I AM SO SORRY.
I could give you guys so many reasons for the delay, like my birthday, health problems, school, my family, my computer and the HUGE writer's block that I had but. I'm just so sorry and I promise that the next chap won't take as long to show up. I'M SO SORRY GUYS.
Howl3, Hello again! :D. Hahaha, 'The Bag' makes a small appearance in this chap, and tiny Yami does as well! (I love tiny Yami too! c:) . Seto is like Yami's 'Yugi' in this fic. Yami would do anything for him, and NEVER would go against his wishes unless he really thought that he needed to! (It's hard to think about the sadistic things that Yami would be able to do in his shadow form, I'm glad that you enjoyed these ideas! xD.) In the series, Yami's 'sense of fashion' was totally inspired on Yugi's, so he probably won't wear any collars, and optate for trench coats, belts and the liking instead! (Some of the Aibous were left without 'u' in propose, yes, because Yami sometimes says 'Aibo!' in the sub and that was stuck in my head! xD.)
murtagh1, That's because when I think about Season Zero animal-like shadow Yami, I can only see 'Bloodlust' and 'Sadist' in my mind, so... xD. I wouldn't mind ending Gozaburo as well, but I noticed that he was such an important person in Seto's life, in various ways. I couldn't simply kill him off, no matter how much I wanted to T.T . (I'm glad to hear that! :D). Welp, I hope that this chap satisfices your curiosity a bit! xD.
liron-aria, (People are always adding nonsensical things to the time that Seto spend with Gozaburo... I tried to add something that made a bit of sense and reflected how cruel the man was as well. T.T). Hey, it's Season Zero Yami that we're talking about here! xD. Glad that you liked the chap title! *hugs*
starshinesholdier, Hello there! A new person! :D. Thank you so much for pointing this error out, ugh, I can't believe I didn't saw it sooner! T.T . (They were in Portuguese!) I'm so glad that you're enjoying my fic, I hope that this mistake didn't scare you off! xD.
Gozaburo massaged his temples.
"No, haven't been drinking lately." He said with a hoarse voice.
The doctors looked at each other with what appeared to be mild suspicion.
"Are you sure, Mr. Kaiba...? You said you felt a sudden and really strong paralysis. Then your body started to burn as if acid was melting it, and you saw black but wasn't unconscious... You said that the upper part of your body was almost completely melted out by that liquid, but you didn't faint... and your skin and suit look fine, besides the holes in it. You know that that means that..."
"I don't drink when important meetings are about to take place. I'll go on a trip to America in a few months and there's just way too many things to do. I never drink when I'm so busy."
"We'll have to consider your lack of sleep as a possible reason for your-"
"Hallucinations? I know what I saw. I know what I felt. And now, I want to know the responsible for it."
The old man's grey eyes meet two shiny dark orbs peeking through the door. Noticing that he was caught, Mokuba ran away desperately, stumbling a little.
Narrowing his eyes, the CEO beckoned one of his servants to get closer.
"Bring me my briefcase. I have to see my son's great drawing skills from more closely."
"Seto!"
Mokuba arrived in the room, panting and falling on to the bed. "He's... uff... he's okay."
With a relieved sigh, the blue-eyed stroked his little bro's hair. "I'm glad. We can't lose him so soon. His company would be left for someone other than me and I can't let that happen."
"But Aibou..." A dark voice whispered on his ear. Seto turned around to find Yami looking at him with his (somehow worried) big yellow eyes. "He...going... hurt..."
Seto shushed him with a small pat on his head. "Shh, don't talk."
Yami had been feeling an excruciating pain since that one night, whispering things that sounded much like 'the shadows are angry with me' and... 'i didn't play the game'.
It was terrifying for the small brothers, because Yami seemed so sick and barely could move even after they offered him some food and cookies. That lasted some weeks, but thankfully the spirit was moving around this morning, even if he apparently wasn't completely healed.
"And I know. It's nothing you can't fix right?" The blue-eyed boy finished,a nervous smile growing on his lips.
Yami's eyes darkened even more as he drawed closer. "Aibo..."
"Everything will be okay Yami. We'll win this." Seto hugged Yami's head, stroking it. It was easier to comfort him this way, since the ghost's body was so huge. Yami sighed against him, a hot wave of air hiting the orphan faintly on his belly. "I...I... can't...I..."
Yami tried to keep still, but ended up falling heavily on Seto's arms, unconscious. Mokuba ran to him, worried. The brothers knew that there wasn't anything that they could do, so they just sat here, petting their ghost while looking worriedly at each other.
"What's wrong with him Seto?" Mokuba asked with a shaky voice. "He's not going to die is he?"
"No!" The older boy replied sharply. "There's no way that he could die, he's a ghost, remember? Maybe you just tired him out today, or that's because we fed him something that he shouldn't eat. He just needs to rest, and he'll be okay."
The boy didn't sound so certain himself.
"Al...Alright then..." Mokie said. "We'll have to take care of him if that's the case..."
And they did the best that they could.
Yami recovered pretty quickly, but Seto had a bad time without him in his classes. Four painfull years of theoretical training and three stressful years of practical training. Just as Yami thought, Gozaburo wasn't intimidated enough to stop his cruel methods of 'teaching'.
It got worse.
Having to hold his trembling partner almost every night without being able to do anything to relieve his pain... his emotional pain... was way to overwhelming for the dark spirit. He wanted to end Gozaburo so badly. He wanted vengance and relief but Seto's wishes were way more important than his. If his Aibou wanted that company, that was what he was going to get.
But the spirit just couldn't keep still while Seto suffered. Every single night he would get into the CEO's room, fill his mind with grotesc nightmares and his body with painful but unharmful scratches. It was a temporary, but also terapeutic moment of relief.
He and Mokie did the best that they could to keep Seto healthy, the spirit was specially passionate about it. The blue eyed boy stopped to sleep and eat as much as he needed to study for his lessons on the next day and avoid meeting Gozaburo in the place he started to refer as 'The Room'. It didn't always work, and it made Seto's mind and body even fragiler than the abuse was making them be. Yami had to envelop him and strengthen the scrawny link that the Puzzle created between their mind and souls, so he could share his energy and life force with him. It was the only way to keep Seto well, because he simply won't take a break.
Yami felt so helpless in the first years. Thankfully Mokuba was pretty happy in his new home, because his load of work wasn't near as bad as his big brother's and he still had time to get out and play. But Seto's life was basically study, get in The Room, sleep, and study. Rarely, very rarely, Gozaburo would take him in trips. The brown haired boy met various other CEOs... and their sons. The pink haired guys from Europe and... Pegasus. The ghost didn't like the guy from the start... he seemed to be after something, and he smelled weird. Seto wasn't very found of him either, even if he got some free M&W cards from him when they first met.
The physical abuse Seto suffered didn't affect him as much as... the collar thing. Yami never understood why the boy was so disgusted of dogs until he saw him in The Room for the first time. It was... horrible and humiliating, especially for someone as proud as the blue-eyed kid. Seto became really salty about other people over time, especially the humble and poor, his lessons about how they feed on richer people's feet increasing his disgust on them. Gozaburo made sure that he wouldn't trust anyone anymore, not that it was a hard lesson to put onto his head.
Yami was furious with what was happening to the innocent child that he first met. When he wasn't able to be with Seto, he stayed with Mokuba and protected him from whatever dangers showed up at the time. He was glad that Mokie didn't bother in letting him out like his brother did, but when rumours and stories about ghosts and such started to be whispered all over the mansion, he understood that he couldn't be as free as he was in the orphanage anymore, and spent most of his time rotting inside that damn bag.
He thought that their lifes were going to a bad direction... but the first few years were nothing compared to the final ones.
Hitting an more respectful height, Seto began to have more control on what was going on in the mansion. Gozaburo allowed him to get an education in a private high school, and the Kaiba heir decided to give it a try. It was an hell of a breath of fresh air. But...Deeply sore and resentful, he avoided talking to anyone other than his own family like plague, and when it wasn't possible, he acted selfishly and acidly to push the person away. His father's lessons were getting way too much on him, but it wasn't like he didn't knew what they actually wanted from the start... Money, popularity, recognition.
When Seto finally was technically 'smart enough' to take over the Kaiba Corporation, Gozaburo finally let him take care of actual parts of the company.
Especially the design parts.
Noticing that his son had a talent to create machinery, he ordered Seto to make for him dozens and dozens of things that were going to be added to a 'futuristic war simulation game', as he put it. Things like bombs, missels, war planes, tanks, guns...
Seto was the kind of person who puts his heart in everything he does. He spend entire nights designing these weapons, virtually constructing them, testing them, analysing every single detail and chances of mistake, everything.
He was creative with them. Planned them for maximum damage, with all the knowledge that he had earned from his Physics and Chemistry classes. They were cheap, destructive and deadly. He was so proud of himself when he finally finished all those projects and received a small pat on his head from Gozaburo's words. He felt happy. He felt content. It was like all those hours of studying were paying off! He made tons of realistic and amazing things that would entertain people all over the world when the game was finally out!
But things weren't as good as Seto thought...
They discovered it late at night.
Seto needed to take some more weapon designs to his father's office. But to do that, he needed to get past the meeting room. He was almost getting through the corridor when strange sounds caught his attention.
Peeking through a small space on the door, he saw that Gozaburo had reunited various men to watch something on the huge screen of the room. They were talking boredly while drinking wine and taking notes. Seto's curiosity made him turn his neck in a way he could see what they were watching. His eyes widened.
At first, he gave a big smile when he saw his creations being so realisticaly displayed on the screen, but his hapiness slowly turned into horror when realised... the scenes were way too real.
These weren't fake explosions of fake screams. There was real blood being shed, real children crying over moveless dead bodies. Seto back out slowly as the horrible scenes were still sadistically being displayed right in front of his eyes, his papers falling innocently on the floor. He stifled a terrified whimper before running as fast as he could back to his bedroom.
Grey eyes followed the sudden movement from inside the room.
Yami had to hold Seto tighter that night. The boy wouldn't stop sobbing, saying incoherent things about death over and over again, and the spirit simply didn't know what to do about it. He never knows. He wanted to confort Seto. He wanted so badly. But his numb and tormented mind couldn't fully comprehend what exactly was happened to make his aibou so upset. He was receiving images covered with black and red through their bond, along with a weird, deafening sound and a painful feeling of grief. He knew that it should mean something, just like the words that he was finally learning to mimic from his aibou but... he just... couldn't understand.
It made him so mad, with whoerever did this and with himself. He wanted to get revenge but he didn't know who had hurt his partner this time. There was no clear image of the culprit...
He just murmured soothing songs and hold Seto still with his warm arms until the sobs vanished and faint sighs took their place. Getting into bed and covering himself and the not-so-little-kid with the heavy covers, he used his friend as a teddy bear, swallowing hard.
Why...?
Why was he witless like this?
Death, wrath, the bittersweet taste of revenge... these were everything he knew. He barely could 'talk' to his partner without sending subliminal messages to him through the link to make him understand. During most of the time, he felt like if he has just half of a brain. He didn't even mind being called a 'pet' before, until his aibous told him that it wasn't a good thing. He was supposed to protect his friends. This was the only thing in his mind for a long, long time... if only he was smarter. Maybe he could understand what his friends want of him. Maybe he could resolve things in a more civilized way. Maybe he could help Seto when he starts to sob like he did today.
Maybe he wouldn't act so much like... a thing.
He dig his dark claws in the thick covers.
The spirit changed after that day. All the time he didn't spend with the brothers was spend into learning and 'becoming more human'. He sneaked on Seto's classes and spied on the servants for entire days... and now being able to comprehend and say more complex phrases, Yami had a better understanding of what exactly was occurring inside that damned place.
And it was driving him mad.
Seto wasn't just being forced to study until he barely could stand. He was also being forced to create weapons to destroy entire families. Families like his own used to be.
And that... that broke his partner. Yami never cared so much about other's lives, but his aibou was so much more... human than he was. So much kinder. And even if Yami couldn't understand exactly what he felt, he knew that if it didn't stop, Seto would be permanently scarred, for the rest of his life. He already was becoming colder...
The spirit knew what Gozaburo was doing. Everything, every single thing he did was planned out, made especially to change Seto into a monster.
The long nights he spend awake studying were a way to suppress his conscious judgment, to make him stop caring about others. Kaiba Corporation was actually focused in the war marked. Seto couldn't be sensitive if he was going to take over this huge mess of a company someday. The... collar and all of the other... tools were made especially to make Seto submissive and athirst for control. He knew that it was everything the boy had, and that he would be lost if someone took it away from him. No matter how Yami much hated the situation, he understood Gozaburo's motives. He wanted to leave his company in safe hands...
... and which hands could be better than his own?
With a sigh, he nuzzled Seto's cheek, watching him finish his homework. Today was a good day. He had no trouble keeping up with his studies, and was able to meet all the targets way faster than normal. He wasn't going to visit The Room today.
Yami hid in Seto's shirt when the teacher returned to the room, taking all school supplies before leaving. The boy looked confused for a few moments... the occasions where he could just stop and think of anything other than calculations or cientific theories were so rare in his present life. He immediately felt a deep sleep taking over his body.
The spirit came out of hiding in order to grab the small orphan and cover him with his body, warming him. The boy was sleeping in a few moments.
Floating to the bed, he snuggled Seto in the blankets. He would need to rest well tonight, since he would have extra classes from tomorrow on. Yami knew that the man who would teach him was a bald guy with big round glasses. He was the kind of person that made the room's temperature drop several degrees just by entering it... Yami had a bad feeling about all of this.
Coiling around Seto, he waited until dawn of the next day.
When the sun was up, he left the room. His black claws clinked against the walls as he ran through them, looking out for preys.
In few minutes, the mansion was deserted.
Since no one was wandering around the rooms, it was easy to Yami get to the kitchen. He returned to Seto's room with everything he could find in the pantry and waited for the boy to wake up eagerly, his tentacles waving excitedly from side to side.
Seto opened his eyes slowly, rubbing them. They immediately widened as he saw the huge variety of food floating around his bed. Rubbing his eyes, he looked again and sighed in relief... they were just being held by black tentacles, which were hard to see through the darkness surrounding the room. Greeting the floating golden face with a soft smile, he turned on the lights; still amazed at the amount of food.
"Yami...? What did you-"
The ghost interrupted him by pushing a delicious dessert right in front of his nose. Seto felt the addictive smell and made a strangled sound before pushing the dark appendage away.
"No. Father won't let me eat something like that. My Martial Art classes will restart in a few weeks and I-"
A pitiful whimper disrupted Seto's rant. With a sigh, the boy prepared to deny Yami again when his stomach protested firmly - and noisily. The ghost seemed to have raised an eyebrow at him, amused.
"Alright!" The blue eyed boy huffed in frustration, grabbing the candy and sticking it in his mouth. He groaned happily with the taste, trying to ignore his spirit's huge smile. Gozaburo normally prohibited this kind of goodies... it had been so long since he had tasted something sweet.
Yami began to move happily around the room, making excited noises. Seto laughed at the silly face the ghost was making before patting the dark head.
"There, there. Don't get too excited. Father will end up hearing you and coming here to see what's happening." The teen shuddered at the thought.
Yami just hung his tail up the ceiling lamp and swung from one side to another cheerfully. Shaking his head, Seto got up and dressed. At least Yami was no longer making noises.
Devouring his breakfast, Seto moaned with satisfaction before sighing to remember all of his day tasks. The dark spirit looked curiously at him.
Letting Yami hide in his clothes, the young man went to have his first class. In the classroom, he waited, waited ... and waited. No one appeared, and after nearly two hours of waiting, it became obvious that no one would come. Apparently one of the teachers would be fired soon.
Curious, the heir of Kaiba Corporation walked on tiptoe to the door and peered through it. For the first time since he woke up, he realized how quiet the mansion was. Not that it was noisy during the day, but there was no way to dozens of servants do their jobs in full silence, especially now that a new regime would be imposed on them with Seto's different schedule.
After a lot of hesitation, the boy decided to leave the classroom's security and silently walked through the halls, looking for signs of life ... but there was nothing there. Not in the rooms. Or in the kitchen. Or even in the garden.
The mansion was deserted.
Taken by confusion, Seto was about to formulate a theory when he noticed two bright golden eyes blinking at him from his shirt collar.
"Yami ...? What did you do?" The teenager asked with a slight tone of horror in his voice.
The ghost just purred and rubbed his cheek against the younger's neck. Seto knew it wasn't anything bad then. Yami would at least had the decency of looking guilty if that was the case.
"What happened to the staff?" He insisted.
Blinking, the gooey being jumped out of his shirt, sticking on the wall. His golden eyes blurred in concentration as his body metamorphosed on the limpid, concrete surface. It seems that Yami was way too lazy to explain it with words.
Blue eyes watched in awe as shadows formed figures on the wall. A woman, apparently dressed in maid's accessories, arranging items in a closet. The familhar image of a giant being with spiky, dark hair advancing on the young lady. The shadow retreating slowly. The woman lying unconscious on the floor.
"Did you...?"
Hearing Seto babble in a frightened way, Yami made small wavering "Z" s appear on the figure's head.
"They're all sleeping?" Seto's voice was almost a sigh of relief.
"Yea...ea..." The adorable monster nodded in assertion, a silly smile on his face.
Laughing, the heir to the Kaiba name pulled the spirit out of the wall, detaching him from it and stroking his hair. Yami shrieked happily with the attention.
"Thank you for trying to give me some free time." The young man muttered, his now deep voice filled with suppressed joy. The ghost purred, rising over the teenager's tall body. A cheeky smile appeared on his face.
"I thought that you would've be enraged because of that?"
The deep voice rumbled through the corridors, which certainly would alert someone... if everyone wasn't sleeping. The rumbling sound was like several voices whispering the same words, and it sent shivers through Seto's spine every time he heard it. Sadly, he wasn't able to hear Yami speak very often thanks to the unpredictable volume... sometimes as low as a whisper, sometimes as loud as a huge wave breaking on the beach... deafening, but surprisingly pleasant.
"Who said that I'm not annoyed by it? You're delaying my entire scredule."
"I have a good reason."
"You're just bored."
"Maybe. You haven't played with me since the orphanage." The misshapen face crumpled even more with the pathetic attempt to form a pout.
"I'm too old for this kind of thing. You should grow up as well Yami, you can't keep being a big baby for all etern-"
The teenager's words dissolved into a scream when a large black hand grabbed his torso and lifted him off the ground.
"Yam-"
He wasn't able to finish speaking because the spirit began to float through the corridors at an incredible speed. The amount of sharp curves and the nauseating speed made him hold his mouth grievously to keep his breakfast in place.
Suddenly, a white light blinded their eyes when Yami broke through the mansion's back door. The ghost stopped so abruptly that Seto could feel his organs shaking inside his body. It was only then he realized that he was clutching on Yami's jelly body as if his life depended on it.
Blushing, he released the spirit, who laughed hysterically with his deep voice. They were at the back of the mansion's huge terrain... where remained the pools. Mokuba was floating on his back in one of them, lying on a float and holding a glass of lemonade in his hand.
When he heard someone approaching, he lifted his sunglasses.
"Nii-sama! Yami-san! Come in here with me!" He seemed super excited about the idea, waving his free arm with a big smile on his face.
It wasn't that this was a bad day for swimming in the pool. The sun was shining, there were flowers and birds everywhere ... and it was freaking HOT.
But still...
Kaiba hesitated to approach. The fact that all the servants of the house were sleeping and his father was probably also unconscious not calmed him down enough so he could swim without worry. There were still so many things to do, so much to compensate for and ...
He screamed as many tentacles wrapped around his body and threw him in the water.
Blue enveloped him from all sides as his body was refreshed by the cold liquid. He desperately swam to the surface, only to find a Mokuba and Yami laughting their heads off. Seto clenched his jaw and did the first thing that would bring the minimum of satisfaction with a vengeance.
He splashed water all over their annoying smiling faces.
Mokuba fell out of his float and the upper half of Yami's body melted down, making him get out of balance and fall into the pool as well.
Kaiba started to laugh as he never did before in that God-dammed mansion.
Mokie and his spirit looked at him with utter shock.
But then, they smiled and started to laugh as well, teaming up to splash Seto. The future CEO shielded himself from the 'attacks' with his arms, laughting all the way through.
They played during the whole day. For the first in a long, long time, the blue eyed teen was sincerely happy. The three of them finally had the chance to run around the huge mansion, to eat whatever they wanted from the dispense, and to just... lay in the ground and look at the ceiling, underneath the fancy fan and pant after so much chasing around. The relief was... overwhelming. Seto's cheeks began to hurt from so much smiling as he sat in the yard, looking at the warm colors from the sunset.
Stars began to show up in the orange-colored sky, and the smile slowly started to fade from Kaiba's face.
"Tomorow will be just like the other days, won't it." He muttered.
Yami, who was towering right beside him, looked at his aibou with sad eyes. A sleeping Mokuba was resting on his shadow-like arms, and the spirit played with the black hair lazily while formulating a response.
"Aibou..." He sighed. "There's only one way to end all of this."
"No. I know what you're thinking." The blue eyed young man looked away and closed his eyes."And I know that he deserves it too."
The bitterness in his voice made Yami shiver.
"But... I've been trying way too long... and way too hard to stop now."
Blue eyes filled with emotions looked up to depressed yellow ones. He smiled.
"Thank you. I needed a break... I really needed it. But... we'll have to work a bit more if we want to be like this everyday."
With a sigh, Yami put Mokie over one of the pool chairs. He turned over to Seto, his huge body slowly compressing and becaming smaler as he tried to take an humanoid form once again.
Flexing his now normal-like black fingers, Yami approached again and sat down beside his aibou. Seto looked at him, an unwanted smile appearing on his lips again.
Flexing his now normal-like black fingers, Yami approached again and sat down beside his aibou. Seto looked at him, an unwanted smile appearing on his lips again.
Yami has been trying to take a humanoid form for so long. He can't stand being a 'monster' anymore. Sadly, he can't change his shadow body so he just tries to make it the right shape. It was very weird when he first started doing that... he would end up with three legs or one eye, but with his constant practice, he became really... well, cute. His body was extremely small compared to Seto's, but his eyes were still huge. His hair became more fluffy somehow, and Kaiba couldn't help but look at him from time to eyes blinked innocently to him, making Seto blush and look away, swallowing hard.
"I... I don't think that I can stand this anymore Seto."
Yami's voice was so much softer in this form...
"Please... Do it for me." The teen pleaded softly.
Yami's eyes were on him again, making Seto shiver. He didn't know why this form of Yami had this effect on him... though even his shapeless form let him moveless sometimes.
"I'll... I'll try. I promise."
That stupid smile again. Kaiba couldn't help but giggle at it.
"I'm glad."
The peaceful silence was established between them, as they both watched the setting sun. It was true that their lives would be more difficult over time, but they were sure they could get over everything that was thrown to them.
Together.
An HUGE chap to make up with you guys! (SORRY!)
It was hard to chose between making a time-skip and writting everything through, but I figured that it would be boring to read things that are basicaly the same since Seto's life doesn't change much during these seven years. Some f*cked up things happen, and Yami gets a bit smarter, but that's basically it. (Also, I was dying to write teen!Seto and start the Prideship!). Hope I didn't rush things too much, and that you all still like it!
A BIG THANK YOU for everyone who faved, commented, followed, and read my story! I'm so glad that you're all enjoying this with me, it makes my day! :D