NOTE: This was originally going to be part of Seto's backstory in "Chariots of the Gods", but that fic is already so complicated that this seemed like overkill. Therefore, this is an AU of an AU. As such, there are details that do not match up with the actual CotG continuity. I changed Yami's name to Atem for this, to keep them even more separate.
As for the ending, feel free to imagine that the invasion/war happens or not, as you prefer. (Personally, I think that in this AU, the war doesn't happen. This version of Seto has enough problems.)
started: 2010
finished: 2/21/2019
prompt: #4 family
Pieces of Me (Kept in a Green Glass Jar)
When Seto Kaiba was four years old, he gained a baby brother. At the time, he was rather disappointed, since what he really wanted was a pony. Ponies were fun, babies were not. Babies didn't seem to do much more than sleep and, when not sleeping, cry. They also seemed to take up all the attention, which was maybe the worst thing of all.
After awhile, Mokuba got more interesting - and Seto had gotten his pony anyway, because Uncle Kazuki had bought one for Cousin Atem, and whatever Cousin Atem got, Seto soon had one, too. He even had something of bragging rights for a change, because Cousin Atem didn't have a baby brother, and Seto did. So, maybe brothers weren't so bad, after all.
o0o
When Seto was six, he lost his mother. That was how everyone talked about it, as if she had simply been misplaced, but Seto knew that she wasn't coming back. He had seen photos of what was left of the experimental flyer she had been test-piloting, even though he wasn't supposed to. It wasn't his fault the company servers were so easy to hack. If they didn't want people snooping around in their files, they should have better security. When Seto had his own company, his security would be the best, because he'd do it himself.
When Seto was nine, he found out he had an older brother. Noa Kaiba was seven years old. He'd been seven for longer than Seto had been alive.
o0o
When Seto was thirteen, he lost himself.
When Seto was a little boy, he wished he wasn't a Kaiba. He dreamed he would wake up one day to discover he was the lost prince of a faraway kingdom and his real parents - riding on the backs of great, white dragons - would come rescue him from the evil ogre who had stolen him. As he grew up, his fantasies became more prosaic: he would gladly be the son of poor squatters, if only they'd come take him away from Gozaburo Kaiba. Gozaburo was still an evil ogre, though. Nothing could change that.
And then, one day, he found out the truth.
He wasn't adopted. He wasn't a lost prince or even a poor farm-boy. No, the truth was far more devastating. He wasn't even real.
He was a clone.
And all he'd ever been meant to be was a replacement for Noa. Not as in "have another son to take the place of the one who died." No, even that much of a sense of belonging was denied Seto. He was only supposed to be a replacement body for Noa. There should never have been a "Seto" at all, just an empty shell for Noa's digitized consciousness to inhabit. But something had gone wrong - or right, depending on your point of view.
No wonder Gozaburo hated him.
Sometimes, Seto hated himself. (But he still hated Gozaburo more.)
o0o
When Seto was sixteen, Gozaburo tried to kill him. He failed, though that was more because Atem couldn't mind his own business than anything else. (For once, Seto was glad for his cousin's tendency to stick his nose where it didn't belong.) Gozaburo paid the ultimate price, the machinery that he had intended to destroy Seto's mind taking his own instead.
It had destroyed the digital copy of Noa as well; Seto still hadn't quite figured out how he should feel about that.
(He wasn't sure how to feel about Atem, either. At least it was easy to keep hating Gozaburo.)
o0o
When Seto was eighteen, he was introduced to the newest product in Kaiba Corp's Advanced Robotics line-up: the Duel Mecha. The most advanced artificial intelligences on the market, each AI was customized to the pilot, to the point that no one else could use it. Of course, Atem had to be the first person to successfully merge his consciousness with one of the AIs, so he received the first of the custom mecha to roll off the assembly line. The Dark Magician was magnificent and terrible, and Seto's jealousy burned like fire in his soul until the day his own mech was ready for him.
Once Seto had settled into the gestalt merge with the Blue-Eyes White Dragon, nothing else mattered. For the first time in his life, Seto felt safe, wanted... whole.