pride is all I have.

Seto downed his water in a single gulp, while Nyra barely made it halfway through her glass. She was far too occupied with studying the CEO.

As he was still wearing the fitted, sleeveless black shirt, standing semi-turned away from her, she noticed something she had never seen before. On his right upper arm, just above his elbow, an unusual, almost perfectly circular scar marred his fair skin, resembling a burn mark.

How did he get it? During another dangerous test, perhaps? Or maybe in a duel?

“Are you finally going to tell me what was so important that it couldn’t wait until the evening?” Seto’s baritone pulled her from her reverie for the second time in the span of a few minutes. He set the empty glass down on a coaster and leaned against his desk with his arms crossed.

Nyra lowered her gaze to the water in her hand. After everything she had gone through to make it here, the office of the KaibaCorp president, to stand face to face with him, this whole thing didn’t seem like such a good idea anymore.

“I came because of our phone call from this morning,” she began slowly. “So much has happened over the past few days. And I... I think it’s important for my mission that we clear a few things up.”

“I see you’ve dug your heels in,” Seto huffed. His gaze was almost challenging as he sized her up. “Very well. Let’s talk. Mokuba told me he had to stop you from leaving the estate yesterday. If I remember correctly, that was the third condition of our agreement. That you stay at my house. Yet you were prepared to break it.”

Nyra felt heat rush to her face and lowered her head even further.

“I just... I was really angry with you. Your stupid conditions didn't even cross my mind.”

Seto raised an eyebrow at that, and lowered his arms before taking a step toward her.

“I hope you realize you're not any better than me.”

 “What is that supposed to mean?” the dragon girl asked, lifting her head with a sense of unease.

“You are stubborn and defiant. You don’t give a damn about anything that might stand in the way of your goals.”

“That’s not true!” Nyra protested, already feeling her cool beginning to slip. She couldn't let Seto provoke her on purpose this time.

“Is that so? I think the security system on the twenty-second floor would disagree.”

The girl could only gape at him.

“See? You can’t even deny it,” Seto continued mercilessly. “That’s exactly why you took me to your world, even though as a mortal, I can’t set foot there without an alliance. You wanted to prove to your Order, to me, but most of all to yourself, what a capable emissary you are. Am I wrong?”

Nyra sensed she was already losing, so she opened her mouth to defend herself. He didn’t give her the chance.

“You've done everything in your power to make me your rider, yet you were willing to abandon your mission simply because you were angry with me. Then you decided you wanted to talk to me, presumably because you couldn't get past those feelings — such as attraction — that are apparently incomprehensible to a dragon. And no matter how many times I push you away or brush you off, no matter how many obstacles my company throws in your path, here you are, standing before me in my office. Tell me, Nyra, after all that, what exactly am I supposed to think of you?”

“I told you, I got confused,” she muttered miserably, setting down her glass as well. “Every day I have spent with you has changed something in me. I... I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to give up on the mission. Damn it, you made everything so confusing!”

“Me?” Seto's eyes widened in disbelief as he pointed a finger at his own chest. “It would take a miracle for anyone to figure you out, but somehow I’m the one who confused you?” Then, without warning, he smiled. “Though your persistence is admirable, dragon, I'll give you that.”

Nyra fell silent. She felt like a hunted prey that had willingly run straight into a predator's claws, only to realize far too late what a fatal mistake she had made.

“Why didn't you send me away yesterday?” she asked in a low voice.

“What?”

“I may be just a foolish dragon, but I understood perfectly well that my presence bothers you. So why didn't you send me away? You don't want me to leave, but you don't want me near you either?”

Seto's features tensed, and he took another step towards her. When only a single pace separated them, he reached out and gently tilted her chin upward with his fingertips so he could look into her eyes. To Nyra’s greatest astonishment, there was not a trace of the biting mockery she was used to seeing in those azure eyes. His gaze was deep and intense, his pupils dilated, his lips parted slightly as his eyes drifted down to her mouth. He didn’t need to say a single word for Nyra to understand the answer.

In hindsight, everything he had hurled at her the previous afternoon had led back to this, and the realization took her breath away.

Seto Kaiba had no idea what possessed him to follow the fortune teller into the tiny shop opened from the alleyway. When the crone — clad in gaudy rags, appearance suspicious even from a distance — had first addressed him on the street, he had naturally ignored her. Even when she had called after him, he had merely lifted a hand effortlessly, signaling to Isono, who was following him like a shadow, to deal with her.

But the stranger had been far too persistent.

“So you’re afraid to face your future, Seto Kaiba?” she had called out.

That made him stop in his tracks.

What was this witch thinking? From where did she get the audacity to address him on the street and question him?

No, of course he wasn’t afraid. He feared nothing.

At fifteen, he was the head of a corporation worth billions. He had seized power with his own hands and shaped it to his own liking. The Duel Monsters World Champion title was already his. Only a fool would dare to question his courage.

He was at the top.

He was unstoppable.

This nobody wasn’t even worth the smallest finger on his hand.

And yet… Was it curiosity? Boredom? A desire to hear this fraud humiliate herself? To catch even a single sentence he could tear apart instantly, and prove that she was nothing more than a charlatan wasting his time?

Whatever reason it was, he suddenly turned on his heel, a sly half-smile tugging at his lips as he looked back at the woman, whom Isono was already attempting to usher away from his young master.

“Wait, Isono,” he said. He didn’t raise his voice, yet the commanding tone made his right-hand man freeze mid-motion.

Seto's gaze met the woman’s dark, almost black irises sitting deep in the sockets of her sunken face.

“You have five minutes. But if it turns out you’re a fraud, I’ll buy up this dump and then have it razed to the ground.”

The fortune teller flashed him a gap-toothed smile. She shrugged Isono off and headed toward an unremarkable, signless shop. With a faint grimace, Seto followed.

The moment he stepped inside the cramped, dimly lit room, a suffocating weight settled on his chest, which he attributed to the thick incense smoke mingling with a stale, lingering odor. Shelves on either side were piled high with occult trinkets, but Seto didn’t even bother to take a single glance at.

The woman took a seat at a rickety table at the back of the shop, then offered the CEO a seat across from her. Isono stayed behind them near the door, on full alert.

“Well?” Seto prompted, a smug smile still lurking at the corner of his mouth. “Get out your crystal ball and let’s get this over with.”

“There is no need for that, Kaiba-sama. Give me your hand!”

Reluctantly, he extended his right hand. The woman clasped it in her warm, rough palm, her long, unkempt nails grazing his skin. A wave of revulsion washed over Seto, though he gave no sign of it. He waited for the palmistry to begin.

However, she was not about to read his palm. Not in the conventional way, at least.

“This may sting a little,” she said, as she pulled a short-bladed knife from under the table with her free hand and made a shallow cut across his palm. Seto hissed at the sudden pain.

“What the hell are you doing, you lunatic?!”

“Seto-sama!” Isono’s alarmed voice rang out behind him. As he glanced back over his shoulder, he saw his man reaching for his weapon — but just as on the street, a single motion of Seto’s left hand stopped him.

“No, wait. Let her.”

The smile on the fortune teller's face turned almost obscene at the permission. She lowered her head, and Seto watched in open disgust as she licked away the trickling blood. Then she looked up into his eyes, and though intense nausea twisted his stomach, he held her piercing gaze.

“Well?” he demanded. “What’s your verdict?”

The crone maintained eye contact for another long moment, then wrapped her fingers tightly around Seto’s wrist. As if that could stop him from breaking free from her grasp at any moment.

“Your number, Seto Kaiba, is two.”

“Two?” he echoed incredulously. Two?! He stood at the top of the world; number one in everything that mattered. His number could only ever be one. “Now that’s amusing. I knew you were a fraud, but I didn’t expect you to underperform this badly with your very first sentence.”

“The blood doesn’t lie,” she sneered, her decaying teeth were covered in red. “And all I see… is the number two.”

Before Seto had a chance to speak, the fortune teller gripped his wrist with such force that her nails dug into his skin, and he could feel his own pulse throbbing against her fingers.

“Two souls bound together. Two brothers against the world. Two fathers you lose: one taken from you, the other cast into the abyss by your own hands. The eternal second, striving for the crown of the first. Two people who hold your heart. Two decades your soul remains bound to this world.”

Seto glared at him furiously. Not a single muscle moved. The air in the cramped shop seemed to grow even heavier.

Images flashed before his eyes.

Cradling his little brother close, protecting him from the older boys at the orphanage.

Making a solemn vow to him that no matter what happens, he would protect him. That he would become his father. That he would give him a better life.

A manic laugh tore through the storm of visions. The shattering of glass. The sight of a body plummeting into the depths.

Then blinding whiteness, a dragon’s roar in the distance.

What was going on here? Fragments of the past tangled with something else… the future? Or another past, from another life?

No. That was impossible.

And still… What kind of bond was she talking about? Who could possibly surpass him?

He was number one. The best. For Seto Kaiba, even his very name was proof of what he could achieve through sheer willpower. How could he ever be second?

And the idea that anyone besides Mokuba could possess his heart… He kept even him at a distance.

This was nothing more than a well-crafted illusion.

Though anger and disbelief churned within him, he chose to respond only to the final prophecy.

“So you’re saying I have five years left?” he asked, the half-smile returning to his lips.

The fortune teller released his hand and wiped her mouth, offering him a surprisingly white tissue to cover his wound. Seto did not take it.

“As I said, young President, the blood does not lie.”

“I see.” His voice was flat, his jaw tight as he rose to his feet. “I’ll be honest, I’ve never heard such utter nonsense in my entire life.”

He pulled a check from his pocket and, ignoring the throbbing pain in his palm, filled it out in quick, impatient strokes before tossing it carelessly onto the table.

“But just so you understand who you’re dealing with: consider this as a reminder of the day you tried to deceive Seto Kaiba.”

The woman cast a single glance at the amount written on the check, which easily exceeded the value of her shop and all her possessions.

“I won’t forget the day I showed Seto Kaiba the fate that awaits him. Neither will you.”

Seto gave her one last disdainful look before turning his back on her.

“My people will be here in the morning. Have your things packed by then, witch. And don’t get in my sight ever again. Let’s go, Isono.”

“Yes, sir!”

With that, he stepped out into the afternoon sunlight, Isono following close by. The door slammed loudly behind them.