Katsuya looked at her, shocked. The little bit of hope Seto had given him, broken into a billion little pieces of hurt and loneliness. Pegasus was right. Pegasus was always right. The one thing every being looked forward to, having a mate, and he couldn't have one.
He just wanted to die.
He looked back to Seto, who was still staring shell-shocked at Shizuka's brutal words—truth or not. His wonderful Seto...and he wasn't even his.
Without being able to think of anything else to do, he ran. Katsuya ran away as fast as his tired legs could carry him through the castle. He passed the stairs, the kitchen, the ballroom, the dining room, the library, the training room, the Flame room.
He threw himself into the torture chamber. The ghostly, rusted chains hanging from the walls, the "toys" the torturer used on his pathetic, helpless victims, the wheel sitting almost eerily still. This place was the only place of truth, despite just being told it. This place was the only place the truth was good.
Because it would stop all the torture and let life leave.
.-.-.-.-
Seto whipped his head to Katsuya's direction, getting ready to follow as fast as he could. He couldn't just leave him.
Even if it was exactly what Shizuka kept him from doing. "Leave him."
Sometime in Seto's state of shock she had glided over to him and was there just in time to grab his wrist from leaving. He tried to get her to let go, to go after Katsuya...but she had a strong grip. A really strong grip.
"You will only hurt him more now. Let him settle first." Shizuka advised, and secure in thinking Seto wouldn't chase him, and couldn't at this point she let go. "Let's go have some tea. It seems neither of you are very bright at the moment. I will enlighten you in a loophole."
Seto gritted his teeth,"What now? What loophole? Do you realize how much you hurt him? How much that meant to him? I don't know why he ca-"
"Shush," Shizuka snapped, grabbing Seto's wrist again. Hard. "Listen to me. You make laws; you should know what a loophole is. I told you there is one. Now listen."
Seto growled, feeling the heat of his fire magic flush his finger tips. He could burn her. He could kill her; watch her scream and cry as she burned to death because of his flame.
But the lost feeling he was getting from Katsuya wet his flame, flooded it out as crying emotions came in timid, quick flashes like repeated lightening bolts seconds apart from each other. He needed to get to Katsuya. He needed to be with Katsuya.
"Listen? Why should I listen to y—"
Seto looked nowhere, his face stinging and Shizuka's hand still raised. "I said listen to the loophole. I know you're instincts are kicking in high gear, but how are you going to help Katsuya if you don't keep a level head?"
Seto looked back at her, surprised, but also surprisingly calmed. He stood straight staring at her a moment before collapsing, burying his face in his hands, miserable. "Thank-you, I apologize. You are right."
Shizuka's chest heaved, her eyes still in a glare and her mouth in an upside-down smile. "I'm physically blind, King Kaiba, not mentally or spiritually." She paused. "Katsuya needs to find himself, if you find him for him, it will do nobody any good."
Seto raised his head, slightly ashamed he let his Dragon instincts take over. Shizuka stared blindly forward, but not as if she wasn't seeing something. "What are you...?" Seeing? Looking at? Seto couldn't find the right words to end the sentence. They all seemed wrong to ask someone blind.
"I can...see—I suppose you could say—the first time you met him. You immediately knew he wasn't taken care of. That he was beat and impure in a bred sense. He was no royalty and he was cute. He didn't fear what most beings did and that excited you. He was different. He stood up instead of bowing down. But you missed his most important detail. You saw it, but only in a physical sense."
She let go of the wrist she was still holding and blindly stared forward. "Have you heard of echolocation, King Kaiba?"
Seto blinked at the sudden change of topic. First there was when he met Katsuya—and she was scarily accurate—and now she was talking about echolocation? "Yes?"
"That's how I navigate. Since I'm part wolf and blind, my hearing is better. When I'm outside, I'm more klutzy because there isn't as much for the sound to reflect off of, but in here, in the tight corridors, I can navigate very well, hence my ability to find where your arm, and face when I smacked you, was," She smiled softly, raising her hand to Seto's shoulder, "Your heart is beating very fast by the way. Katsuya will be fine."
Seto shook his head, "What does that have to do with echolocation?"
"Well," Shizuka said, dropping her hand and smiling playfully, "you were curious how I could be so accurate. I felt so when I was 'seeing' you at Katsuya meet. My brother has grown very handsome. The last time I 'saw' him, he was going to fall out of a tree and break his leg when he was six. Not that he ever did. He managed to change that."
"Change what?"
"His future," she said. "Now, shall we get some tea? I have a secret to enlighten you on."
Seto frowned, but otherwise figured it was okay. She had mentioned it was a loophole. Loopholes could be good. "Okay. Would you like an arm or are you more comfortable with echolocation."
Shizuka smiled some more, "An arm would be lovely."
.-.-.-.-.-.
Katsuya wiped his face, slimy with all the tears he smeared all over it. He laughed. He must look absolutely gorgeous now, all red faced and puffy eyed. He couldn't imagine what Seto would say.
Probably 'Get away, Mutt, you aren't my mate.'
His breath trembled and he hiccuped and sniffled. And Seto had looked so sure when he was telling him he was his mate. So confident and exhausted and happy. Katsuya's heart broke to know that Seto was wrong. Seto hated being wrong. And he always got mad when he was.
Katsuya didn't like it when Seto was unhappy. He especially didn't like it when he was at fault.
Katsuya felt like crying again.
Standing up, ignoring his shaking knees, and the crick in them, as well as the soreness in his back from sitting on the hard, cold cement so long, he stretched. One would thing after all the time he had spent in cement cells and torture chambers he'd get used to them, for some reason he just couldn't.
He looked around and snorted. He'd come to a torture chamber for comfort, how fucked up was that?
He shivered, cold. He looked around. He didn't want to leave the room just yet. He didn't want to be found and he couldn't be if he was where no one thought to look. There was the fire place, where the branders laid next to, and some wood. The wood was stained with blood from long ago, but it was still wood.
He sighed. There was no fire though. Last time he was here—with Mokuba—they had lit torches with Mokuba's magic. This time, he was only seeing with memory and the little bit his wolf vision gave him.
He looked at his fingertips, calloused and worn, they knew more abuse than a pair of old shoes. He never wanted this magic, which was the whole reason behind everything bad ever happening to him. Why couldn't he just have his Wolf Magic? Why?
He bit his lip and, despite what he always told himself, allowed that magic to flow through him to hiss at his finger tips.
Fire exploded, out of control and he jumped. Just as fast as it had exploded it sunk back into his finger tips. He didn't know much about controlling this magic. He never tried to learn to. He just wanted it gone. But it didn't seem to matter anymore anyways. Why suffer any longer? It hurt to hold it back, like he was thickening his blood with cotton when he repressed it.
He'd hurt Seto once trying to repress it while they were copulating for the first time.
He closed his eyes and focused. The black-red fire exploded again, and he jumped, still, feeling free and unchained and unknowing, and it started to retract again but he grasped onto the feel and kept it at an okay size. His fingertips glowed and illuminated a radius around him. His eyes went wide, realizing he was doing this even though he had to fight his will to withhold the magic any longer.
He looked at the fire pit. There was some new wood already in there. Dry and unused. He walked over and touched it, watching it ignite the same color as his flame until it faded into the normal orangey color it was when he let go. He let the fire at his finger tips exhaust out and stared at the fire he started.
He was curious also. Fire didn't hurt him. It never hurt him. He remembered when he had to think about it. When Seto had lit the fire in the doorway when they first met, he almost ran right through it!
Slowly he reached his hand into the fire and held it there. His hand warmed, but not to a heat that he couldn't stand, and the fire turned back into his flame. He took his hand out, and the fire came with it. He smiled, almost laughing. The fire had come with his hand! It surrounded his hand, burning softly. He touched the wood again and willed the fire to jump back on the log, but when he brought his hand back the fire was still stuck.
He shook his hand, defeated, and putting the fire out. Then he pushed fire at his finger tips and lit the log again. He didn't have very much control it seemed.
It didn't matter. He had time, and he had given up, he might as well learn the magic he was given.
.-.-.-.-
Seto stared at Shizuka. Really, it couldn't have been more obvious if it had smacked him the face!
"No."
"Oh yes, your highness," Shizuka said, taking another sip of tea. "I'm not surprised you didn't think of it sooner, so don't feel bad. You didn't really know Katsuya couldn'y have a mate."
Seto still looked incredulously at her, "But he can be someone's mate?"
"He can be many peoples' mate. His Magic is too submissive to control someone as his mate, and so much so that he can bend to anyone who wants him. However, I don't think that would be the case. He's very much in love with you."
Seto leaned back and took a sip of his own tea. Red Eyes, he was such a moron. But wait- "What is his other half? Do you know? He's part wolf and part-"
"Dragon. That I am surprised you have not noticed. Being Dragon king and all."
So Katsuya was part Dragon? Seto looked at her, "What?"
"WHAT THE HELL, MAN!" Bakura and Marik barged in looking at them.
"HOW COULD WE OF MISSED THAT! DRAGON! HA!"
Shizuka blinked confusedly, and Seto turned his head to look at the intruders. "What are you doing here?"
"We were looking for the Retriever!" Bakura exclaimed.
"And we came to you thinking 'Hey, Mister Dragon King has his dick up his ass, he'll know where he is!' and we just heard that!" Marik continued. "We have to tell him! He's curious too!"
"That would be inadvisable." Shizuka said, her hazed eyes staring straight ahead and he delicate cup clicking against its matching glass plate. "He needs to figure it out himself. The importance of it is crucial."
Seto frown blankly, "But didn't you come here to tell him?"
"No," She stated, "I came to guide him. Though, it seems he's guided himself pretty far along in the past few hours."
"Guide him to what?" Bakura asked as he and Marik walked to the table and made themselves cozy at it. If Seto didn't have as much control or (more so) care for Katsuya who actually liked these idiots for some reason, he would have blasted them with fire.
"You can see where he is?" Marik also asked, like a giddy child. "Okay, what am I thinking?"
"Seto's thinking you're an idiot. And guide him to find out who he is."
Marik blinked and fluttered his eyelashes, despite her inability to see him.
She smiled, "Thank-you. I agree."
The three males blinked at her and she smiled softly. "Were you not thinking I have a semblance to Katsuya?"
"No way!" Marik exclaimed. "You're good!"
"I know," She said conceitedly. "Seto," She followed soon after, "You might want to get Katsuya. He's in the torture chamber and I believe he is going to hurt himself if you do not help him soon."
Seto stood faster than a racing rabbit, but didn't go anywhere. "I have no idea where that is."
Shizuka nor the others said anything. Seto was too kind, for he never had anyone tortured before, and Shizuka found this a pleasing quality for her brother. Though she figured Seto might not be so kind when he was in bed teasing Katsuya. He would not be cruel, but a slight sadistic side would come out eventually.
It'll keep Katsuya occupied at least, she figured.
"Follow your gut. He is your mate."
Bakura and Marik looked at each other and smiled mischievously. They wrapped they're arms around each other's shoulders and unitedly began to sing, "Retriever and Kaiba sittin' in tree..."
Seto didn't hear the rest of the song, he got out of there. Fast.
.-.-.-.-.
Katsuya jumped when he heard the chamber door open, and his heart broke when Seto walked in. Then he panicked. What would he do if Seto saw the fire! Seto probably already didn't like him, but now he really wouldn't like him!
But he didn't know how to put the fire out very quick either!
Seto stepped into the room and Katsuya stared, horrified at him, waiting for Seto to scream and kick him out of the castle. He was sad because he really liked Seto. He wasn't sure he could bare Seto being hateful towards him.
But as Seto walked closer to him, he didn't have a look of anger or hatred across his face. It was enlightened and surprised. Nothing was malevolent about Seto at all!
"Katsuya, you're sister has informed me of something I believe you should think about."
Katsuya blinked, surprised, mostly at the soft, excited tone of Seto's voice. "Wh-what?"
"You cannot have a mate, but you can be one supposedly."
Katsuya blinked again, taking it all in. No way. It sounded too good to be true. It had to be impossible. "H-how?"
"Apparently," Seto said, coming up and cupping Katsuya's wondrous face. And it felt so good to hold it again, to lean and kiss Katsuya's parted lips—like what he was doing right now. "Apparently, your magic is too submissive for you to claim someone as a mate, but you can be someone's mate. Your magic apparently loves that. Being dominated and controlled. Much like you in bed."
Not that Seto could really see it in the dim light, but Katsuya blushed heavily, his eyes going wide and reflecting the glowing fire dazzlingly off his amber eyes. "T-that comment was unnecessary, King Stupid..."
"Oh really?" Seto said, holding Katsuya's chin and stealing another kiss, "I think it helped you understand..."
And then Seto stole another, not-so-chaste kiss.
"Mmmm..." Katsuya moaned, his beastly urges rising. Oh, as Seto took his mouth, what he wouldn't give for Seto to take him again! "Seh'o"
Seto smirked against his lips and leaned back a second before leaning forward again.
"Retriever and Kaiba sittin' in a tree-" Entered Marik and Bakura"-K-I-S-S-I-N-G first comes kiss then comes fucking then a Queen for King's hips bucking!"
Katsuya moved away and frowned at them heavily and they stopped to dead silence. Seto watched in amusement as horror came over their faces as Katsuya moved more away from him and more towards them. "I'm going to kick your asses so hard!"
Suddenly they realized it was smart to leave, especially when Katsuya started to chase after them.
But not without going back to Seto first.
"Do ya really think it's true?"
Seto looked at the little blond. Even if it wasn't, Seto highly doubt he would care as long as he could keep looking at that face and making love to that body and just loving the boy himself the rest of his life. "Yeah, I think it is."
Katsuya smiled, barely noticeable in the dim light, but enough that Seto caught it before Katsuya stole a kiss and Seto felt happiness—from both him and his Queen—and left with a few final words as he went after the two.
"I'm sneaking into your bed tonight!"
Seto couldn't wait.
