He tells himself that he's just making up for the money he never had. Being orphaned as a child, being left with nothing, has smartened him up. Fat bills slide against one enough in an intricate dance as Seto puts more money into his wallet, and he knows that he's just being clever. Just earning his fair share.
But maybe that's not true. Maybe he just doesn't know any better. Maybe watching Mom and Dad smile for as shortly as they did, covered in pearls and signing checks, taught him to hold his money and hold it close. He watched them burn through a family fortune, and he watched them die, and he watched them leave him with nothing.
And with Kaiba and with greed, it can't just be about money. It has to be about everything. It's tied up in being young and lonely and hoarding his brother's attention. Showing off and keeping the young boy close and maybe protecting him, but letting him on his own enough so he knows how cruel the rest of the world is. He remembers owning all of the control as a kid in that orphanage, and he remembers the fat fists of bullies slamming down on him, and how funny it was for them to think they could overpower him.
It's all about childhood, he realizes, flicking through the cards of his deck and studying what he's already studied so many times before. He thinks of the years of hoarding, of hiding, of Mokuba cutting up text books to slip trading cards in what used to be the home of mathematic equations or classic literature.
The cards that he earned or that he stole always sitting eagerly on the top of the pile. He lied and cheated to get his baby Blue Eyes, but it was a worth it. A man killed himself over Kaiba's fucking trading cards, but he still smirks down at his three of a kind and can't bother himself to care. His heartstrings work themselves into a sad little melody, though, because there really ought to be a fourth one in the set but if I can't have it no one can and something priceless became shredded paper and that was that.
He thinks of the amusement park he wants to build—only for kids just like him to sink their fat dirty hands into—and he'll roll around in the money of everyone who can afford to walk inside and admire his brilliance.
The technology he's made, which he may have shared with the world but the thoughts are still his and he owns them more and more with every beat of his heart. The big luxurious holograms just so he could indulge himself and study the fine lines of his favorite monsters. He'd spend countless hours memorizing every scale on his precious dragon...
And there's also the Duel Disk, but he only bothered himself to create that to distance himself. Something sleek and smart that would allow you to duel your opponent without being too close. Without showing them your face—or your mind, if you know people like Kaiba does with long silver hair and a golden eye and a knack for poking around in the brains of people who lock their thoughts up tight with avarice.
He also has his obsession with power, and the people he crushed to get it.
(Kaiba was smart enough to fool anyone into adopting him. He picked the billionaire.)
He worked hard to get this company in his greedy little hands. He remembers it being such a shame Gozaburo had to die, though. But he also remembers going to the funeral and trying very hard not to laugh.
He sits on a throne of the company that's now his, and he stares. He watches the army at his feet clickclack on their keyboards and he admires some of the world's most brilliant minds fumbling about at his feet, trying to engineer technology for a card game when they could be curing cancer or destroying the world. But only if Kaiba wanted them to. And he doesn't, so they hold their computers close, and they just don 't.
He feels like a King sometimes, when he lets his mind run away with him. The rich man in town who controls the palace and puts all of the peasants to work. They bow down to him, mostly, and he hoards their loyalty with wretched hands.
(Sometimes, he thinks about Yugi. And how Yugi always wins. And, really, Kaiba deserves to win and he should have all the best cards because he spent his entire life preparing to be the best at this game and he earned all the things that he has, so he should get to keep them.)
Seto Kaiba smiles down at Obelisk the Tormenter, shining royal blue on the front of the card, and he can't wait for the other Egyptian Gods to be his.
