, in the gaming industry, there were those who liked to treat their positions as a validation for a 'bring your son to work' day. Where these either painfully shy, or overly spoiled brats would either run amok or hide the whole time. Serving as some type of insipid 'look at how handsome my son is, my genes created this' arrogance. Which was insulting on two fronts, the first being that they often used the 'I'm a dad' route to try and talk 'down' to Kaiba.

Bad idea, always a bad idea. Or would bring their child knowing whatever they came to discuss would offend Kaiba. So the child became a human shield from the wrath they expected out of Kaiba.

Since apparently they had no idea that Kaiba was well versed in various languages and could be as cold, exacting, brutal, and cut down an idiot with precision 'without' raising his voice. 'Then' explain to the idiot children why their oh so tough and powerful daddy broke down and cried. Because sometimes, Kaiba actually did that, and got scolded by Mokuba for being 'that' forceful. He really needed to stop.

He didn't.

He never would stop breaking the weak.

Though the fact he had a Bot looking him over like he was a hung up fish in the fish market in the morning was irritating. Like those stupid high school letters the idiot girls wrote about him. Even if they were right.

"I only studied what was important," Kaiba retorted, as he wished this would hurry up. He was tired of hearing this idiot ramble on, but he was the only clue as to where Yugi was.

"Oh? Is that how you explain my father's death? If that's the case I have to give you credit. You are probably the most ruthless killer on the planet, hunting down targets at such an early age.." Noa retorted, causing Kaiba to narrow his gaze even more. "Amazing how the universe works in the real world isn't it? My father was looking to adopt a child so he could find a host body for me, and you were willing to do anything to get out of the orphanage. And somehow you managed to kill my father and take over my inheritance."

"You realize that the very concept of putting a mind inside another person is still decades away?" Kaiba asked, wondering how deluded this Bot was. "Even if you really where who you claim to be, there's no way it could ever have happened. You were just fed lies by whatever created you." Though such a thing could be done instantaneously through the Sennen Items, but Kaiba was never going to bring 'that' up. But he was also going to not bring up the fact that he didn't recall 'how' Gozoboro died. Despite being in the office when the man had his heart attack.

"Are you really determined to believe you're Gozoboro's son?" Kaiba asked in mounting irritation, stalking his way back towards the television screens.

"What you do or don't believe is of no concern of mine. The fact remains that I am Kaiba Gozoboro's son, Noa. Until recently I've not been aware of what has been going on in the outside world, but now that I have access to all of that I believe it's time for the revenge I deserve for what you did to my family!" Noa countered, as he and Kaiba seemed locked in a glaring contest.

"Gozoboro was a thieving, murderous, manipulative bastard who would sell his own mother for a chance at world domination. Any 'family' he would try to build would be nothing but a front for something else." Kaiba shot back icily, he didn't have time for this meaningly tit for tat with an idiot Bot with delusions of grandeur.

"How dare you talk about my father like that! He was a wonderful man who provided anything and everything my mother and I could ever have wanted!" Noa slammed his palms down onto the desk as he rose up in anger.

"Have you ever considered checking into reality for your information?" Kaiba snarled at the ridiculous description for Gozoboro. Never once had he seen anything other than the cruel manipulative man who ruled over he and his brother like a tyrant.

"My father was a great man and you murdered him! I'll destroy you and take everything back that you stole! Everything my father left for me will be returned to where it belongs you beggar!" Noa shot back as he reached for a button on the desk.

"Whatever Eponine." The button was pressed and hole that didn't exist in the real world opened, dropping Kaiba into who knew where.

The room was dark, with only a small shaft of light emitted from the bottom of a door before Kaiba when another screen blinked into life. "Pay attention to the clocks in the city; you only have one hour to find mentally ill friend. Even as we speak he's fighting for his life against the forces in this city, and he's not regaining any life points from the injuries that he's amassing."

Kaiba got to his feet and began making his way towards the door when Noa's aggravating voice carried over his numerous thoughts. "Oh and that's not a very good analogy; Cosette never resorted to murder to get where she did. You're more a of Jack the Ripper, you've never been caught for your crimes." With that the room returned to blackness as the screen blinked out.