The Pharaoh watched as Seto Kaiba dueled. He often wondered what had happened to Seto Kaiba to make him who he was. He remembered the duel he first fought against him, the arrogance there, the ego. That had lessened somewhat with that first defeat. But the arrogance and ego remained, just in lesser intensity. So, he wondered what made him tick, and he (not Yugi) decided to find out. Yami tapped into the power of the Millennium Puzzle, and focused on Kaiba. He detached himself from the puzzle temporarily, and went into Kaiba's mind.
His own mind, shared with Yugi, was divided in half. Yugi's filled with innocence and his own filled with dozens of chambers, some leading to traps, others leading nowhere, and one leading to the truth. Kaiba's looked like a city. Some of the buildings were older and tarnished, others gleaming and new. He went to the oldest and most run down building he could find. When he opened it, he found very early childhood memories of Kaiba's. A woman with brown hair and gray eyes, a man with black hair and blue eyes. The sound of their laughter, the look of a small home. And Kaiba himself, at four, five years old, playing with his parents, solving puzzles, doing crosswords. But something seemed… Off. And then Yami realized that was because there had been no sign of Mokuba. The memories there were very faded, and he wondered what he might find were he to look in another place.
Looking around the city of Kaiba's mind, he found that it was structured the way it was because he was exceptional at compartmentalization. The next most run down building was nearby, and he looked inside. That was the part of his mind that held memories of Mokuba's earliest years with him and their parents. He saw a happy child, elated with his brother and with his life in general, while still nurturing a soaring intellect, and discovering Duel Monsters. He saw no indication there of what may have caused this. But he kept watching, hoping to understand. The woman, the mother, did not appear after Mokuba's birth. He assumed that she had passed away. That was plausible. But this did not explain everything. He kept watching. And then, when Kaiba appeared to be ten and Mokuba five, there was a memory of them visiting two graves, the graves of their parents. Seto Kaiba put a hand on his little brother's shoulder, trying to comfort him. He did not speak, but Yami knew very well that he knew there was nothing he could say. Abruptly after that, the memories stopped. So he moved on.
The next building was a house, surprisingly enough. Small, unassuming, plain. It too was run down. Yami theorized that the buildings that were the most run down were full of memories that Kaiba did not pay mind to. So he went in. The house was apparently that of their aunt, judging by the look of the woman there. She shared the blue eyes of their father, and had blonde hair. The woman seemed to ignore them most of the time. However, there were a few memories of the woman smacking Seto when he did not comply with her demands, and Mokuba sobbing over his brother. The last incident he found was Seto overhearing the aunt bad mouthing his little brother after he was asleep, and trying to stand up to her. The beating, which he watched in horror but he could not look away from as much as he wanted to, was severe, but strategically placed to not show on any place that could be seen visibly. And that too ended shortly after.
The next building was less decimated, seemingly fresher, perhaps from recent memories being triggered? He was unsure. But when he looked, he saw. He and his brother were in an orphanage. Dumped there by the aunt. He watched the entirety of their first day together, Seto comforting Mokuba on the swing, the walk they took, and the change in Seto's mindset that emotions would only get in the way of their survival, and that they had to make the most of where they were. Yami recognized that perhaps that was the budding of his soaring ambition. He watched Seto and Mokuba play many games. And then saw Seto catch sight of Gozaburo Kaiba, and saw his plan hatch. He saw the way Seto blackmailed Gozaburo into a match of chess, and won. After that, the blackness came again.
The next building was odd- very odd indeed. Half of it was completely decrepit, but the other was pristine, and shiny new. It seemed to be sectioned in half, the same way other buildings in his mind were. He went to the decrepit part first. It showed the first day in the house. Mokuba ignored, Seto put to work for hours without rest, and the one shining moment in that was Mokuba giving him a blue eyes card. Gozaburo cut him off for weekend breaks. But the abuse was the most horrifying thing that Yami had seen. Slaps across the face, punches to the ribs, kicks to the gut, and more than once, cuts with sharp blades. The most notable of these was a cut downward on his neck, which was why he might have worn high collared shirts. At least, that was what Yami thought. And then, the slideshow of that stopped on his birthday, with the gift of ten million dollars for Seto to buy out a company on the condition he returned it in a year, and Seto having done it in a day. Then Seto going to the big five, offering them power in exchange for buying out pieces of Kaiba Corp. Yami watched, in astonishment and somewhat in understanding, as Seto pretended to accuse Mokuba of betraying him. He understood why it had been done. From what he had seen, Gozaburo enjoyed toying with his enemies. A taste of his own medicine was not unwarranted. But Yami felt the memory of the faked betrayal tinged with guilt over the action. But in the end it had not mattered, because Seto Kaiba had overthrown Gozaburo with his brother's loyalty.
The part of the house that was not in shambles was next, and showed moments in the home after Gozaburo's defeat- good moments. Games were played, beds were climbed into in the morning, and significantly, lockets exchanged when Mokuba's first real day of school after Gozaburo's banishment occurred. The tender moment was accentuated by a hug that made Yami smile. Other moments happened too, Seto comforting Mokuba after a nightmare, waking him up in the morning for school, surprising him on his birthday with a present and a slice of cake, showing him how to duel. Their bond, a somewhat mysterious one to Yami as he tried to understand Kaiba before, was now excruciatingly and painfully clear. Two brothers, bonded over tragedies who would do anything to protect one another. A boy of ten vowing to be the father his younger five year old brother so desperately needed. A teenager raising that boy on his own with practically no help.
With this information, Kaiba was not as much of a mystery anymore.
There was another building. Kaiba Corp itself. But he did not need to go in there because he already knew what he would find. The man Kaiba was today. The businessman that Gozaburo's cruelty had created, the arrogant CEO of Kaiba Corp. It seemed to him that his excursion was done. He understood now why Kaiba was who he was. So he exited his mind, and returned to Yugi's.
He shared with Yugi what he had found, and the boy had nodded. Somehow, some way, he would befriend Seto Kaiba, and try and bring back the light inside of him that had been extinguished through the years.