Work Text:
Simulation loading…
A light breeze ruffles through Kaiba’s hair as he walks out onto a field of grass—no, into the park near KaibaCorp’s Domino headquarters. Mokuba used to drag him out to it for a short break at least once a week, citing the need for fresh air before his older brother forgot what the real world was like. There was a bench they often sat on, under the deep shade of a large tree; a quiet oasis sheltered by the other trees around it, and the high-rises surrounding the park. Neither of them have had time recently to take those extended breaks, but Kaiba can still draw on the memory to create this virtual backdrop.
He doesn’t walk towards the bench, or along the concrete path that stretches out in front of him; instead, he stands in the virtual sunlight—appropriately bright, but not quite warm enough to truly feel it, he’ll have to fix that—and waits.
He doesn’t have to wait long before a figure appears in the distance; his own infamous impatience is programmed directly into the newest SolidVision system. Leave gaps in the virtual reality for too long, and people will inevitably begin to pick out the faults in it and disrupt the immersive experience. It’s human nature.
His feet move of their own accord towards the figure, so they can meet in the middle.
“It’s late for you, isn’t it? Did you want to duel again?” Atem asks, coming to a stop in front of him when they finally meet along the pathway. He looks the same as he always does—exactly the way Kaiba designed him from his memories and from tournament records, right down to his strange tri-colored hair, so similar to Yugi’s. Even Yugi’s old school jacket drapes over his shoulders like a cape, exposing his muscled arms in that simple black tank top. Kaiba still doesn’t know why he added in that detail, only that he felt like the pharaoh would look wrong without it. Incomplete, in a way. The lone concession he’s made to the Pharaoh’s royal status is the golden armbands around his biceps.
Kaiba doesn’t answer for a second. Doesn’t know how to answer. “No,” he settles for saying. Not for the first time in his life, he craves something other than competition from Atem. “I couldn’t sleep.” Here, the sun shines high in the sky—if Kaiba wanted to, though, he could make it twilight, or even 3 am like it is in the real world.
Atem nods. Kaiba supposes this would make sense to him, under the general definition of friendship. “I’m sorry to hear that. Did we… talk like this often?”
Friends talk. Friends spend time with each other. Friends—
Friends wouldn’t let each other walk off into the afterlife without a word.
“We never had the chance to speak alone like this.” One of many regrets Kaiba has when it comes to Atem. Even when they dueled, as opponents or as partners, their brief conversations were focused on the next winning strategy. He can count the moments on a single hand that he’s been alone with the Pharaoh, all of them stolen moments snatched away from the inevitable march to their ultimate goals.
“Of course. That would explain the gaps,” Atem murmurs. “Whenever I draw on my memories of you, it’s always in the context of our duels. What I know of you is only from competition.”
Kaiba decides to lead the way to the familiar bench. The sun is shining too directly in his eyes for comfort. He could adjust it right away through his SolidVision headset, but Atem looks like he belongs here, in this too-bright world, and some small part of him wants to bask in that light. “That’s what I thought I wanted back then. I wanted to prove to the world that I was number one.” Weeks, months, years of dueling the Pharaoh, watching him duel others and defeat them all, only to discover the gaping hole in his soul when his rival left this world without even saying a proper goodbye.
What a cruel joke.
“I see.” Atem sits down, at his invitation, and eyes him thoughtfully. Kaiba watches him as well—the sharp definition of his face, the way emotion ripples across his features, very much like the real person. This digital creation is meant to be life-like enough to fool anyone, even him. And it’s fine, it’s all fine, except he and the real Pharaoh never would’ve met in a park on a sunny day like this.
Or would they have? Where would they be now, if Atem had stayed? If Kaiba didn’t have to find out about his death from Yugi, who sent him a tentative message through Mokuba months ago, asking to meet one day if he had time? Even just fifteen minutes would do, he claimed.
Out of grudging respect for the skilled duelist Yugi has become over the years, Kaiba had cleared half an hour from his evening schedule. He almost wishes he hadn’t, afterwards.
I know you two were friends, in your own way. He thought very highly of you, Yugi had said at the time, high above Domino in Kaiba’s private office, under the blanket of twilight darkness. He no longer wears the Millennium Puzzle, claiming to have buried it along with the Pharaoh. I thought you would want to know. It was time for him to go home.
Home. Just like that. Home wasn’t Domino, nor was it the dweebs he called friends here. It was his ancient past, where presumably, he could pick up where he left off with his court, and that priest of his from the stone tablet. The Ishtars always claimed that his and the Pharaoh’s destinies were intertwined because of the bond between Atem and the priest.
Kaiba shakes his head. Nonsense. His life is his own, as it always has been. No number of coincidental brushes with Egyptian history is ever going to change that—he’ll leave the reincarnation fantasies to others. He determines his own destiny, and he knows where it will lead him. Just like how he knows that he and Atem would be dueling, just like always. The Pharaoh never backed down from a challenge, especially not when it was Kaiba standing in front of him and declaring battle. Even if the stakes were low or non-existent, they’d still be dueling, baring the best and worst of each other, to each other.
But tonight, he doesn’t want a duel.
“So what do you want now?” Atem asks, taking his cue from Kaiba’s pensive silence and whirling thoughts, all fed into his intelligence through the SolidVision headset and neural links. “You’re not here for a duel, yet this is out of our normal context. My programming is incomplete in these areas.”
He’s a perfect likeness of Atem as Kaiba remembers him, right down to his sonorous voice and his perfectly-coiffed hair, and yet.
“I don’t know what I want, exactly,” he finally admits. It’s harder than he expected to say this out loud to someone else. “But you’re not him.”
No programmed simulation could ever capture the fire that he’s looking for. Not even one he designed himself. When he looks at Atem, all he can see is his failures, and it’s getting harder and harder to ignore the faults.
Kaiba starts, shaken from his spiraling thoughts, when he feels a gentle weight on his shoulder, where Atem is now resting his hand. He’s leaning in close. “I’m trying to be.”
It’s not good enough. Not tonight. Not when he’s so close.
“End simulation.”
Atem’s pained expression dissolves in front of his eyes, along with the rest of their peaceful corner of the virtual world. Kaiba waits until all the lights turn back on in his simulation room before he removes his headset.
Tomorrow, he’ll leave for Egypt again. The Millennium Puzzle has been excavated and according to Mokuba, the pieces are all accounted for.
Tomorrow, if all goes according to plan afterwards, he’ll be able to shut down the AI for good and stop tormenting himself like this.
This time, he’ll find what he’s been searching for.