Chapter 33: It's All Very Nice, But Not Very Good

"You wanted to see me?" Crawford approached my desk hesitantly, which was a bad sign.

But one I had been expecting.

"Yes. Please sit down." I waited, but she didn't say anything. "Was there something you wanted to tell me?"

She looked down. "I'm sure you already know."

"So, how is Peggy these days?"

"I swear we never talk about business!" she blurted out. "It isn't like Tamura-san said it is at all."

"Crawford, calm yourself. I have already spoken to Tamura." My number-two security man had become the head of our internal affairs department and had proven a little too good at discovering staff secrets. "I told him I would handle the situation."

"Thank you, Kaiba-san." She said softly.

"You realize, of course, that I have no choice but to terminate you with no severance." She nodded, sadly. "And that you do not qualify for re-hire ever." She nodded again. "So I only have one question and then you may clean out your desk and go." I gave her my sternest look and waited until she looked properly miserable. "What did he say when he saw the black negligee?"

She looked up at me, stunned. Then she blushed scarlet. "He hasn't – I haven't worn it for him yet."

"Good lord, woman!" I laughed. "What are you waiting for?"

"He wants to wait." She bit her lip and blushed a bit more. "Until we're, you know..."

"I see. Well." I nodded. "It's a good thing I am terminating you. I can't very well employ a rival's wife, now can I?"

"He hasn't actually asked me yet."

I laughed loudly at that. "Cyndia, I have accused Maximillion Pegasus of many things, but not of being a fool. Well, not a complete fool at least. Wear the negligee for him. Tonight. You'll be a bride by morning."

"I can't believe you found him for me." She burst suddenly. Then, she began sobbing.

I seemed to have been surrounded by nothing but crying women over the last few weeks. Anzu was hormonal and had come in twice to weep about some crisis. Miko-chan had come up on the commuter train to weep for my blessing on her impending marriage – I hadn't even known she was seeing someone, but apparently Gorou found some courage and asked her out.

Now I was losing another decent secretary.

I came around my desk to pat her shoulder. "There, there." I never did learn what one is supposed to say to a weeping woman. "There's no need for all that."

"I know." She sniffed. She sprang up suddenly and wrapped her arms around my neck. "Thank you, Seto-kun! Thank you so much!"

"Cyndia, truly, I did nothing." I held her for a moment and then pushed her away gently. "Now, go home, put on the black negligee, call Pegasus and tell him I fired you. If he doesn't propose five minutes after he sees you, we both must have misunderstood the situation. Send him over here; my love life could do with a boost."

She laughed. "Someday you're going to find a man smart enough to hold on to you with both hands."

"Right now, I'd be happy to simply find a man."

"You will. There's some kind of magic around you. I've been looking for Peggy for ages. Then, I tell you about him and he pops up."

"A simple coincidence."

"You introduced Anzu-san and Honda-san. Ryuji-san said he'd been in that club a hundred times before you brought Bakura-san in."

"That was Joey's idea, not mine."

She ignored me and went on. "Mai-chan said she'd dueled Yugi-san at least a dozen times, but it wasn't until he started hanging out with you that she noticed him."

"An event that was bound to happen sooner or later."

"You." She said firmly. "I'm convinced; you are a real live cupid and you smiled on me and I can never thank you enough!" She threw herself at me again and cried a bit more.

I said 'there, there' until she calmed down. "Now. Stop all this foolishness. There is no magic. You were lucky enough to find someone you care about. Believe me, if I had any magic, I'd have used it on myself." I got her out and made her promise to call me with her personal status as soon as she had an update.

Then I called Admin Services. "I need a warm body to answer my phone and type and I need them now."

I sighed and returned to the paperwork on my desk. Gozaburo's lawyer had sent me the last remnants of the deceased's legal estate and I had spent two extrordinarily dull days reading the contracts that he'd left in preperation of various circumstances.

Most involved the disposition of KaibaCorp in the event that something incapacated him before I turned 16. He apparently presumed that by that age I would have sued for Emancipation, and that it would be granted, so all his notes refered back to his Will in the event that I was legally independant.

And then I found an envelope with a seal that was not Gozaburo's. It had the Imperial Chrysanthimum and the kamon for the House of Mikasa.

"This is an agreement of marriage, paternity and adoption, executed between Kaiba Gozaburo and and His Imperial Highness Prince Katsura of Mikasa on this the fourth day of June in the year 1988." The date caught my attention for two reasons. First, it preceded my adoption by more than a decade. As a point of fact, it preceded my birth by several years. Second, unless my math was wrong, at that time there was no one in the Kaiba Family young enough to adopt.

I had known, of course, that Gozaburo and Prince Katsura were aquainted; most of the occasions on which I had been dragged to the Imperial Palace, the Prince had also attended. But inside the envelope were photos of a young Gozaburo – his arms around my Aunt and another woman – the Prince, and another young man. A young, handsome man smiling lovingly at the Prince. There were other photos, but they merely confirmed what the first one implied.

I read the documents attached. If anything happened to Gozaburo after he became Head of the Kaiba Family, the Prince had agreed to marry my Aunt and adopt any and all children under the age of majority in the Family. There were subsequent birth certificates and paternity tests for Noah, Mokuba and myself, signed by the Prince and my Aunt and notarized. They all asserted that the three of us were biologically the Prince's sons.

They were all, of course, complete fabrications.

But with this, if my Aunt married the Prince, I would become His Imperial Highness Prince Seto of Katsura, 9th in line to the Japanese throne. Or more realistically, since several intervening heirs were too old or too young to take the throne, I'd be 4th, behind Noah.

I e-mailed Yamada and asked him dissolve Kawai's guardianship; as Head of the Family, I didn't need one and Mokuba automatically fell under my protection. But we were both under the age of majority and did fall subject to the terms of the agreement. Kawai, however useful before, was now an unnecessary complication.

The only remaining question was: why hadn't my Aunt told me about this? Why hadn't the Prince? He was well past 60 and had never married. My aunt had an opportunity to become royalty – possibly Empress. What woman passes that up?

Finally, I simply called her.

"Oba-sama, I wish to ask you something rather odd."

"Odd and no doubt complicated." Her voice had a trace of humor. "You always ask the most unexpected questions."

I had to pause and smile slightly. "Yes. Why don't you want to marry Prince Katsura?"

"I..." She sounded stunned. "Oh, my. Oh. Well, yes. That was unexpected." I stayed silent and let her gather her thoughts. "I presume you found the agreement."

"Yes. The conditions have already been met; you could have married the Prince months ago."

"I could." She agreed slowly. "Seto, I never wanted to sign that; it was Brother's idea. Once he realized that Toshimura and Prince Yoshi were lovers, he knew he could use that."

Toshimura, the Prince's long-time aide? That explained his devotion to the position. And my Aunt was close enough to the Prince to refer to him by his personal name; an interesting fact in its own right. "So Noah is not Prince Katsura's son?"

"No more than you and Mokuba are mine. All of those documents are lies Brother and the Prince created in case they ever needed them."

"And you don't want to join the Imperial Family?"

She sighed. "You are Head of our Family now, nephew. If you want me to marry him, I will. I always did as Brother asked me; what I want is irrelevant, isn't it?" She hung up abruptly, but I let the rude act go. Clearly, she was against the marriage.

Yet I knew, she would do the honorable thing.

It was my first Family decision to make. It would become my last if I decided to go through with it. Be Head of my own Family or yet another prince in the Imperial Family. For some reason, my role of KaibaCorp's CEO suddenly seemed simpler than being Head of the Family.

It was difficult to put the decision aside, but I needed some time to consider it. I spent the rest of the day working on KaibaLand.

We had chosen two sites to start the worldwide chain – one in Japan and one in the US – and had already broken ground on the construction. I was still designing the parks, however. Actually, it was a fun project. It was a puzzle, working out the optimum usage of resources with the most return of actual fun. I hated standing in line for the better rides so I tried to integrate the lines and the waiting into the ride experience. I wanted a day at KaibaLand to be worth the price of admission.

And I was keeping the promise Mokuba and I made to each other a lifetime ago.

Orphans can attend for free.

Working on the park occupied the bulk of my time. What was left was largely spent attending to other KaibaCorp issues. KaibaGames retail stores were doing well. We carried all our own stock, of course, but also competitor's games – including Otogi's Dungeon Dice – and each store had a gaming room for local groups. Noah and I agreed that we would not open a store with in 20 miles of Kame Game so long as a Mutou owned it.

There were also issues on the tech side of the 'house'. I had gotten two requests for sniper rifle designs for users with specific needs. Both offered challenges that I couldn't resist. I had also made some time to work with Soichiro on the hard light technology. The problem we had was retaining the form we wanted without generating unsafe amounts of heat. I had an idea of how to solve the problem, but the initial design was too bulky.

Too many projects I wanted to work on and not nearly enough time to work on them.

"Excuse me, Kaiba-sama?"

I hit the intercom button. "Yes?" I had no idea who was at my front desk any more. I bought a single-cup coffee maker for my office and let Kogoro handle everything else.

"The tailor is here."

I thought for a moment before realizing who and why. "Oh, yes. Send him in."

It was nearly Christmas, which meant new kimonos. I was being frivolous and spending far more money than was prudent. Simple silk handmade garments for the Mutous, the Hondas and Otogi. A bit more elaborate for Ryou and Noah. I had a wild hare and personally designed garments for Mokuba and myself. And one for Pharaoh.

Not that he would ever see it.

But in my dreams, I could see him wearing it. Like the wings of ancient Egypt spread across the horizon. Joey was dressed in sunlight and shadows. The dreams often woke me, feeling like if I called out, they'd both be close enough to hear me.

Sometimes I even tried it.

But once a week, the tailor brought what he was working on to my office and we spent two hours actually working on the garments together. I learned to sew both with a machine, and by hand. At the bottom of each robe, I laboriously stitched my name and the year. On several, I embroidered – with no small amount of guidance – the Kaiba family kamon. On Mokuba's, Noah's and mine, I was allowed to add the Imperial kamon as well.

I had never known why we had earned that honor, but now it was a pressing reminder that I needed to make a decision about my Aunt's engagement.

This time when I opened my office door to let the tailor out, Mokuba was waiting to come in.

"Brother!" I greeted him with a hug. "Headmaster let you out already? When did you get home?"

"Yesterday." He said with some disgust. "Which you'd probably know if we lived in the same house. Oh, wait. We do."

I stepped back and he entered my office. "Hold all calls." I told the man seated out front before closing my door. "Since you know you are always welcome to interrupt me, I fail –"

"Maybe I don't want to interrupt you!" He snapped. I refrained from pointing out the obvious. "Maybe I was hoping you'd want to see me enough that you'd be waiting."

"I'm afraid I don't always have the luxury of putting what I'm working on aside."

"Yeah, that's what Dad used to say too. For someone you won't talk about you sure act a lot like him."

"Do you have a point or are you simply angry because I missed your homecoming?"

"I'm angry because you promised you wouldn't lock everyone out and work all the time like Dad did and that's all you do!"

"That's hardly all I do!" It was a common complaint among my circle of friends, but the first time Mokuba had voiced it. "I've been to a number of dinner parties. And we had a shower for Anzu and Honda; I attended that."

"Late."

"I even took a day off last week."

"And spent it doing what?"

"Honestly? Sleeping."

He rolled his eyes. "And you're not trying to give yourself a stroke or an ulcer or something."

"Brother, I'm fine. Truly."

"Nobody sees you anymore, Nii-sama." His tone softened. "You do what Bakura schedules and the rest of the time, you're either in here or locked in your study at home."

I sighed. "You have a point. I concede. How's this: while you're home, I'll spend my free time with you."

He snorted. "No deal! You don't have free time! How about a four-hour block of time, daily from 4 to 8, for us – no office stuff."

"Only four hours?" I would have guessed he'd try for eight hours.

He grinned sheepishly. "I kind of have things on my desk too." He looked away and cleared his throat. "And I, uh, kind of brought a guest with me."

"How does one 'kind of' bring a guest?"

He conceded the point. "I brought a guest. Her name's Hawkins. She duels; she's in my duelist club at school."

"I see." I hesitated and then asked. "Is she staying in a guest room or your room?"

"She's sleeping in the guest room." He replied.

"I see." I said again. I stared at him until he caved.

"We're not doing it yet. We just kind of fool around and kiss and stuff."

"I see."

"I'm teaching her to shoot. She's pretty good considering she'd never even seen a gun before I showed her mine."

"I see."

"But her family lives way out in the country and she's staying with another family, at school so I invited her to spend the holidays with us."

"I see."

"Is that all you're going to say?"

"So far it's been very effective." I tried not to smirk. "You've told me quite a lot more than you would have if I'd asked you outright."

"You jerk!" He laughed. "I'm not telling you anything else about her. Except that, she's really pretty. And very cool."

"I see."

He opened his mouth then stopped. "Ok, I'm going to my office now."

"I see." I tried not to laugh.

"Quit it!" He scowled. "You'll like her."

"I see."

"Quit it!" He whined. "I'm gone; I'll see you at four."

"I see." I couldn't resist, but I also couldn't hold back the laughter any longer. He groaned and marched out.

I made sure my schedule was cleared for the evening and at a little after 4pm, I went to Mokuba's office and waited patiently as he argued – in French – with one of our major buyers about the price for some impressive modifications.

"Henri, I don't think you understand who you're dealing with." He snarled at the speaker-phone as I took a seat on his couch. He frowned at me but I gestured for him to continue. "This is my company."

"Your brother's perhaps." Henri replied. "But you are a child. Cancel our contract. Go on. Your brother will re-instate it before I finish my lunch. And you will have proven that you are a petulant child who cannot be trusted with authority."

"Henri, fuck off. If I pull this contract, not only can I promise you that my brother will tell you to go take a flying leap off the fucking Eiffel Tower, I can guarantee that no one else can do those modifications."

"And why is that?"

"Because, you moron, they're my fucking designs and what I will charge anybody else to buy them from KaibaArms will make you cry. Au revoir." He disconnected the call. "Fucking bullies! They think because I'm young they can push me around."

"I remember the problem." I nodded. "It was easier for me – I had Him standing behind me half the time. But they will learn. Some German arms company called my office this morning. I told them to talk to you."

"What did they say?"

I shrugged. "They already had. I told them that they had their answer and that there was nothing I could do if the owner of KaibaArms could not satisfy them."

It had taken a few months to restructure the Kaiba-entity ownerships. We had several entities to which I had never actually paid attention. We owned Zaibatsu Bank and Trust outright and 49% of ZKM Securities. In addition to Technology, Arms, Games, and Security, KaibaCorp owned controlling stock in companies in Construction, Shipping, Agriculture, Energy, a Race Course outside Chiba City, a chain of luxury onsens, and a restaurant in Kyoto. Plus there was 'significant interest' in another dozen smaller companies. Mokuba, Noah and I had spent a week just getting a feel for what KaibaCorp actually controlled. I had known we were large, but I had no idea that we were a true keiretsu.

Noah took 75% ownership of the financial entities and 25% of rest of the holdings. Mokuba and I split the rest of the ownerships 55/45. Mokuba took control of Arms, Security, Energy and Shipping and I took the rest. I had been afraid that it would be too much for the three of us, but I refused to give voice to those doubts.