No, it's not another chapter for Reign In Blood, but I feel like this is something that's necessary for me to write; as someone who looks almost exactly like Seto Kaiba, is his approximate age, and who based my philosophy and personality around his own, I feel like I need to pay him some form of homage... Well, in some form or another, I think that's what this is: a series of drabbles, themed around key words in his life, that I believe define him. References to Trustshipping are bound to happen...

1: Father

Seto Kaiba held no illusions about the weapons manufacturer that had taken him in; the man had been cruel and insensitive, only caring about profits and money and how to gain them more quickly. However, the multimillionaire had also seen to it that his protege would be the best at everything he did. Seto's words to his stepfather would never have been praise, but merely acknowledgement for everything: drilling economics and business into his mind, showing him how to be a ruthless businessman, teaching him the ways of the world and sometimes even encouraging the childish fantasies held within his mind...

Kaiba would never be able to forgive the man. Perhaps if the beatings had been kept to himself alone, he would have managed; to have done the same things to Mokuba was unforgivable. Forgiveness was inconceivable, though understanding was occurring, and the Kaiba Corporation CEO was forced to acknowledge a truth he'd long sought to hide from.

He owed almost all of who he was to Gozaburo Kaiba, whether he liked it or not.

2: Brother

Seeing Mokuba's form from the highest floor in his company's headquarters, Seto can't help but reflect on all the times that his brother has been used against him by a variety of adversaries. It makes him appreciate the younger Kaiba all the more, and he inadvertently thinks of another blue-eyed person whose younger brother has gotten them into trouble more times than they could count... He looks toward the phone, considering what he would even say to the woman if he called her. He'd likely just embarrass himself, something that a CEO of such a global corporation would have to avoid doing.

He picks it up to call Mokuba, however, and tells the young teen that he'll be working for a while today.

After hanging up, he redials; a ghost of a real smile is on his lips, one that hasn't been seen since his brother gave him the drawing that rests around his neck, and he decides that work can wait.

3: Friend

There were very few people who truly thought that they could trust Kaiba. In fact, the list came down to three people: Mokuba Kaiba, Ishizu Ishtar, and Yugi Muto. Of these three people, only the last could truly be said to have anything of a friendship with the stoic man. The first was his brother, the second was his wife; Yugi, however, was the rival that he had appointed for himself after suffering defeat by the younger man's Exodia the Forbidden One. Though Yugi always won their contests and duels, even those that Kaiba had designed to be stacked in his favor, (This was something that he didn't do any longer, as he'd long gotten over his jealousy over Yugi's position as the top duelist in the world.) Kaiba never stayed defeated for too long. He always came roaring back, and his favorite card was never far from his hand...

The list of people that Seto believed that he could trust was slightly larger than the reverse; the only new addition, however, was Kaiba himself... Mokuba was his brother, and would follow him like a puppy. Ishizu was his lover and his beloved, a former tombkeeper whose previous specialty in life was making sure that she could keep secrets. And, once again, his rival Yugi-

No, he supposed. It was only right to call Yugi his one real friend. There was nobody he would rather have on his side in a tag-duel, or in anything else; they'd repeatedly gone out of their respective ways to help or outright save the other, and that was certainly a sign of friendship to the powerful man.

4: Blue

There's something about it that draws him in...and it's always, always, in the eyes. Perhaps it's because his own twin orbs are a brilliant and cold sapphire, but he can never resist the color. It's represented in everything he does and is, the first and foremost example being the illustrious Blue Eyes White Dragon. It's his favorite Duel Monsters card, and always has been; he spent painstaking years tracking them down and assembling a deck around them.

Nobody seemed to care enough to look past his facade of bravado, though; nobody cared enough to see that he was screaming and crying on the inside as he shredded the fourth and final Blue Eyes when Solomon Muto had refused to give it to him...except, it seemed, for the elderly man himself.

He spends several hours just looking up to the open sky, wild and free and flowing, and realizes just how much he is chained down.

Then, of course, there is his Egyptian God Card; Obelisk the Tormentor, a fierce fiend whose summoning spelled doom for his enemies... And the mysterious Ishizu, who had given him the card with a coy smile and a spring in her step...

He had to prepare for his next duel.

5: Dragon

There is no type Kaiba feels more attached to than dragons. He relates to them almost perfectly; in some ways, he can even be considered a dragon. He hunts for power, preys on the weak, and seeks to destroy all things that dare to oppose him. He can have moments of kindness, but also of overwhelming cruelty, as fickle and capricious as the winds his Duel Monsters ride upon. Simultaneously, however, he is just as unchanging as the mountains which house his companions. He is at home everywhere, and yet nowhere, always comfortable in whatever place he finds himself; there is no self-doubt in him, and he innately understands that he is superior to all else.

Perhaps that is why, as his plane touches down atop the desert sands of Egypt, he feels so in control. In the near distance is a small town, where he knows that the waiting forms of Yugi and his team stand to greet him. Yugi had called him to report that he'd found something that would likely interest him, and so Kaiba made a field day for himself to go see the Egyptologist at his work site...

When he arrives, he finds three faces he likely should have expected: the Ishtar children stare back at him, each one more peculiar than the next, but none holds his gaze for as long as the middle child, the woman Ishizu, who gives him a knowing look. Seeing past her tanned face takes a great level of effort on his part, for some reason, until he sees something ludicrous: a statue of himself, dressed in ceremonial Egyptian clothing (a priest's, he noted, though he knew not how the thought came to him,) wielding the Millennium Rod in his left hand and with a Blue Eyes White Dragon etched into a stone tablet behind him.

In that moment, he understands just how much he has denied the truth.

6: Past

Kaiba has spent years denying the past, the truth of who he is. He knows this, and still puts up feeble attempts to avoid it at times when it becomes prevalent. Everyone knows this, even Seto himself, but none understand it quite as much as his wife. The Egyptologist is always quick to remind him, however, that he is more than the Priest of the Rod that was his ancient self. He always laughed when she mentioned it, and knew she was right. It tied in with his stepfather, his life in the orphanage, and his beloved little brother.

He may choose to ignore the greater part of who he is at his core, but that isn't truly his fault; it's merely who he is, as he remains fixed in his attempt to look towards the future at the expense of the past and present.

A slender hand drapes itself over him, its bronze color and honeyed scent reminding him of just why the past was so important.

Well, she was a Tombkeeper...

7: Game

Kaiba's life has always been dominated by games. It didn't matter what kind of game it was; after a short period of observation, he would immediately be able to pick it up and play like a professional. It was one of the reasons, perhaps the greatest one, why his continuous losses to Yugi had always stung so much: he had taken Kaiba's favorite thing in life and turned it upon its head. Even in games of supposed raw chance, he always seemed to lose...

The one thing that he truly excelled in, however, was the game's creation and enhancement. He had personally designed Duel Discs, Duel Terminals, the holographic projection systems that they used and utilized, and even an amusement park designed around the game that had truly defined himself and his generation: Duel Monsters.

It had been a long time since he had actually dueled, though he always carried his deck in the case on his hip, and decided that he would embrace the shadow game that had once been done on stone tablets in ancient Egypt...

And, of course, there would only be one person worthy of playing against in the game of Duel Monsters; it was time, he supposed, to go visit Yugi.

8: Violence

If there was anything that Kaiba truly enjoyed, beyond any and all comprehension of why he loved it so, it was violence. Mindless carnage, death, a show of brutality and spilled blood. It was the reason he had set the stage, for his battle with Yugi in the Battle City tournament, as the Colosseum of ancient Rome; bread and circuses, after all, would keep the masses happy in the face of destruction. He reveled in every facet of it, each intricacy of dueling for his life and strength and self, every fight he watched turn to the events of the past. It was one of the reasons that he had been so ready to help Yugi and his merry gang of losers; Pegasus, Marik, Dartz, Noah, and even Yami Bakura were all enemies of his own, enemies that he could fight and destroy.

He buried himself in it often, having taken up martial arts as more than simply a hobby. He'd taken to training against a punching bag or a tetherball, more ferocious in his movements than was likely needed, and today was no such exception. Sweat slid down his muscled frame, which was much fuller than it had been in his late teen years, and a cut over his knuckles burned from the saline liquid's touch. The bag had been tied with rope, as that was much simpler than continuing to buy new ones every time the chains snapped, and lay blasted across the room and almost touching the wall.

He heard the sound of his door opening, and saw a blue-eyed boy with brown hair and tan skin walk inside.

Horus Kaiba, his son, only ten years old...

Perhaps violence wasn't the only thing that Kaiba loved without explanation.

9: Strength

Seto Kaiba viewed himself as strong, of course, but there were some things that he could not be made to bear. He was an old man now, certainly, but still...no elder child should be made to bury their younger sibling.

An assassin had made a strike at him, likely due to the fact that few people could forget the man who had originally brought the name of 'Kaiba' to be synonymous with 'absolute power.' Mokuba had moved to intercept, even as Roland had stripped the man of his gun and put him into a sleeper hold... And now his younger brother, the one thing that had been his one true light for almost all of his life, was gone.

So, too, would Seto's rare smiles be banished forever.

He had done everything himself, down to the last detail; he had read his brother's eulogy, and had taken the coffin up on his own. Yugi, Marik...even Odion, Wheeler, Devlin and Taylor had tried to help him. It certainly would have made the movement easier on him, but that wasn't what he wanted; he didn't deserve to have it easy, by his measurement of the situation, and so he refused to let it be so. The day had been gloomy and downcast, but only began to rain as Kaiba moved towards the burial plot.

He carried the coffin atop his shoulders for as long as he could. When they began to fail, he awkwardly moved with it on his back. Even then, however, he could not make it all the way to what would be his brother's final resting place... But he was Seto Kaiba, the proud Duelist, and he would not accept that. Too tired to attempt anything else, he slowly trudged through the muddy grounds; dragging the wooden box behind him made his journey incredibly slow to progress, and all the funeral-goers arrived there long before he did... he appreciated that they were so willing to wait for him in his grief-driven moments. Maybe they weren't so bad after all.

Finally, he made it. Expecting solemn laughter or sarcastic clapping, he was surprised to find that their eyes all held pity for him; he was soaked to the bone, chilled to the final fibers of his being, as he felt that he should be. A spade was picked up by his hands, and he began to dig...

At this point, people began to leave. Soon enough, only Ishizu, Marik, Odion, Yugi, Tea, Wheeler, Mai (who'd married Wheeler, apparently) and the rest of Yugi's little group was there...and, for some reason, Pegasus as well. However, few of them truly stayed. At length, only his wife, brothers-in-law, Yugi and Wheeler remained. They were silent for the whole time, though he knew that the three Tombkeepers were mentally running through the prayers that they would offer up to the Egyptian gods. Eventually, as hard as it rained, he could tell that he was crying; the tears slipping down his cheeks, though they almost instantly met with freezing-cold rain, were warm for a short half-second or so.

When it was all done, after he had put Mokuba into his final resting place and sealed it with earth, he collapsed.

Long ago, Kaiba had won and commanded respect for being a great leader or a powerful Duelist... But, on this day, he had proven that he was the strongest man to have ever lived.

Well, that was interesting. I literally just made these up as I went along, and... Wow, that last one took me by surprise.

Here's my explanations for what I wrote in each of these...

Father: Kaiba owes far more to Gozaburo than he should, and more than he can ever repay, but he also hates the man with as much passion as he can have.

Brother: Mokuba is the most important person in Kaiba's life, and he shows it; how often has he gone out of his way to protect him? The other part is just an excuse to insert some Trustshipping.

Friend: Even if he never says it or openly shows it, I believe that Kaiba reciprocates Yugi's friendship. He doesn't know how to do so in a social manner, particularly after being so brutal with his first and second impressions, and so their friendship takes the form of a heated rivalry.

Blue: It's the color that I associate with Kaiba, for the reasons that I wrote... The color just seems to be attracted to him, you know?

Dragon: I believe that Kaiba believes in the ancient magics, but his pride refuses to let him admit it. He remains willfully ignorant, choosing instead to look towards the future instead of the past...

Past: Not gonna lie, this was just a way to write a small bit of Trustshipping fluff.

Violence: This is me instilling a little bit of myself into Kaiba, in return for Kaiba giving me my philosophy and ideology.

Strength: I am a cruel, cruel man. That is all.

...

Let me know what you think, yeah? I always love to get feedback from people; it lets me know that my readers are engaged with the story in some way, shape, or form, and it's very much appreciated!