Disclaimer: Just own the words, not the folks.
Who Disagree and Never Win
12 September
Kaiba,
I hope this letter finds you well. And I hope you're not still mad at me. I'm sorry if I hurt you. I only meant to show you what an ass you were being to Joey and everyone. (Admit it, you were!)
Yugi and I arrived at Tokyo University a few weeks ago. Unpacking was a chore, but we got through it. Yugi's in class right now. I'm taking a few classes myself, though I'm not actually here for a degree.
I didn't get a chance to tell you before we left, but I'm going to Egypt next summer for a dig. Jii-chan pulled some strings and I'll be working on a team that's un-earthing the children of a very famous pharaoh.
No, not me!
I haven't told Yugi yet. He's not going to like it.
Well, I have to go. I'm sorry this letter is so short, but I promise to write you again. Though if you unblocked your phone and e-mail, you'd hear from me more often.
By for now!
Yami
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30 October
Hey Kaiba!
I hope you liked your birthday present. I know it's not much, but starving students and all that.
Smiling lightly, Seto fingers the Blue-Eyes Ultimate bookmark and continues to read the third letter in that year. Yami goes on to talk about classes and Yugi and missing everyone.
Even though I 'talk' to them on e-mail every day, it's not the same.
Well, I guess I've bored you enough for today.
I'll write again soon.
Yami
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Seto looks up from the latest letter and realizes it's after 7:00 pm. He'd been so engrossed in reading Yami's letters that he'd lost track of time.
And to think he'd almost thrown them all away. Actually, he'd thrown half of them into the shred box in the hall when something fell out of a bundle of letters from last year; a picture. He'd picked it up and just stared. There stood Yami, decked out in an ancient pharaoh's garb, grinning madly. Seto was certain he'd never seen Yami that happy, not even while dueling. What could have brought such a smile to his face? Curiosity got the best of him and he searched to find which letter it had fallen from. To his dismay, it only said:
Here's the picture, as promised.
So when are you going to write to me?
YamiAt that moment, he decided it would be better to just start at the beginning and pulled all of the letters out of the shred box. It took him a little while to put them back in order since, in his haste to toss them, he'd messed everything up.
He'd planned to look over a few letters and then take the rest home for later. Instead he'd read through the entire school year's letters and three-quarters of Yami's first year in Egypt when he finally paused to check the time.
Gathering the scatter of letters on his desk and arranging them in some order, he places several rubber bands around them before writing Finished Reading on the first envelope in the stack. Throwing the stack and the current letter on top of the others in the box, he shuts down and packs up his laptop, throws on his coat and encased laptop and picks up the box, his silver briefcase resting comfortably on the lid.
Riding home in the limo, he continues reading the letter from earlier.
So we found child number 26 today. Or was it 28. I don't remember. I think my brain is so baked it's starting to ooze out my ears.
Seto laughs aloud at that line.
Don't get me wrong, I love the warmth, but I'm really not looking forward to two to six more years under this sun.
I wish Yugi understood why I had to come here. I know Domino is my true home now, but I just needed to see…I don't know. The sand. The sun. Other Egyptians. (Ones that weren't trying to kill me like Bakura or run my life like Isis.)
Seto smirks at the jibe.
Though I've only known Japan in my current incarnation, I missed Egypt down in my soul. I missed the desert climate much more than I could explain to Yugi. Or anyone really. I missed speaking the language. Though my version of it is long dead by now, there is still something similar being spoken here. It actually surprised me that I needed to hear my language so badly. I think it took me about two weeks to get the dialect together, but once I did, I talked to anyone I could. It was music to my ears.
Part of me wants to stay in Egypt permanently because my soul is at peace here. But I'd miss my aibou too much. And Jii-chan. Even you who never answers my letters. I'd miss the others too, but not like I'd miss you three.
You know, as much as Yugi and I look alike, I'm still the only one of me. Still the only "former pharaoh, ex-spirit, Shadow Realm master" in all of Japan. In the world really. It's a very lonely existence, Kaiba. But I'm sure you understand, being the only "teenaged, billionaire, CEO who's also raising his little brother" in the world.
I guess, in a way, we're two peas in a pod.
Well, this letter has gotten too heavy, so I'll end it here.
Yami
Seto finds himself re-reading the last passages and nodding in silent agreement.
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"Nii-sama!"
Seto starts at Mokuba's yell.
"Mmm, what, Mokuba?" he mumbles sleepily, leaning back in his study chair and rubbing his eyes. "What's the matter?"
Mokuba's brow furrows. This wasn't like his brother at all. When he'd come down stairs for a mid-morning snack, the last thing he expected to find was his brother sleeping in his study, sprawled across the desk. And what's all this paper around?
"Seto," he begins quietly, "Are you all right?"
He stands and stretches, responding with a loud yawn, "Of course I am, Mokuba. Why do you ask?"
"Because it's 10:30 am on a Saturday and you're still here."
Shock chases the remaining sleep from his eyes.
"Shit! Why didn't you wake me?" he grumbles heading to the stairs to shower and change.
"You're joking, right? When was the last time I woke up before you?"
"Whatever," he grumbles, taking the stairs three at a time.
He pauses at the top to yell down, "Don't touch anything in my study, Mokuba! In fact, just close the door!"
Mokuba does as he's told. He's never figured out how he does it, but Seto can always tell if anything is even one millimeter off. Heading to the kitchen for his snack, he decides to leave his brother be for now and he'd get the whole story later.
And for Seto to have overslept, it has to be a doozey.
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"Shit!" He curses to himself again as he towels his hair dry.
"I can't believe I overslept! I knew I shouldn't have gone back to reading those letters after I finished working last night," he grumbles to himself.
Quickly pulling a suit and all accessories from his closet and dresser, he's ready in record time. The limo pulls away from the mansion at 10:42 am.
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It's nearly midnight when Seto finally comes in the door. The house is quiet, Mokuba having gone to bed hours earlier, too tired to wait for whatever explanation his brother had for his lapse. He'd find out later.
For his part, Seto grabs a Power Bar from the kitchen while waiting for his tea to get ready before heading back to the study. Slowly sipping the tea and enjoying the warmth spreading throughout his body, he makes sense of the scattered letters. Sometime last night, or early this morning, he'd fallen asleep and sprawled all over the top of his desk. Consequently, the letters he'd sat to the side as having been read as well as the one he'd been reading and the next few on the list now comprised two semi-crumpled piles. It's close to 2 am when he finally organizes everything. By this time, he's made another pot of tea and settled comfortably on the couch, absorbed in the latest letter. For whatever reason, Yami had decided to tell Seto everything happening at the dig site for the past three letters, which Seto finds absolutely fascinating; no doubt because of the pharaoh's affinity for giving detailed, technical explanations. Seto couldn't get enough. His eyes glittered with exuberance at the abundance of information Yami passed on to him. The first two letters covered a period of three weeks and were 15 and 16 pages, respectively. This third letter focuses on the actual discovery of the tomb itself and how long archaeologists had been excavating it.
While this tomb is utterly unique, it does share many aspects of other late 18th Dynasty burials. The tomb was probably not begun by Ramses II, but was taken over by him for his family. Though not proven, there is a lot of circumstantial evidence for this theory that probably rooms, numbered one and two, as well as part of chamber 3, were dug 50 to 100 years prior to the rule of Ramesses II. The history of the tomb has been labeled with five phases, of which the period prior to the reign of Ramesses comprises Phase I. It's believed that there were no burials made in the tomb at that time, and that chamber 3, the 16 pillared hall, might have been much smaller with only 8 pillars prior to the time of Ramesses II..
The first reason given for this theory is the location of the tomb in the middle of tombs KV 62 (Tutankhamun), 46 (Yuya/Tjuyu), and 55 (Akhenaten?), mostly dating from Egypt's 18th Dynasty. Second, architectural components, consisting of the first two chambers and the dimensions of the doors, all suggesting earlier style. The doorways of 18th Dynasty tombs had never exceeded 200 centimeters, and royal tomb entrances averaged of 150 centimeters. On the other hand, 19th Dynasty tomb doors always exceeded 200 centimeters and royal tombs averaged 211 centimeters. The entrance door to KV 5 was only 110 centimeters, even after apparently being widened in the time of Ramesses II by 15 centimeters, as were all the other doors. The two front chambers and 18 pillared hall and the very entrance, deep within the floor of the valley against the base of a moderately slopped hill, are also reminiscent of older tombs, as opposed to the straight lateral series of corridors of 19th Dynasty tombs. The 18 pillared hall has doorways that seemingly lead everywhere. Actually nothing else like it exists on the West Bank, or most likely anywhere else in Egypt.
The Tomb is huge. So far that we know, it consists of several entrance halls, including one with sixteen pillars, followed by a series of corridors in the shape of a T. Each of these corridors leads to groupings of sixteen single chambers. Along the first long corridor, there are also suits of rooms.
Seto is halfway down the page before he finally realizes that the flow and tone of the words aren't Yami's. He'd copied someone's notes word-for-word. Why? Flipping through the rest of the 14 page epic, he realizes that the entire letter is someone's copied notes. What the--? Going back to the box, he retrieves the letters before the detailed dig notes and starts reading them again. He's on the last page of the letter that precedes the first letter of jabber when he finds what he thinks he's looking for…
Tomorrow night I'm going out with a few of the other students on the dig. Tanya and Corey from America are pretty nice, but I'm not so sure about Pierce. He's the son of some French bureaucrat who thinks he's the most handsome man on the planet. There have been several incidents with the locals and some of the diggers. Some of us also think he's sleeping with Dr. Parson's husband, but no one knows for sure. I've never had any problems with him, but I know he and Corey have fought before.
Sorry for the soap opera update. Really, everything's fine here. I guess it all gets a little mundane after a while. Or maybe the sun has baked all of my brain down into ooze.
That's it for now. I'll write again soon!
Yami
He checks the date on the letter: 12 August
The next letter, the one where he begins copying some stranger's notes, is dated 28 November. None of the other letters had that much of a gap in time. Something's wrong with that. Even the opening to that letter is suspicious now that he reads it again.
Sorry for not writing in so long. I thought you might enjoy hearing about the dig.
That's it. No, 'Hey, Kaiba' like usual.
'And he didn't mention my birthday when he'd hinted in July that he had something nice he really wanted to send me,' he frowns to himself.
Flipping through the next three or four letters after the current one, he finds them all the same, notes about the dig or about Egypt.
"Gods, Yami. What happened to you?" he questions to the air.
Suddenly guilty for not being accessible when Yami obviously needed some help, he starts going through the next series of letters looking for a break in the archeo-babble.
A/N: Taken from this site: http/ Told ya it was real!