I Don't Believe In Myself
Notes: So I got some suggestions and I picked out a few that I really like so far: Oni (Brother; Evil spirits that claim evil souls upon/shortly after death) and Fantomu (Phantom) (Thanks to Mechante Fille and Chris. Greatly appreciated.) And, all on my lonesome, Kuro Bengonin (Dark Defender) and Kouhei (Justice).
Opinions would still be nice.
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Chapter Uno
Something's Bound to Go Wrong
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Seto sighed and sat down, folding his hands in his lap. He looked as carefully put together as he ever did; hair in place, suit pressed, and shoes glinting in the florescent lighting. His lips were pulled into an ever-present frown and his eyes seemed to be staring past what was actually there.
"So, little brother, here I am again. I doubt you're surprised; I'm here everyday. I think I spend more time with you now than I did before all of this happened." He smiled wryly, breaking form for a moment. "I should tell you what's going on with the trail. He whined and cried and moaned, like I expected when his lawyer announced he'd be pleading insanity. It seems our-oh-so-loving father was his wife's boss and, when she was diagnosed with cancer he fired her and yanked all health benefits. She and the child she was carrying died. His lawyer claims he didn't realize he was attacking me, or else, but saw me as the man who'd let his wife die and you as the child I didn't deserve."
He paused for a moment, head bowed. Then he let out a breath. "I don't know if it's true or not but it doesn't matter. If his problem was with me, or him, he should have aimed for me, not for you. You were innocent in all of this. I want…I want him to die for this. He shouldn't be allowed to exist anymore. I know you'd hate for me to be like this Mokuba but I need for him to pay for this. Not just jail for however long they decide to put him away, that's not enough for this.
"He should suffer."
For a long moment silence was all there was, seeping into Seto's weary body. He was running on empty and had been running that way for…weeks now. Everyday it got just a little bit harder to open his eyes and face the world, with its faux sympathy masking that most people thought he kind of deserved this fate for what was he except the cold hearted CEO.
Maybe, he heard people whispering, maybe this would show him a thing or two about life beyond his company. Maybe this would be that wake up call he so desperately needed. Maybe things in his life would change now. Maybe he'd see the 'light'.
He hated such people with a passion he rarely felt for anything. It was true he'd floated through life almost distantly; with no real connection to anything because connections only ended in heartbreak and he refused to suffer any more pain.
Except, of course, with Mokuba. He'd been his light, his reason, his heart…the only thing that separated him from the cold steel exterior he projected for people. Maybe he couldn't feel anything on his own and maybe he had cut himself off from the world in some desperately pathetic attempt to shield himself from it, but he had never been…empty.
There was also something, this feeling that he got when Mokuba smiled or was rooting for him when no one else was. The knowledge that he always, always, had that one person in his corner eliminated the need for anything else.
He'd never realized how utterly dependent he was upon his brother until he didn't have him anymore. Now, when the younger teen was beyond his reach, he knew that he couldn't function without him. He was going to crash soon, crash and be dashed across the horrifically jagged rocks of his life. There was just no way around it.
He didn't even know what to do with himself anymore.
He was just so empty inside.
He couldn't stand it.
He lifted his gaze again, frowning at the perversely shining sun, laying golden rays through the window and onto the eternally still body of his brother. Mokuba wasn't waking up. He'd known that months ago but he was still clinging to this…shell of what his brother had once been.
He'd called on the best doctors in the world, considered one 'dangerous new technique' after another and would have poured the entire Kaiba fortune into bringing his brother back if he could.
Only, of course, he couldn't. He'd lost too much blood, his lungs had been full of it and he hadn't been taken in any air; his brain had been suffocated and now…now there was only enough in there to perform the most basic of bodily functions.
His mind was gone.
Even if he woke up, somehow, he wouldn't be Mokuba. He'd be…something else. Little more than a vegetable if he understood everything correctly, which of course he did, and he didn't think he could wish such a fate on his little brother.
Not that he'd be his little brother. Mokuba wouldn't be Mokuba without that strangely brilliant mind that would, one day, put even him to shame or that imaginative and mischievous nature… He'd be a pale comparison, a puppet at the best of times.
And yet he couldn't let him go. He couldn't sign the papers or give the say so to allow his brother to pass on. He was afraid.
Seto Kaiba was afraid. Deathly afraid.
He knew his brother was gone, knew he'd never be coming back but…he was just too afraid to truly allow him to go. If he was a better before, a less selfish man, if he loved his brother half as much as he professed to he could do the right thing and do what had to be done.
He couldn't.
He just…couldn't.
He could only hope Mokuba could forgive him for this, because he doubted he'd ever be able to forgive himself.
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Yugi sat next to Yami on the sofa and watched the TV while gnawing on his bottom lip. The trial was all anyone talked about these days in Domino because it touched them all, some more deeply than others. They, of course, knew Kaiba personally, had dueled him more than once and used his aid to save the world. They knew Mokuba and had thought of him as a younger brother.
But other people, who'd never really met them, watched the trial with the perverse sort of interest all members of the human race were stricken with.
Today was the day of the verdict. No matter what happened Yami had to confess he wouldn't be satisfied. Mokuba was, according to Seto, never going to be okay again. Not even prayers to his father, Ra, seemed to be able to do anything for the younger boy. And this man, this supposed lunatic, was only facing a number of 'petty' crimes.
Mokuba wasn't dead so murder couldn't be added to the charges. At least that's what Yugi said. Yami couldn't see why, if dozens of people had seen the man do it, they couldn't just behead him on the spot and forgo this pointless trial.
Yugi said that man was crazy and that crazy people couldn't go to prison. Yami agreed he was crazy, he must have been to take the life Seto's brother, but he didn't see what that was a defense. And he didn't see the point in prison either.
So Yami wouldn't be satisfied and he knew Seto would never be. The CEO worried him slightly, with his eerie sort of calmness no matter the situation. Even know he went to work everyday and continued to just…do what it was he'd always done, as if nothing had changed. Other than visiting Mokuba for a few hours everyday his schedule was the same.
What did Yami know about his schedule?
Enough. He liked to be aware of those he cared about at all times and the Kaiba brothers had certainly fallen under than hidden, though in very different ways.
The cameras weren't allowed into the courtroom but their were reporters from every local station, some not so local stations, and at least one fro every able country in the world posted outside, awaiting some kind of news about what went on inside.
Yami knew before they did.
He felt it, a ripple in the Shadow Realm (which he was always connected to by the very nature of what he was) and a spike of burning hot rage that laced through the darkness. But it was more than that, it was like a wave of acid crashed into his body and tightened around his heart and twisted.
He gasped, hand going to his chest. He felt Yugi's alarm but dismissed it in favor of gathering control of himself once again. Yugi's arm gripped his shoulder but he still wasn't paying him any mind because he was…seeing something beyond the TV and the room.
He stood before the man, who had backpedaled himself into a corner and was staring up with wide watery brown eye. You could almost see the man's life replaying in his wide eyes, every sin or mistake he'd ever made revisiting him in that moment.
He was dressed in black from head to toe and a trench coat flowed behind him. He made no sound as he walked across the dirty and littered floor and all there was in that room was the harsh breathing of his captive.
"Don't hurt me! Please, I-"His trailed off in a squeak that echoed off of the walls as a sword emerged and rested at the curve of his throat, pushing down hard enough to cause a thin line of blood to well beneath the tip.
"The Scales of Anubis deem you unworthy." The voice was surprising soft, with no lingering echo or sound to indicate he had even spoken. The man drew back, sword glinting with an unnatural silver light and showing delicately carved hieroglyphs.
There was a shriek and then a gurgle as a long arcing stream of blood flew, staining the sword for a moment. Then the blood seemed to flow into the metal, becoming a part of it.
Yami gasped as if he was coming up for air after being trapped under water. Yugi's grip on his arm had gotten harder, small blunt fingertips digging into his flesh.
"Yami! Yami, please-"
"I'm fine Yugi." Yami murmured, pulling his light into his lap, needing the contact suddenly. "It was just…a message."
Yugi stared at him, violet eyes wide and panicked. "A message? I thought you were having some kind of seizure or something."
"My father has never been…subtle." He said delicately. Really Ra preferred to go for the painful but memorable when it came to making his wishes known. Still, he could understand to a certain degree, this seemed like a fairly important message.
"What'd he say?"
"To stay out of the affairs of other Gods and Demi-gods." He smiled wryly as the image of the sword flashed through his mind again. "Anubis has chosen his judge and executioner in one of his reborn children and I am…not to be involved."
Yugi blinked slowly. "Um. Okay. Well. You missed the verdict; they're going to send him to a mental institution until he's sane again. Then he gets let go."
Yami nodded. He was sure this man would find freedom highly unappealing, for however long is actually lasted.
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So. I decided to tie Seto's abilities into the Egyptian theme of the show. We'll see the JL elements soon enough, so don't worry.
Lucid: Thanks for the suggestion. I've decided to go more with 'justice/judgment' theme for Seto, since it's probably the press who'll be naming him, as opposed to himself. He pretty much doesn't care at his point.
Mechante: I suppose the odds of winning the lottery compared to being hit by lightening are pretty good. I'll consider it. No cape, of course, but he gets a trench coat. It's Seto after all. And I'm sorry about Mokuba! Sadly I don't think he'll ever get better, cause how cliché would that be? And, of course, if he wakes up Seto might reconsider the vengeance thing.
