Are you going to pay attention, or am I wasting my time?
[Sorry Jonouchi. Giving him noncommittal answers is not going to be thought of fondly, not if the thump of his sharp-tipped tail against the floor is any indication.]
I'm the one that got stuck in your dream. Neither of us chose that, but seeing something from thousands of years ago and, you know, human sacrifice?! That's something that I think deserves explanation!
[He wants to know, and deep, deep down, in the subterranean channels of what formed his soul, someone else wanted to know.]
...Jonouchi is very still, and very, very quiet. He tries at first to be mad. To be angry, to snap like he would have a month ago, a year ago, but he can't. For a brief moment his eyes are agleam with flame, but the moment is soon gone. There is only steam, rising from an untouched tea. Steam, like smoke from a smothered hearth.]
...Where I came from...There's a display roped off b'side th' mort'ry steles for a ruler known as th' "Mournin' Queen".
[It's not relevant to the conversation, who the Queen precisely is.
Perhaps the soul inside Seto's own can guess.]
It's dark. Like th' museum's carryin' guilt for what happ'n'd, instead 'f th' ones who left their swords b'hind. Still hopped that rope though, [He says, but it isn't smug, it isn't proud. It's flat, Jonouchi's voice.
It's cold.]
...There's a pillar in th' display. Photo of it, anyway. Lil' plaque in front of it calls it a "marv'l of ach'eology". Most well pr'served natural mummies in the planet. Not ev'n one. Doz'ns. Men. Women. Childr'n.
A hundr'd total, [he emphasizes, without a single change in his tone.
He lets it sink in. A hundred corpses. All there, in a pit to be found years later.]
...'pparently th' dig site thought it might've been mass burial at first. Some disease, plague.
...Then they found all th' foreign weaponry, an' called it what it was.
...Ritual slaught'r.
[He hasn't moved an inch.]
...Part of me wonders now, 'f I could pick mine out in th' pile. ...I dunno, [Jonouchi admits.]
...Buried pr'tty deep, after all.
[That's not an explanation. Not really. It's on his mind though, and still with that same tone, his eyes glazed and glued upon the steam of the tea as if it would provide answers for himself, he says what comes to mind.]
Th' items magic said t' my face that normal people can't see or hear 'm. Doin' tha' 's still jus'...makin' sense of what ain't normal, but it's still more than what is normal. I had one call me kin. My blood nearly brought one alive in my damn body, [he hisses, and the inflection has changed.
Slowly. Gradually.
From boy, to man, even if the strange goat herd of the Nile wasn't really that old at all when he died.]
I don't think...I've ever known, what happened, [Jonouchi confesses. And with a dull look, he finally raises his eyes up from the steam and up to Kaiba's own.]
...'s differen', [the griffin notes. And just like that, it's Jonouchi's strangely small, strangely fragile voice again.] Wouldn' y' say? Like how Yugi w's never th' Pharaoh.
Like how you an' tha' Priest who won' call 'mself a King, keep yerselves separate. ...'s diffr'n', [Jonouchi repeats. A slightest shake of the head is all the emphasis the words can take, accompanied by the subtle, pained crinkle at the corner of his eyes.]
What'd'y' want me t' say? [he asks, and his voice is nearly a whisper.] 'S a memory like anythin' else. Somethin' that got locked up in a box 'cause it hurt too much t' think abou'. 'S a whole life tha' I lived an' died. ...I died, [Jonouchi repeats, his voice quietly keening.] An' now I'm alive. What'm I supposed to say t' tha'?
...What would you say, huh? [he asks- and the tilt of his head is once again just one notch more motion than anything he's done so far in this conversation. His gaze is piercing. As if by will, he could address two people at once and receive an answer from both in turn.]
I'm Jonouchi Katsuya.
...An' I'm also a herder who carved out my soul t' trick th' devil. An' whatever good it did, I don' think it did me favors, [Jonouchi finally says.]
[Kaiba remains quiet as Jonouchi explains...everything, at least to what he believes is the best of the blonde's ability. But just like anything else Kaiba's been forced to swallow, it doesn't quite hit yet. He has to sit with it, pick it apart, try to make sense of it as he had over time with Yugi and Atem, to try his hardest to understand something he did not believe in.
But because of Atem, of Diva and the darkness he fought against that had possessed Diva...he cannot deny much of this.
The ritualistic murder was real. Kaiba doesn't remember seeing all of it, and the truth of the matter is, he doesn't want to. The thought of families being rent apart and thrown into a pit just to create something he's laid hands on, it actually does unsettle him. He's done terrible things before, of course, but even he couldn't imagine doing something like that.]
...
Kaiba's actually a little overwhelmed by all this. He had asked for Jonouchi to explain, and explain he had, but it was so much to consider that he didn't know where to start. Worse still, he could feel that strange tug from within his chest that has nothing to do with his feelings, and he knows...that goddamn Priest that everyone keeps talking about, the one that makes him lose his composure around Kisara? He's trying to assert himself.
The Priest who could not exist in tandem, because their connection was not stabilized by an Item. Their connection was distant and fragmentary, because the Priest did not exist in whole within Seto Kaiba.
His head cants to the side and he lets out a low throaty growl of frustration.]
I asked...not you. Begone from me.
[It's still Kaiba, for now. But he looks tired as he stares at Jonouchi dead on, his pupils dilated as his eyes fight to stay open.]
You...you mean to say that this isn't some...reincarnation? That's not possible. The explanation you gave makes no sense, Jonouchi. If it's...even an explanation at all.
[He tries to reach for his tea, something to ground him, but his hand instead migrates to his chest. To the thing that's trying to bloom outward and seize his faculties. No. He won't.
[Flat. Direct. The emotion was sapped from this conversation topic long before Kaiba arrived with tea, truly.]
...Bein' real you're th' one tha's a mess abou' it Kaiba- one soul doesn' switch. 's one soul, [he emphasizes, frowning seriously.]
Whatever you've got ain't reincarnation, 's more like...I dunno. Carryin' someone along f'r th' ride.
[He looks away, shrugging. It's not like it was something he was ever an expert on, after all.] ...You had a shit roommate show up 'n steal th' spare room.
That's ridiculous. You don't just "wake up" with memories of a past life unless something interferes, do you?!
[He hates this. He's asking someone he deems an idiot the answer to a question he has no informed context for! Fucking hell...!!
Worse, bringing up his shit roommate only makes the shit roommate more powerfully motivated to push him back, and Kaiba's clawed fingers curl in more tightly, threatening to tear at his shirt.
It's his body! Not the Priest's! His body, his choices, his--
There's a moment where his eyes finally lose their luster and roll shut, and just before he's pulled under the surface, something comes to his mind.
False king, godless boy, you house something greater than yourself and should be glad for the fragment of a god on earth that lies within you.
Set's eyes open and he straightens, his gaze sharp as it meets Jonouchi's.]
I have the sense that "shit roommate" is a derogatory phrase.
Yeah no shit Kaiba, whaddya think gettin' y' soul yanked in a figurine does huh?
[The retort is a good sign. A sign of some life in him, at least, a return to the norm. It's probably all that Kaiba hears before Set comes out though, and from there the Priest is met with a dry frown.]
Whether y' mean it or not y' do th' same thing th' other two did t' Yugi an' Bakura, so it's pretty shit if y' ask me. Y' could at least figure out how t' share info 'r...I dunno, somethin', [he mutters, finally going for the tea.
You're wrong. It is not the same, because I don't have an intermediary Item housing my soul. This is not something I'm familiar with, and I will not assume blame for it.
[Set isn't the exact same as Kaiba, but they both have a habit of being Like This, so Jonouchi would likely find it...familiar at best.]
I have little to no bond with the arrogant soul that inhabits this body. Kisara is the only reason I was able to surface. But this conversation is not about that.
This conversation is about you, is it not? I would like to know more about what I saw.
[Clearly, given his heritage, he has some stake in this. Not that he ever knew, until the very last moment...]
[Oh, so this is how it's going to be, huh? Set is not amused. Nevertheless, he's undeterred, and were he Pharaoh or Priest, he'd still be demanding the exact same respect. He did the heavy lifting, he'll act as he pleases!
And for good measure, in his irritation he thumps the floor with his tail again, not unlike Kaiba. All Kaibas is the same, and all dragons be thumping their tails when irate.]
I'm aware of the fact that you and I hail from different...situations. You are not the same person that my descendant knows, and so there will be things that don't line up. That's not nearly as important to me as knowing what was done to sabotage the ritual.
That was what you did, when you rent your soul from your body, was it not?
[Don't take it personally- he loves 'Seto-chan' to death, but the Mourning Queen wasn't his queen either. Nor was Atem ever his king.
The King he knew, was Atem's father after all.
Still. Jonouchi uses this as a bit of a trial run. How much is different between them, really?]
You know how th' soul is built, yeah? Heart, Shadow, Ba 'n Ka 'n all tha'?
How would you say th' pieces fit t'gether. Tell me how many there are, what they do. Not what y' tell most of th' country, [he adds as he closes his eyes.] Th' way th' court was taught durin th' time of the items.
Of course I do. The soul is comprised of the Ba, which fuels the spirit within, the Ka. There are other components, but none so important as that, save for the name. The name...holds strength untold. Even the body itself can be separated from the Ka, a vessel liberated of its innards.
[There's an imperceptible change in his tone when he says that. He's thinking of someone specific in these considerations. But he lets nothing show past that moment.]
Why does this matter? Our situations are parallel; shadows of one another. So just get to the point.
[Jonouchi hums. A musing sound, and one that brings to mind an indulgent elder, pondering questions that don't truly need pondering but will be considered all the same. That is the mindset he has fully entered now, submersed himself within, as easily as pulling on an old and comfortable coat from deep inside a closet. He is the goat herd. The teacher.
The one who wished to carry the knowledge of old to the fore.
Why it matters, he does not say. Perhaps it was a frame of reference, as he implied.
Perhaps, when he has spilled so many answers himself, he wanted to have a few in return.]
...Does your head matter less than your heart? Your arms? [He eventually asks, a rhetoric statement that sits only a few moments before he goes on. There is no trace of the accent of the modern day; if anything, it occasionally slips into something ancient and gutteral that predates even the one he speaks with now.] ...There's plenty that a human can't live without. Could say we're...'Commensal'.
[Not a word he knows. The meaning comes through anyway. Symbiotic, but whatever it is they need could easily just take off without any consequence. It's harmonious, beneficial living, but only one needs it.
He doesn't clarify which side of the equation could leave.
Instead, oily black rises from his shadow. Viscous, fluid, tendrils that meet his hands and are soon shaped into pieces.
Into parts.] ...There's power in life. Present in life. All things created by Light carry it. The spark of the first great one, 'She who split in Three'.
[A vision, briefly- Horaktys, albeit in shadow. A trio which results- Osiris, Ra, Sutekh of the Obelisk.]
...But Light only sparked life into vessels after they were made for living. They needed to stand on their own...how else could they be something other than puppets, after all?
[There's a strange look in his eye as he glances up from the shadows, but it passes.
They are puzzle pieces once again.]
....Funny, isn't it? [he says, sounding almost like his younger self for a moment.] ...How the low court has it the other way around. The Ka, the breath of life- the energy and essence that keeps going when the body can't. The Ba, carrying the spirit of it. Personality, attitude...impulse, [Jonouchi goes on. Two globules float away from a body, and they twist, and turn. The body disappears.
The Ba and Ka, now harmonized...] ...Put them together without a body and there's the Akh. A ghost. A spirit, ready for a new body in the fields...
....as long as their heart makes it.
[The body comes back, and reshapes into just that.] You can have all those other things, but the heart carries what you did with it. It grows with a person- why else would it get weighed against truth? Get rid of the heart, there's no rest for the soul. ...But at least even a heartless spirit knows who they are.
[But rather than banish it, it joins the Akh. And the Akh, in turn, breaks apart again- but this time with strings, all webbed and glistening, spreading between each piece.]
...not like when names come into it.
[No, not at all.] ...Courts had that right at least. Names have power. Your name holds everything together. There's a reason it gets held close, even if it wasn't the first one you had. Take a name, [he muses, tugging at the strings,] And you take everything with it. All the power, all the pieces...
[Heart. Spirit. Persona. Intellect. Body.
And with a twist, Jonouchi changes tack, his accent creeping back in.] ...Be real easy t' lose it all wouldn' it? 'magine if jus' introducin' yerself could get y' cursed. Or worse, [he adds, idly pulling a dome of black over the entire stringy mess.]
...Good thing everyone's got a guardian, huh?
[For the sake of things, the shadow becomes a strange, blackened form of Blue Eyes.
There can be no doubting after all, that Kisara's heart was pure.]
This. Th' Shadow, [he says, and this is why instead of direct answers, Jonouchi chose to lecture like they were in a classroom.]
It grows like yer heart. Changes with y', bit by bit. 'S a protector. Keeps th' dark out best it can, why d' y' think it reflects it so damn well when it fails? 'f yer heart's gone rotten, shadow went first. Take out a shadow, y' may 's well be takin' th' heart with y'. Ain't so differen' from a name like that, [he hums.]
...'ceptin, a soul keeps goin' if y' take a shadow out. ...Maybe not f'rever, [he admits with a shrug- the accent might be due to dissociation, come to think. This is, after all, precisely what happened before his death.] ...Body's gonna fail pr'tty damn fast with a shock like that. But it won't rip apart th' soul. All th' rest, that'll keep goin', cursed as 't is. Shadow might be fine though.
Heck, shadow'll get its own life if 's strong enough. 'Specially if it had its own life in the first place.
[He doesn't clarify what that means. What it could possibly mean, for that matter.]
...So.
[So.]
Take a dem'n. Somethin' so nasty, it takes a hundr'd souls t' let it loose from th' cage. Idea's t' keep it in th' box.
[A shrug.]
...Sometimes people don' read th' warnin properly. Dem'ns get tricky like tha', kinda their thing. But what's gonna happen then?
...What 'f a piece of one- jus' one- of those souls is missin?
It count as 100? [Jonouchi asks, narrowing his eyes.]
[Set did not expect such a convoluted answer. He expected the boy to be far less forthcoming, but then...he expected a boy's answer, and this was not a boy. This was a man...a familiar one.
Not someone he knew from his life, but they'd walked together to his demise. It was seared into his memory now, the sight of the shepherd being impaled. The sight of his own father, perpetuating this atrocity.
The sight he refused to see, and instead foisted on Seto Kaiba. His cowardice sickens him at the end of it all, to subject another younger than he to something like that. He can't take it back, but he does so wish he could.
Quietly, he lets the shepherd--not the boy, but his past life--explain it all, and it's not so complex, really. He'd seen the man rip his spirit in two, and noted the effect.
Like the Nameless Pharaoh--Atem, he can say it now, because the darkness is long vanquished--the herd had sacrificed his name in order to fight the dark.
Set listens, right up until the end, his expression a kaleidoscope that Kaiba couldn't boast. The dragon's brow ridges softened at the sight of Kisara, shadowy as she might be. That's his beautiful, resplendent White Dragon. Clawed fingers curl around the tea that's growing colder over time, because Set has no interest in it.
When the question is posed, cyan slits find ruby orbs.]
I would not know. The ritual was completed in its entirety where I am from. The Dark One rose and killed my comrades, stole away my Pharaoh and left me a kingdom in disarray. But at least the darkness was sealed.
...Probl'm with rituals like tha', is they still get a foot outta th' door. It'ms made of blood 'n darkness are still blood 'n darkness. Might not be leavin' th' house, but y' can still shoot an arrow through th' window, can't y'?
[Does he imply, perhaps, that the dark one Set speaks of was not at full power? Perhaps it is better not to think of it.]
All I c'n say, is tha' if somethin' like that really escaped, y' wouldn' be lockin it away with one name, [he says quite cryptically.]
...It'd take a lot more.
I don' remember much after tha', either. Obviously I'm 'here' now...but when it comes t' what I did after dyin', tha' wasn' about demons.
There were still 99 angry, hurt souls from all tha', y'know? ...What would they have done to your kingdom? Hearin', in their last moments, tha' it was th' 'will of th' pharaoh'?
I did what I could, so tha' there'd be a chance. ...'s all I can say. ...And maybe, [he continues, dissociation reversing so that 'Jonouchi' need not think too hard on his friends,] ...Maybe that didn't go so well. Not if the Pharaoh's successor had to finish the seal, not if he had to lose his name at such a young age.
But perhaps with a few thousand years of time, we'll have finally gathered the pieces we need to do more than just shut the windows, and burn the darkness back entirely.
[Set shakes his head. Time is no friend to them, to him or his Dragon, or the people of Kul Elna who would remain fractured spirits, albeit with their new target. Akhenamkanon had done his part, far too late.
Time was no friend to them.
No friend at all.
He finally brings the tea to his lips, takes a measured draw of it, then speaks again.]
The book was never closed, in my time. My Pharaoh slept in the fragments of the Pendant, punished for a crime he did not commit. Thousands of years later he was finally allowed his eternal rest, after suffering through the pain of the unknowable, the fragmentation of his soul which stole away what bound him together and made him whole.
[Set wept for his Pharaoh, lacking his name for millennia, while his heart intermixed with the shadows and became something twisted that needed to be detangled by the destined host.
He needn't weep for him any longer, but as a fragment himself, could he ever feel such relief without the passing of Seto Kaiba himself? It's...complicated.]
You did not need to tell either of us this. Why did you answer the call?
[He nods.] ...Sounds familiar. ...Here's hopin' the part where the kid gets the rest he d'serves holds true too, [He adds with a frown, only to sigh.]
...Can't really say I know what's going on with th' version of you that exists over there though. [Spoilers - it's a lot more along the lines of what's going on with Jonouchi, and there's no Set in that gate.
He stares though, and briefly comes the reminder that just as Jonouchi is the old goat herd...
...No. I suppose he wouldn't. He's a stubborn one.
[And that, Set can firmly say, is a trait they both share. Otherwise how would he be here, to discuss matters that Seto Kaiba wouldn't understand the weight of?]
Even so, your forthright answers are appreciated. Would that I might impart the knowledge upon the true owner of this body, but I'm afraid there's no chance of it. The line that separates us is unbreachable.
[All or nothing, he'd realized rather quickly. Yes, he could tip the scales in his favor, with the strength of his own will, but he couldn't share anything with the boy, and most of what Kaiba experienced did not translate back to Set either. Usually he was only able to assert himself if there was uncertainty or heightened emotions compromising Kaiba. They were effectively separate entities, unable to exist in harmony. Not that Set would want to. They wouldn't get along with one another, of that he's certain.]
...He may ask questions which you have already answered for me. I apologize for my inability to assist either one of you with that.
[But he had gotten what he wanted, and there was no point in hogging the body.]
Truly, he wonders what good it would do, to write everything down, when he knows that Seto Kaiba would probably refuse to pay it any mind. Then again, he may not be giving the boy enough credit. It's exceedingly difficult to feel as if he ought to, but some of that is envy, and some of it is thinking Seto Kaiba is an arrogant asshole.
Even still...]
...Perhaps it is worth the attempt. I haven't much faith that he'll be interested in anything I write, but all the same.
[He reaches a clawed hand out for the notepad and pen.]
Is it because you don't want to retread the subject...or is he that irritating?
[...This is a joke. Set's tone does not convey it as a joke very well, but he's grinning.
Actually that probably makes it look less like a joke. Yikes. They're both really like this, aren't they?]
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branchandroot
(no subject)
Date: 2025-09-21 07:01 am (UTC)Are you going to pay attention, or am I wasting my time?
[Sorry Jonouchi. Giving him noncommittal answers is not going to be thought of fondly, not if the thump of his sharp-tipped tail against the floor is any indication.]
I'm the one that got stuck in your dream. Neither of us chose that, but seeing something from thousands of years ago and, you know, human sacrifice?! That's something that I think deserves explanation!
[He wants to know, and deep, deep down, in the subterranean channels of what formed his soul, someone else wanted to know.]
(no subject)
Date: 2025-09-21 03:11 pm (UTC)...Jonouchi is very still, and very, very quiet. He tries at first to be mad. To be angry, to snap like he would have a month ago, a year ago, but he can't. For a brief moment his eyes are agleam with flame, but the moment is soon gone. There is only steam, rising from an untouched tea. Steam, like smoke from a smothered hearth.]
...Where I came from...There's a display roped off b'side th' mort'ry steles for a ruler known as th' "Mournin' Queen".
[It's not relevant to the conversation, who the Queen precisely is.
Perhaps the soul inside Seto's own can guess.]
It's dark. Like th' museum's carryin' guilt for what happ'n'd, instead 'f th' ones who left their swords b'hind. Still hopped that rope though, [He says, but it isn't smug, it isn't proud. It's flat, Jonouchi's voice.
It's cold.]
...There's a pillar in th' display. Photo of it, anyway. Lil' plaque in front of it calls it a "marv'l of ach'eology". Most well pr'served natural mummies in the planet. Not ev'n one. Doz'ns. Men. Women. Childr'n.
A hundr'd total, [he emphasizes, without a single change in his tone.
He lets it sink in. A hundred corpses. All there, in a pit to be found years later.]
...'pparently th' dig site thought it might've been mass burial at first. Some disease, plague.
...Then they found all th' foreign weaponry, an' called it what it was.
...Ritual slaught'r.
[He hasn't moved an inch.]
...Part of me wonders now, 'f I could pick mine out in th' pile. ...I dunno, [Jonouchi admits.]
...Buried pr'tty deep, after all.
[That's not an explanation. Not really. It's on his mind though, and still with that same tone, his eyes glazed and glued upon the steam of the tea as if it would provide answers for himself, he says what comes to mind.]
Th' items magic said t' my face that normal people can't see or hear 'm. Doin' tha' 's still jus'...makin' sense of what ain't normal, but it's still more than what is normal. I had one call me kin. My blood nearly brought one alive in my damn body, [he hisses, and the inflection has changed.
Slowly. Gradually.
From boy, to man, even if the strange goat herd of the Nile wasn't really that old at all when he died.]
I don't think...I've ever known, what happened, [Jonouchi confesses. And with a dull look, he finally raises his eyes up from the steam and up to Kaiba's own.]
...'s differen', [the griffin notes. And just like that, it's Jonouchi's strangely small, strangely fragile voice again.] Wouldn' y' say? Like how Yugi w's never th' Pharaoh.
Like how you an' tha' Priest who won' call 'mself a King, keep yerselves separate. ...'s diffr'n', [Jonouchi repeats. A slightest shake of the head is all the emphasis the words can take, accompanied by the subtle, pained crinkle at the corner of his eyes.]
What'd'y' want me t' say? [he asks, and his voice is nearly a whisper.] 'S a memory like anythin' else. Somethin' that got locked up in a box 'cause it hurt too much t' think abou'. 'S a whole life tha' I lived an' died. ...I died, [Jonouchi repeats, his voice quietly keening.] An' now I'm alive. What'm I supposed to say t' tha'?
...What would you say, huh? [he asks- and the tilt of his head is once again just one notch more motion than anything he's done so far in this conversation. His gaze is piercing. As if by will, he could address two people at once and receive an answer from both in turn.]
I'm Jonouchi Katsuya.
...An' I'm also a herder who carved out my soul t' trick th' devil. An' whatever good it did, I don' think it did me favors, [Jonouchi finally says.]
What do you want me t' say?
(no subject)
Date: 2025-09-21 03:31 pm (UTC)But because of Atem, of Diva and the darkness he fought against that had possessed Diva...he cannot deny much of this.
The ritualistic murder was real. Kaiba doesn't remember seeing all of it, and the truth of the matter is, he doesn't want to. The thought of families being rent apart and thrown into a pit just to create something he's laid hands on, it actually does unsettle him. He's done terrible things before, of course, but even he couldn't imagine doing something like that.]
...
Kaiba's actually a little overwhelmed by all this. He had asked for Jonouchi to explain, and explain he had, but it was so much to consider that he didn't know where to start. Worse still, he could feel that strange tug from within his chest that has nothing to do with his feelings, and he knows...that goddamn Priest that everyone keeps talking about, the one that makes him lose his composure around Kisara? He's trying to assert himself.
The Priest who could not exist in tandem, because their connection was not stabilized by an Item. Their connection was distant and fragmentary, because the Priest did not exist in whole within Seto Kaiba.
His head cants to the side and he lets out a low throaty growl of frustration.]
I asked...not you. Begone from me.
[It's still Kaiba, for now. But he looks tired as he stares at Jonouchi dead on, his pupils dilated as his eyes fight to stay open.]
You...you mean to say that this isn't some...reincarnation? That's not possible. The explanation you gave makes no sense, Jonouchi. If it's...even an explanation at all.
[He tries to reach for his tea, something to ground him, but his hand instead migrates to his chest. To the thing that's trying to bloom outward and seize his faculties. No. He won't.
He won't give up!]
(no subject)
Date: 2025-09-21 03:38 pm (UTC)[Flat. Direct. The emotion was sapped from this conversation topic long before Kaiba arrived with tea, truly.]
...Bein' real you're th' one tha's a mess abou' it Kaiba- one soul doesn' switch. 's one soul, [he emphasizes, frowning seriously.]
Whatever you've got ain't reincarnation, 's more like...I dunno. Carryin' someone along f'r th' ride.
[He looks away, shrugging. It's not like it was something he was ever an expert on, after all.] ...You had a shit roommate show up 'n steal th' spare room.
...I jus' got woken up.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-09-21 03:49 pm (UTC)[He hates this. He's asking someone he deems an idiot the answer to a question he has no informed context for! Fucking hell...!!
Worse, bringing up his shit roommate only makes the shit roommate more powerfully motivated to push him back, and Kaiba's clawed fingers curl in more tightly, threatening to tear at his shirt.
It's his body! Not the Priest's! His body, his choices, his--
There's a moment where his eyes finally lose their luster and roll shut, and just before he's pulled under the surface, something comes to his mind.
False king, godless boy, you house something greater than yourself and should be glad for the fragment of a god on earth that lies within you.
Set's eyes open and he straightens, his gaze sharp as it meets Jonouchi's.]
I have the sense that "shit roommate" is a derogatory phrase.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-09-22 03:09 am (UTC)[The retort is a good sign. A sign of some life in him, at least, a return to the norm. It's probably all that Kaiba hears before Set comes out though, and from there the Priest is met with a dry frown.]
Whether y' mean it or not y' do th' same thing th' other two did t' Yugi an' Bakura, so it's pretty shit if y' ask me. Y' could at least figure out how t' share info 'r...I dunno, somethin', [he mutters, finally going for the tea.
Most likely, he knew Set would show up though.]
(no subject)
Date: 2025-09-22 03:30 am (UTC)[Set isn't the exact same as Kaiba, but they both have a habit of being Like This, so Jonouchi would likely find it...familiar at best.]
I have little to no bond with the arrogant soul that inhabits this body. Kisara is the only reason I was able to surface. But this conversation is not about that.
This conversation is about you, is it not? I would like to know more about what I saw.
[Clearly, given his heritage, he has some stake in this. Not that he ever knew, until the very last moment...]
(no subject)
Date: 2025-09-22 03:45 am (UTC)[A sip.]
An' I say, still makes more sense t' try figurin' out how it works.
['You're not my King', he doesn't say, but he may as well be saying it with the way he stares Set down. This is a conversation as equals.
Take it or leave it.]
Would y' now.
[He doesn't give more than that. To be fair, an awful lot is covered by 'I want to know more', and he'd prefer a start point.]
(no subject)
Date: 2025-09-22 06:09 am (UTC)And for good measure, in his irritation he thumps the floor with his tail again, not unlike Kaiba. All Kaibas is the same, and all dragons be thumping their tails when irate.]
I'm aware of the fact that you and I hail from different...situations. You are not the same person that my descendant knows, and so there will be things that don't line up. That's not nearly as important to me as knowing what was done to sabotage the ritual.
That was what you did, when you rent your soul from your body, was it not?
[Well, at least he's to the point.]
(no subject)
Date: 2025-09-22 06:17 am (UTC)The King he knew, was Atem's father after all.
Still. Jonouchi uses this as a bit of a trial run. How much is different between them, really?]
You know how th' soul is built, yeah? Heart, Shadow, Ba 'n Ka 'n all tha'?
How would you say th' pieces fit t'gether. Tell me how many there are, what they do. Not what y' tell most of th' country, [he adds as he closes his eyes.] Th' way th' court was taught durin th' time of the items.
I need t' know where th' lines cross.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-09-22 08:33 am (UTC)[There's an imperceptible change in his tone when he says that. He's thinking of someone specific in these considerations. But he lets nothing show past that moment.]
Why does this matter? Our situations are parallel; shadows of one another. So just get to the point.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-09-22 12:24 pm (UTC)The one who wished to carry the knowledge of old to the fore.
Why it matters, he does not say. Perhaps it was a frame of reference, as he implied.
Perhaps, when he has spilled so many answers himself, he wanted to have a few in return.]
...Does your head matter less than your heart? Your arms? [He eventually asks, a rhetoric statement that sits only a few moments before he goes on. There is no trace of the accent of the modern day; if anything, it occasionally slips into something ancient and gutteral that predates even the one he speaks with now.] ...There's plenty that a human can't live without. Could say we're...'Commensal'.
[Not a word he knows. The meaning comes through anyway. Symbiotic, but whatever it is they need could easily just take off without any consequence. It's harmonious, beneficial living, but only one needs it.
He doesn't clarify which side of the equation could leave.
Instead, oily black rises from his shadow. Viscous, fluid, tendrils that meet his hands and are soon shaped into pieces.
Into parts.] ...There's power in life. Present in life. All things created by Light carry it. The spark of the first great one, 'She who split in Three'.
[A vision, briefly- Horaktys, albeit in shadow. A trio which results- Osiris, Ra, Sutekh of the Obelisk.]
...But Light only sparked life into vessels after they were made for living. They needed to stand on their own...how else could they be something other than puppets, after all?
[There's a strange look in his eye as he glances up from the shadows, but it passes.
They are puzzle pieces once again.]
....Funny, isn't it? [he says, sounding almost like his younger self for a moment.] ...How the low court has it the other way around. The Ka, the breath of life- the energy and essence that keeps going when the body can't. The Ba, carrying the spirit of it. Personality, attitude...impulse, [Jonouchi goes on. Two globules float away from a body, and they twist, and turn. The body disappears.
The Ba and Ka, now harmonized...] ...Put them together without a body and there's the Akh. A ghost. A spirit, ready for a new body in the fields...
....as long as their heart makes it.
[The body comes back, and reshapes into just that.] You can have all those other things, but the heart carries what you did with it. It grows with a person- why else would it get weighed against truth? Get rid of the heart, there's no rest for the soul. ...But at least even a heartless spirit knows who they are.
[But rather than banish it, it joins the Akh. And the Akh, in turn, breaks apart again- but this time with strings, all webbed and glistening, spreading between each piece.]
...not like when names come into it.
[No, not at all.] ...Courts had that right at least. Names have power. Your name holds everything together. There's a reason it gets held close, even if it wasn't the first one you had. Take a name, [he muses, tugging at the strings,] And you take everything with it. All the power, all the pieces...
[Heart. Spirit. Persona. Intellect. Body.
And with a twist, Jonouchi changes tack, his accent creeping back in.] ...Be real easy t' lose it all wouldn' it? 'magine if jus' introducin' yerself could get y' cursed. Or worse, [he adds, idly pulling a dome of black over the entire stringy mess.]
...Good thing everyone's got a guardian, huh?
[For the sake of things, the shadow becomes a strange, blackened form of Blue Eyes.
There can be no doubting after all, that Kisara's heart was pure.]
This. Th' Shadow, [he says, and this is why instead of direct answers, Jonouchi chose to lecture like they were in a classroom.]
It grows like yer heart. Changes with y', bit by bit. 'S a protector. Keeps th' dark out best it can, why d' y' think it reflects it so damn well when it fails? 'f yer heart's gone rotten, shadow went first. Take out a shadow, y' may 's well be takin' th' heart with y'. Ain't so differen' from a name like that, [he hums.]
...'ceptin, a soul keeps goin' if y' take a shadow out. ...Maybe not f'rever, [he admits with a shrug- the accent might be due to dissociation, come to think. This is, after all, precisely what happened before his death.] ...Body's gonna fail pr'tty damn fast with a shock like that. But it won't rip apart th' soul. All th' rest, that'll keep goin', cursed as 't is. Shadow might be fine though.
Heck, shadow'll get its own life if 's strong enough. 'Specially if it had its own life in the first place.
[He doesn't clarify what that means. What it could possibly mean, for that matter.]
...So.
[So.]
Take a dem'n. Somethin' so nasty, it takes a hundr'd souls t' let it loose from th' cage. Idea's t' keep it in th' box.
[A shrug.]
...Sometimes people don' read th' warnin properly. Dem'ns get tricky like tha', kinda their thing. But what's gonna happen then?
...What 'f a piece of one- jus' one- of those souls is missin?
It count as 100? [Jonouchi asks, narrowing his eyes.]
Or are y' stuck at 99.9?
(no subject)
Date: 2025-09-24 06:06 am (UTC)Not someone he knew from his life, but they'd walked together to his demise. It was seared into his memory now, the sight of the shepherd being impaled. The sight of his own father, perpetuating this atrocity.
The sight he refused to see, and instead foisted on Seto Kaiba. His cowardice sickens him at the end of it all, to subject another younger than he to something like that. He can't take it back, but he does so wish he could.
Quietly, he lets the shepherd--not the boy, but his past life--explain it all, and it's not so complex, really. He'd seen the man rip his spirit in two, and noted the effect.
Like the Nameless Pharaoh--Atem, he can say it now, because the darkness is long vanquished--the herd had sacrificed his name in order to fight the dark.
Set listens, right up until the end, his expression a kaleidoscope that Kaiba couldn't boast. The dragon's brow ridges softened at the sight of Kisara, shadowy as she might be. That's his beautiful, resplendent White Dragon. Clawed fingers curl around the tea that's growing colder over time, because Set has no interest in it.
When the question is posed, cyan slits find ruby orbs.]
I would not know. The ritual was completed in its entirety where I am from. The Dark One rose and killed my comrades, stole away my Pharaoh and left me a kingdom in disarray. But at least the darkness was sealed.
Tell me, shepherd. Did your gambit succeed?
[Or did he merely hobble the beast temporarily?]
(no subject)
Date: 2025-09-24 06:17 am (UTC)[Hmn, indeed.]
...Probl'm with rituals like tha', is they still get a foot outta th' door. It'ms made of blood 'n darkness are still blood 'n darkness. Might not be leavin' th' house, but y' can still shoot an arrow through th' window, can't y'?
[Does he imply, perhaps, that the dark one Set speaks of was not at full power? Perhaps it is better not to think of it.]
All I c'n say, is tha' if somethin' like that really escaped, y' wouldn' be lockin it away with one name, [he says quite cryptically.]
...It'd take a lot more.
I don' remember much after tha', either. Obviously I'm 'here' now...but when it comes t' what I did after dyin', tha' wasn' about demons.
There were still 99 angry, hurt souls from all tha', y'know? ...What would they have done to your kingdom? Hearin', in their last moments, tha' it was th' 'will of th' pharaoh'?
I did what I could, so tha' there'd be a chance. ...'s all I can say. ...And maybe, [he continues, dissociation reversing so that 'Jonouchi' need not think too hard on his friends,] ...Maybe that didn't go so well. Not if the Pharaoh's successor had to finish the seal, not if he had to lose his name at such a young age.
But perhaps with a few thousand years of time, we'll have finally gathered the pieces we need to do more than just shut the windows, and burn the darkness back entirely.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-10-11 10:26 am (UTC)[Set shakes his head. Time is no friend to them, to him or his Dragon, or the people of Kul Elna who would remain fractured spirits, albeit with their new target. Akhenamkanon had done his part, far too late.
Time was no friend to them.
No friend at all.
He finally brings the tea to his lips, takes a measured draw of it, then speaks again.]
The book was never closed, in my time. My Pharaoh slept in the fragments of the Pendant, punished for a crime he did not commit. Thousands of years later he was finally allowed his eternal rest, after suffering through the pain of the unknowable, the fragmentation of his soul which stole away what bound him together and made him whole.
[Set wept for his Pharaoh, lacking his name for millennia, while his heart intermixed with the shadows and became something twisted that needed to be detangled by the destined host.
He needn't weep for him any longer, but as a fragment himself, could he ever feel such relief without the passing of Seto Kaiba himself? It's...complicated.]
You did not need to tell either of us this. Why did you answer the call?
(no subject)
Date: 2025-10-14 09:01 am (UTC)...Can't really say I know what's going on with th' version of you that exists over there though. [Spoilers - it's a lot more along the lines of what's going on with Jonouchi, and there's no Set in that gate.
He stares though, and briefly comes the reminder that just as Jonouchi is the old goat herd...
...He's still a teenager as well.]
....Y' really think he'd stop messagin'?
(no subject)
Date: 2025-10-14 09:42 am (UTC)[And that, Set can firmly say, is a trait they both share. Otherwise how would he be here, to discuss matters that Seto Kaiba wouldn't understand the weight of?]
Even so, your forthright answers are appreciated. Would that I might impart the knowledge upon the true owner of this body, but I'm afraid there's no chance of it. The line that separates us is unbreachable.
[All or nothing, he'd realized rather quickly. Yes, he could tip the scales in his favor, with the strength of his own will, but he couldn't share anything with the boy, and most of what Kaiba experienced did not translate back to Set either. Usually he was only able to assert himself if there was uncertainty or heightened emotions compromising Kaiba. They were effectively separate entities, unable to exist in harmony. Not that Set would want to. They wouldn't get along with one another, of that he's certain.]
...He may ask questions which you have already answered for me. I apologize for my inability to assist either one of you with that.
[But he had gotten what he wanted, and there was no point in hogging the body.]
(no subject)
Date: 2025-10-29 09:26 am (UTC)[Can any line like that be truly unbreachable? He stares momentarily, and then stands. Moving to one of the side tables, and pulling something out.
It's a simple something.
A hotel notepad, and its pen.]
Like, really sure?
[Write some letters between yourselves dudes.]
(no subject)
Date: 2025-10-30 08:35 am (UTC)Truly, he wonders what good it would do, to write everything down, when he knows that Seto Kaiba would probably refuse to pay it any mind. Then again, he may not be giving the boy enough credit. It's exceedingly difficult to feel as if he ought to, but some of that is envy, and some of it is thinking Seto Kaiba is an arrogant asshole.
Even still...]
...Perhaps it is worth the attempt. I haven't much faith that he'll be interested in anything I write, but all the same.
[He reaches a clawed hand out for the notepad and pen.]
Is it because you don't want to retread the subject...or is he that irritating?
[...This is a joke. Set's tone does not convey it as a joke very well, but he's grinning.
Actually that probably makes it look less like a joke. Yikes. They're both really like this, aren't they?]