(A/N: Written for an LJ community where you pair a character of choice (Kaiba Seto) with ten other characters. This is for Mokuba.)
Kaiba Seto is not, as they say, a nice person.
Kaiba Seto is cold, ambitious, selfish, a workaholic, an asshole and, as they say, not a very nice person.
You might find one human alive to disagree with you, and that one person will be so true and honest in his conviction that you won't be able to help but believe him.
He's very hard to find, though. After half of Domino city was leveled by a missile and the other half exploded in crime and rape and gunshots and rivers of blood and mountains of corpses, he disappeared. But he didn't disappear because of these tragedies, oh no.
He disappeared because Kaiba Seto wanted him to.
Kaiba Seto did not orchestrate the attack on Domino City. Kaiba Seto did not descend from his lofty perch above humanity to do a damn thing about the chaos that erupted. All Kaiba Seto did was reach down with one hand and pluck a single person from the madness, and boxed him up and sent him away to a place that Kaiba Seto deemed safe.
Kaiba Seto remained untouched.
Mokuba found it very, very cold. He didn't know where he was – Seto had told him that to be safe, Mokuba didn't need that knowledge, he just needed to go where Seto said and not argue. Mokuba had complied; Domino city was a scary place right now, and as far as he was concerned anywhere away from it was better than being near it.
Mokuba was fourteen, if he remembered correctly. It was hard to keep a hold on yourself in this place he was. It was cold and almost always dark – sometimes there were little lights that bobbed in front of him and sometimes, these lights spoke. He wondered if he was going crazy, the first time it happened. But then it was Seto's voice, and Seto's voice always calmed him.
"Mokuba? Can you hear me?"
Feeling foolish, the dark-haired teenager replied (to the light, as it were), "Yes, brother. Where are you? Why can't I see you?"
"It doesn't matter." Seto said curtly, as if he didn't have a lot of time, "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine." Mokuba smiled even though he didn't know if Seto could see it, then added absently, "It's cold here."
The light faded for a moment, then warmth pulsed around him. "Is that any better?"
"Yes! How did you –?"
"It doesn't matter." Seto repeated. "I need you to do something for me. Did you study English extensively in school?"
He had. He said as much.
"Good. I need you to write me something in English." Seto went on to explain, briefly, of a style where one stressed every other syllable in a line and only had a certain number of syllables in each one. He paused only momentarily while speaking to ensure that Mokuba followed.
Mokuba wasn't stupid – he understood. "I can do it, Seto." He knew he could. It wasn't like he had anything better to do in this not-place.
"You're going to save the world, Mokuba." Was the last thing Seto said and for a moment, Mokuba thought he could feel love in his brother's voice.
Then the light was gone.
Oh light of darkness sucking my soul in,
I break and softly hang my wearied head;
Though tears may fall no less than I deserve,
The salt is sweeter than I could conjure.
Oh please just save the place that I call home,
And purify it with my honest words.