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Who: Kaiba, Ruka and Rua
What: After Rua's surprising victory, Kaiba has a business proposition for the twins.
Where: KaibaCorp
When: Weekday afternoon
Format: Whatever

Kaiba had been busy since the end of the tournament. It had brought the increase in publicity and sales that he had hoped for even if it had not been in the way he imagined. He would not easily forgive Rua for defeating his rival and taking away his victory. But he couldn't see himself going after a child in the same kind of rivalry he had with Yuugi. No, he had decided that Rua had won for a different reason. Simply, he had cards that he had never seen before.

He had seen some of these new cards from other of the "future" duelists, but had assumed nothing could defeat his dragons. He wasn't going to lose so easily next time. He was going to have access to those new cards. It wouldn't just be good for him, but for KaibaCorp as well. He wanted those cards and he knew exactly how he was going to get them.

Kaiba had cleared his schedule to make room for time for the meeting. He arranged for a car to pick the twins up from their school and take them to KaibaCorp. He wasn't about to give them the opportunity to get wander around the office. So he was standing near the reception desk, arms folded and looking all together inconvenienced, waiting for them to arrive.

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"Haaah, this car is so cool! Hey, hey, Ruka, look, there's a phone right here in the car!" Rua said, pulling the reciever up and showing it to his sister as if it were made of solid gold. As he'd been similarly enthused with the car that'd been sent for them ever since they'd left school, it was quite possible he'd started to become just a tad grating. Luckily, as the phone seemed to be the best thing he could find, he calmed down quickly after.

"...so whaddaya think Mr. Kaiba wants to talk to us about?"

To be fair, the car was very nice: Ruka didn't know much about cars, but just from the size and everything else, it was definitely nicer than even Edgeworth's car. Rua was excited enough for both of them, though, so while he was playing with the power windows and the phone and why was there a miniature refrigerator in a car, Ruka tried ignoring some of his most obvious statements of awe; thankfully, he dropped the matter soon after for more serious conversation.

"The tournament, I think," she said finally, hands in her lap. "That's all he's talked about for a while, isn't it? And you did beat him pretty early on."

The ride itself seemed surprisingly short, for it was only a few moments later that the car pulled to a stop, the doors opened for them, already at the base of the Kaiba Corporation building of this world. With nothing for it, she and Rua exited the car and ventured into the building itself—where Kaiba was already waiting for them.

He was a lot taller in person.

Kaiba watched as the car pulled up. It was a bit ostentatious, but he had learned that impressing your importance upon people early in a negotiation. Even if his opponents were children he wasn't going to change his methods. He didn't move from his positions as they entered the building.

"Hmpf," he glanced over at a wall clock as though checking their punctuality. "I see you had no problem finding the car."

"Nope, it was right there when we left the school!" Rua said excitedly, totally missing the point of Kaiba's clock-checking. He couldn't help but giggle. "I saw the look on everybody else's faces, they were totally shocked!"

"So hey, hey, what'd you want us here for? Are we gonna duel again? 'Cause I snuck my Duel Disk into my backpack, even though the teachers didn't want me to bring it to school!"

For her part, Ruka looked embarrassed to even be in the same room as her brother at that moment; her face was pointed down as she sighed at his rambunctious air.

"Rua, if he'd wanted a rematch, he would have just asked you for one," she muttered quietly, before turning her attention back to Kaiba. Even if she didn't particularly like his attitude all the time either, there had to be a reason he wanted to speak with both Rua and her. "You said you wanted to speak with us about something?"

Kaiba appraised the twins' differing reactions. It seemed he had been right in inviting both of them. Rua had the enthusiasm and Ruka was the voice of reason; he needed both if they were going to actually benefit his company. Truthfully he found Rua annoying. Here was the person who had defeated him, running his mouth like they were pals and not even thinking something bad could be in store for him. Just because he wasn't planning any attack didn't mean he didn't want his opponents to think he might.

"This is a place of business, not play," He told his Rua in way of answering his question. "I asked you here for a meeting. We'll discuss the specifics in my office."

His sharp turn was less dramatic in a business suit than one of his coats. This new KaibaCorp building wasn't as tall as the sky scrapper at home, so it wasn't a long trip to Kaiba's office. He left the door open for the two children, and sat behind his desk. There were two open plush chairs in front of it for meetings. In front of each chair on the desk was a stack of papers. Each had their names at the top but were otherwise written in English legalese. Kaiba had his own copy on the other side of the desk for reference.

Edited 2010-04-09 20:35 (UTC)

...they weren't there to duel? Well, Rua was fresh out of ideas, then. Still, though, he was curious, so he eagerly followed after Kaiba on the trip to his office. Once they arrived and Kaiba sat down, he pretty quickly figured out that they were supposed to sit in the two chairs in front of it, so he ran over and leaped back into one of them. He then leaned forward and saw the huge stack of papers. Huge stacks of paper were never good news, so a bit of dread started to creep up Rua's spine right there. He stared at the front page, then flipped it and looked at the next, then the next, then the next...he did that for about 10 or so pages, before looking up at Kaiba.

"...what the heck's this all say?" He asked. It...looked almost familiar to him, but he couldn't place how.

The last one into the room, Ruka closed the office doors behind her, and had to restrain herself from covering her face with her hands when she saw Rua literally leap into one of the chairs. In contrast, she crossed the room at a far more reasonable pace, sitting in the remaining chair with noticeable calm; shoulders and spine straight, knees tucked together, hands instantly folding in her lap.

While Ruka had slightly more exposure to English legalese than Rua (those first early months when it had just been her and Edgeworth in that apartment, with Remus only occasionally visiting, had contained a great deal many more hours of Court TV and glancing over case files and court records than was strictly necessary for a child not planning on entering the law profession), she quickly became lost within labyrinthine passages as well.

Of course, most of her exposure to documents of this sort had been for court cases, so she looked up with some worry. "We're not in trouble, are we?"

Kaiba smirked at their reactions to contract. They were larger than most would have been due to the added complications brought about by their ages. He folded his hands on the desk and leaned forward to begin explaining.

"I'm certain neither of you have seen one of these before," he began. "Simply put it's a contract for employment."

Used to running business meetings filled with those who might try to interrupt him, he quickly continued. "KaibaCorp prides itself in being the leader of any endeavor we undertake. Though we are the only manufacturer of Duel Monsters cards at this point, there are several who have cards that we do not have access to....yet. The contract in front of you is for a job in the design department to bring our merchandise current."

Rua slowly tilted his head.

"...you want us to make cards?" He asked. To say that something like this would've been a small dream come true for him would be an understatement, but perhaps it was the atmosphere of the office or the huge unintelligble stack of paper that had given Rua a bit of incredulity for once.

"Aren't we too young to have jobs like that?" He asked.

It was the same question on Ruka's mind, as well; designing cards (even if most of it would be remembering cards they were familiar with) was something that she was sure most kids their age from back home would dream of doing, aside from being the next King, but to actually be offered a job like that?

"And we're not from this world," she added, frowning, "so we don't have birth certificates or anything, either." Just getting enrolled into school had been a hassle.

American child labor laws; something Kaiba never thought he'd have to research. He didn't think it should have to apply to something like designing a card game in a business office. It's not like he planned to have them in a sweatshop.

"I took over KaibaCorp when I was 12. I'm just asking you to draw pictures of what you remember," Kaiba replied. He didn't look at all worried, having already planned it out.

"If you don't have a birth certificate, that means you're as old as you can get away with." He flipped over several of the pages in front of them. "According to this you're 14, the minimum legal age to hold a non-hazardous job. In this case a paid internship, not to interfere with school hours as per United States law."

Rua couldn't help but get the tiniest bit tweaked when he heard this wasn't going to interfere with school in any way - that implied that at some point, there might've been a chance it could've interfered with school. But...well, he was asking them to lie about their age, but it did seem to be on the up and up - he just wanted them to to make cards they already knew...

He thought for a second, rubbing his chin. He considered. What would Mr. Miles do in this situation...then, without warning, he slammed his hands on to Kaiba's desk and shouted, "HOLD IT!" He then raised up a finger. "My sister and I need to talk in private first!" He half-said/half-yelled at Kaiba and Ruka.

Then, without really waiting for Ruka to even agree or disagree or anything, he grabbed her by the arm and tried to dragged her back into the hallway.

She was surprised to discover that Kaiba had taken over that company so young—she couldn't imagine her or Rua doing the same thing at all. When she leaned forward to take a closer look at the page he was indicating, she recoiled back with a start as Rua's hands slammed loudly on the table. Her quiet "Rua!" went unheard under his shout, and before she knew it he was bodily dragging her from the chair and out the office.

"Sorry!" she called over her shoulder, not fighting the treatment as he continued tugging on her arm, "we'll be right back!"

Once in the hallway with the door shut behind them, she turned to her brother with a small frown. "You didn't have to pull so hard, you know."

(ooc: for those who know canon the age above is a typo >.>. From now on I will type out numbers instead of using the number pad.)

The shout from Rua managed to take Kaiba by surprise. He wasn't familiar enough with Edgeworth or local court room etiquette to have any idea where it had come from. He watched impassively as the two left the room. They were obviously siblings from their interactions. There was a small smile on Kaiba's lips as they exited the room. The smile was genuine with just a hint of sadness as they were reminding him of Mokuba when he was that age.

He didn't stay still for long though. He would have given them a chance to discuss this outside later, but they could do so now. He of course was prepared for it, and flipped open his laptop. The surveillance program was already running and clearly showed a black and white picture of the two. The camera would also pick up most of their conversation. Whispers would likely be muffled, but everything else should be audible. This trick had come in handy many times before.

"I was trying to take him by surprise." Rua said as if that suddenly explained everything.

"Sooo... ...." He kinda shrugged. "Makin' cards we had back home sounds kinda cool to me. Do you wanna do it?"

She nodded after a moment of thought. "Yeah... You probably remember more than me." It wasn't an opportunity they'd ever get at home, and if it meant they could share something like this from their home, with all their friends, then it made the most sense.

"But... I don't think we should sign that stuff, yet, do you?"

"Yeah, like, what if....he stuck in something that said we have to give him our organs or something?!"

He paused for a second, as if letting that gruesome image sink in first.

"Should we ask Mr. Miles and Mr. Remus first?"

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