Author's Note: Gozaburo Kaiba is Seto and Mokuba's adoptive father. He is believed (by myself and by many others) to be abusive and sadistic. In other words, he suxx0rz.

A/N 2: Niisama is what Mokuba calls Seto in the Japanese version. Roughly translated, it means "Honorable big brother."

WARNING: This contains self-mutilation, suicidal thoughts, swearing, mentions of abuse and torture, and other wicked dark shit. So run while you still can, poor readers.

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Free Now

The cuts on my arm are three, precise, deep, and gaping, and the knife is a familiar weight in my hand. Blood flows down, dripping off my fingertips to the carpet in a steady, almost inaudible tempo, like the hollow beats of a dying man's heart. Thp, thp, thp. It seems to me that the most important things happen in silence or near silence, in a world beyond screaming: we are born in silence, we suffer in silence...and we die in silence.

Drops of blood hit the rug, then bloom crimson on pale beige. It'll stain. People will ask (Probably the maid or someone else more concerned about the carpet than about me). But I am accustomed to making excuses; a half-assed lie about a nosebleed or a papercut should shut them up. No one questions Seto Kaiba.

The pain doesn't bother me anymore. I am well used to pain in all its forms, first my father's careless cruelty, then Gozaburo's more careful, calculated tortures. If nothing else, at least it is familiar. Inflicted on myself by myself, it provides a kind of security, a comfort.

Heh. You know your life is pathetic when you seek comfort in pain and blood. But it is a good distraction from the pain inside.

I lost. After all these years, after a busted my ass to master this game, I lost to a kid. Yugi Mutou.

I was trained to win. Losers are worthless, less than nothing: never become one of them. Lie, cheat, kill, but never lose.

But I did. I lost.

Howling down the halls of my memory like the winds of a hurricane, Gozaburo's voice returns.

You are worthless.

Look at this! Is there nothing you can do well?!

I should leave you out on the streets, rid myself of you.

It's not like anyone would care.

But you'll never get away from me, Seto.

You'll never be free.

My grip tightens on the knife.

No. I won against him. He tried to control me, turn me into his pawn, his puppet in the world of industry. He tried to break me. But he failed; I survived.

I might die, Gozaburo, but I will die free.

And yet...what did I survive to see? Did I really win, in the end? Even dead, he still exerts a power over me, and the stamp of his "training" is undiminished. I still bleed, and my cries are still silent.

Sometimes I wonder why I have killed myself yet (Or committed suicide. Or taken my own life. Call it what you will, it doesn't alter the meaning). But the answer is simple, and it comes to me even as I ask: Mokuba.

He keeps me sane and he keeps me alive. He's the only one that cares about me - the only that ever has, really - the only one who gives a damn that I'm suffering and in pain. Even if there's not much he can do about it, at least he still cares.

One little candle isn't enough to despell all the darkness of the night, but it would be far darker without that light. It might seem a small thing, but to me...to me it means everything.

I don't want to think about what would become of him if I died. Physically, he'd be all right; I have more than enough money set aside to ensure that he would live well for the rest of his life. But emotionally, spiritually, it would kill him. He lost his mother at birth, and later his father and stepfather (Though whether those are actually tragedies is a debatable point), and he has no other friends or close family. What would happen if he lost his niisama, too?

That is a question from which my mind turns. I don't want to know the answer. It only matters that I must live for Mokuba, because if I die, he will also.

But it does not matter, Seto, a soft, cold voice in my mind hisses, a voice from a part of me that does not care about Mokuba or anyone else. You lost, and you deserve punishment.

No. You have no control over me anymore. You are gone, dead, like Gozaburo. I lost more today than just a duel.

It was a kind of darkness, an evil, even, but it was comforting. In the beginning, at least. It stole over me slowly, gradually, like darkness creeping up on day. And I let it, because I was only a child then, and all I knew was hurt and suffering. It was a relief to have someone - something - else in control.

For I was controlled, totally and completely, by this darkness. But in a strange way, I was freer than ever. My loss was compensated; I was allowed to retreat into the depths of my mind, to hide away from Gozaburo's "training" and let the other suffer it. For a while, it was a way to retain my ragged, shattered innocence.

But it did not last. In time, this new entity became as much a tormentor as Gozaburo himself. Like him, it tried to break me, to posses my body for its own ends. And it very nearly succeeded. I waged war against the dark side of myself, embattled inside and out, and the prize was my very soul.

I remember them well, all those nights of blood, blades, and pain, the torture inflicted upon me by this darkness that was both separate and part of me. (Not unlike what I do now to myself. Like the voice said, I deserve punishment. Perhaps I am not as free as I believe myself to be). I remember them, but with a kind of emotionless detachment, as if they happened to someone else very long ago, as I wish they had.

But those times are gone. I am free now. No one can control me anymore: Gozaburo is dead, and my darkness is despelled. I have been born again, and it is a terrifying and wondrous experience. I am left to face the world alone, naked and unprotected, totally helpless. But true freedom does not come with safety, and I prefer the former to the latter.

With a feeling of unfamiliar lightness, I hide the knife, roll my sleeves down (the wounds will heal and the scars will become three among many), and stand.

I've lost so much of myself over the years, in the process of surviving. It's time I found it again.

~*FINIS*~