A Monopoly Of Blue Eyes

by FeistyFox

He had refused to believe in his past, refused to be sucked into the fairytale that had been hurled at him again and again. But it appeared that his past had found him whether he wanted it or not. She was here… sitting right here in his class, this ghost from the ancient past, looking exactly as he remembered, exactly how she did in his dreams and the visions he had been shown.

31. Chapter 31

Chapter 31: Straw-Man Proposal

Standing quietly at the back of the control room at Kaiba Corp she found herself fading into the background, at least for the moment, which was likely for the best as she felt herself questioning her very reality. That reality had been, while often unpleasant and frightening in the past, understood. The normalcy of it, no matter how brutal, had been comforting in its own way. She knew what to expect, how to react, and what to do. This new one… she had no idea how to handle, had in no way been prepared, and she was struggling. The thought that this had always been going on, without her awareness, was fully disquieting. Toward the front of the room Seto and Mokuba were staring intently at a monitor as Seto typed, trying to do she wasn't quite sure what, and she didn't have the energy to find out, or even care. But whatever it was must be important if it got Seto back here today, because he had been convicted about staying at the mansion with her until he got a call from Mokuba. It hardly helped that every time she looked at either of them she felt an overwhelming crash of guilt hit as hard as a tsunami. The feeling that she had done something terribly wrong to one or both of them was crippling.

All around the large room other employees were busily monitoring and broadcasting the second day of the tournament as the remaining duelists squabbled viciously for the last few spots remaining in the semi finals. At midday it was nearly over, with only two spots remaining, and thirty contestants fighting against not only each other, but the clock. They had been battling throughout the night, knocking several high ranked duelist out of the competition in the nearly ceaseless skirmishes that were going on across Domino. With so much money on the line it was getting truly nasty as duelists lost and regained both marks and cards at an alarming rate. She had expected this to end quickly today, but it was drawing out unbearably, and all she wanted to do was lay back down and forget all of this. She wanted to pretend everything was just the same as it had been last week.

She and Seto had been here for the last hour, since he had reluctantly woken her up in the very late morning so he could force some food into her before they left. It seemed his wish of staying in bed with her all day wasn't about to be granted, although she couldn't remember a time she had slept past eight in the morning, let alone until eleven. Even so she was utterly spent, and looked haggard despite the makeup she had put on, the dark circles under her eyes and colorless lips standing out despite her efforts. If anything she felt even worse than she had when she woke up in the hospital, her head pounding and all her joints aching as if they were on fire. Still, she had pushed past it, hiding her discomfort from him, and it seemed the only thing she had ever managed to slip by him. She figured she just had a lot of practice hiding injuries and ignoring pain, and that made it easier.

Still, it wasn't the pain that was bothering her, not really, not in a way that mattered. What was bothering her was her jumbled mess of a mind, the one thing she had always had firm control of, with the single exception of her short term amnesia after Seto's duel disk debut at Kaiba Land. Since she had woken up in his office yesterday she had felt as if a bomb had gone off inside her skull, dislodging things that had no business being there to begin with. Things that she had never put in or even experienced in this life. But she supposed it was more than that, and she had somehow been storing things for far longer than she had thought possible. She was swinging wildly emotionally, although she had no understanding of why she was feeling anything she was feeling, which made it all the more unsettling. She was tamping her facial expressions down ruthlessly as she stood silently in the corner out of the way, really trying to get herself together before he came back over to her, or before anyone came over to her. She had lost it for a few minutes last night, had come close to fully unraveling, but Seto had been such a very good distraction that she had managed to scrape up a part of herself that she recognized for a little while and push everything else away. Then they had fallen asleep and the dreams had returned with a vengeance, showing her nothing but destruction, fire, and a pile of corpses at her feet, which were no more human than she apparently was. Unable to shake the dream, and now she wasn't even sure if that's what it was, she had retreated inside herself, trying to push back something, push back anything, so she could think straight.

Seto had cast her a few glances since they woke up, but obviously hadn't noticed how poorly she was doing. She was sure he had put her quietness down to either exhaustion or her turning things over that she had learned in the last twenty-four hours. He was used to her considering problems before jumping into anything, so it wasn't really out of the ordinary for her to be thinking about all of this as she calmly complied with getting ready and leaving the mansion and coming here with him. He hadn't pushed the issue, and she was sure part of that was his inherent dislike of confronting strong emotions. The other part was likely his wariness of exactly what her reaction might be if he added any more fuel to this fire of revelations. Her breakdown last night had disturbed him as he had no idea what to do with a crying woman, and he hated not knowing what to do. It was apparent that this whole mess hadn't gone over remarkably well, although in what scenario it would have she didn't know. It was also inevitable that she was going to start asking more questions soon, ones he wasn't looking forward to, so maybe he was just biding his time.

But, strangely, she couldn't seem to think of a question that felt important enough to ask… about any of it. The thought of some strange, unknown person out to kill her seemed almost meaningless at the moment. She didn't care, she wasn't even sure she believed it, although she knew she should be heavily invested in both of those things. And the magic, which she had too much proof of now to deny, especially after whatever it was she had done yesterday was too much to ask about, or think about. She was positive Seto had done something to her mind with that thing he had, although that was all jumbled as well, and that was terrifying no matter how much she trusted him. She was so frightened by that she was in fact trying to pretend it hadn't happened at all so she wouldn't have to think about it, or react to it. The idea that she had lived before was equally as bizarre as the other things, for all that every time she looked in a mirror she saw someone else looking back at her since last night. But that person was strange, and looking down at her hands, or at any part of herself, was just as eerie as her own reflection. It was as if none of it was real, just as she wasn't real. What she was looking at no longer felt right for all it was her body, but the other image that was stalking her, the one even more disturbing than the other woman, was watching her out of every reflective surface at the corner of her eye. The white dragon seemed as if it were her shadow, following her about and casting back something inside of her that horrified her. Even as she thought that she heard, in her own internal jumbled ramblings, the sensation of scales gliding smoothly against each other, the sound of claws tapping softly on stone, and the sharp smell of ozone filling her nose.

Turning her head slightly, trying to shake the feeling, she caught sight of her reflection in a darkened monitor and met the eyes of her double. Suddenly unable to handle any of this, and feeling as if she was either going to start screaming or sobbing as yet another wave of unexplainable emotion hit her, she turned quietly on her heel and left the room before she completely lost her mind. She had been so quiet for so long, and everyone in the room was so occupied, that she managed to escape without notice. Unable to think of anywhere she really wanted to go, and terrified of seeing someone or something else in a pane of glass that she passed by, she simply tried to escape the building. She thought possibly fresh air might dispel this, although she was really grasping at straws. Maybe if she could just figure out what it was that was clawing away at her sanity she would feel better. This unknown was more petrifying than anything else she could imagine. She was so distracted that she barely even thought about hitting the button for the elevator to take her down to the lobby, a place she hated to be, until she stepped through the threshold and into another place entirely.

Gasping in surprise, she stumbled forward and smacked straight into the bars of a large wooden cage. Completely off balance in every way, she stumbled back, trying to right herself, and found that her arms were bound tightly to her sides. Unable to catch herself she fell to her knees and looked down, seeing that a coarse rope was cinched securely around her from just below her chest to the top of her hips, preventing her from moving her arms at all. Her head reared up and she saw she was alone in the cage, which had been placed in a giant stone room covered in hieroglyphics. In the center was a giant constructed pit that seemed to drop down to the very bowels of the earth. On the walls torches flickered, throwing shadows about, the thick pitch they were made of filling the room oppressively with a dank smell. "Don't worry, dear, this will all make sense soon." A calm male voice said.

Turning her attention toward the voice she saw an old man sitting on a throne like chair to her left. He was in an unadorned cream colored robe with a hood hiding most of his face. There wasn't much else she could see, save for an odd glint of gold where his eye should have been. His attention was directed forward, toward the neatly made chasm, and she frowned in confusion as she managed to get her legs under herself and stand back up. Oddly, she felt less disturbed by this abrupt shift in location than she should have, but she had felt disconnected since she woke up. "Who are you?" She asked him, feeling as if she had been to this perilous place before, as if she had heard his voice before. She felt too as if there should be other people here, but she couldn't explain that either, or why she knew with great certainty that someone was going to burst through the one door leading in here at any moment. That didn't make much sense to her, although the architecture in here was now certainly familiar as she seemed to end up in buildings and rooms like this in her dreams on a now consistent basis. "Where… where are we?" He said nothing to either of those questions and she frowned, trying to make out his face, which she felt oddly unsettled about, as if she should know him somehow. "Please, what's going on?"

"Don't you know?" He asked. "I suppose it's just as well you've forgotten what you've done."

"What I've done?" She asked in confusion.

"It's a shame that you got involved again." He went on, his head turning toward a door on the other side of the room, and all she could see was the back of the hood. "This all could have been over years ago if you-" The cheerful ding of the elevator filled the massive room and the floor jolted below her. Stumbling forward she let out a small yelp as she tumbled out of the doors of the elevator and into Kaiba Corps main lobby, her arms as free as they had ever been. As she flailed, trying to get her feet under her, she was abruptly caught by a set of strong arms before she could hit the smooth tile floor.

"Whoa!" Duke laughed in surprised amusement, swinging himself around and using the momentum to right them both. "I'm used to having women fall into my arms, but I really thought I would have to put in a lot more effort with you. Not that I'm opposed to some competition mind you." Disoriented, and deeply disturbed by the vision and abrupt return from it, she pushed away from him at once, tripping backward, although she kept herself up. Duke's playful smile vanished as she caught her balance, noting easily that something was off. He eyed her up and down. "Are you alright, pretty thing?" Ignoring him, as she largely found him unimportant at the moment she glanced around quickly, now fully paranoid that she wasn't in the building at all, and that it was very possible none of this was real for all the people milling about. After all, she had been in a fake train station only yesterday, in a destroyed city surrounded by dead creatures last night, and in a fake cage in what she assumed were the bowels of an Egyptian temple only moments ago. When she said nothing, only clenched her hands, Duke spoke again. "Sarah?" She still ignored him, checking the corners for tell tale lights that could confirm her suspicions. "Sarah?" He said a little louder, trying to get her attention.

Blinking, she turned half toward him, indicating she was at least trying to listen. "What?" She asked him vaguely.

He raised a skeptical eyebrow. "You seem a bit…off. Why don't we sit down?" He indicated a nearby set of chairs that visitors used while they waited to meet with people here, tucked off into an alcove on the side of the large room. She spotted a few familiar faces, including Tea and Yugi, who were sitting at their ease and looking at the screen of a tablet together, no doubt watching the last duel while they waited. There were at least half a dozen other people scattered about with them, all appearing either calm, bored, or satisfied with the outcome. "Everyone else should be here soon anyway."

"Everyone else?" She asked in confusion.

He appeared to be getting more concerned by the moment, although she wondered why he was still bothering her. "For the announcement of where the finals are going to be. Isn't that why you're down here? It's supposed to start in less than an hour. The last two duelists up for it are battling now. All our due disks told us to come here once we got our marks."

"The finals for what?" She asked him, barely listening to him as the scratching started up in her mind again with a vengeance. Her head began to ache even more and she wondered how that was possible.

There was a significant pause as Duke frowned at her. "The finals for the tournament. I saw you placed in them yesterday, although your last duel didn't broadcast for some reason. The Kaiba Corp website is saying that there was a glitch in your disk." The urge to escape grew to a fever pitch at the reminder of what seemed to have started all of this, because everything had been fine until this stupid tournament started. It had been better than fine, and for the first time in her life she had really thought everything was going to be okay for her. She felt tears gathering in her eyes as she realized how foolish she had been to have believed, even for a moment, that anything would ever be normal, stable, or safe. She had been right all those months ago when she first started getting steady paychecks and was living alone in her grubby studio living off small bowls of rice. This place, this job, this life had been nothing more than a vacation from instability and pain. Without another word to him she turned on her heel and walked off toward the exit. As she put space between them he called to her again, worry in his voice. "Sarah!"

Ignoring the call she finally managed to make it outside, and hurried down the steps, dodging the reporters and other duelists that were milling about outside. No one took much notice of her, which was just as well. Turning right on impulse she moved all the way around to the side of the building, away from everyone, and walked about a hundred yards down the small walkway between it and the parking garage. The alley, because that's what it was, was a clean and tidy place. Unlike other alleyways in the city this one was generally well traveled as there was a lot of foot traffic around Kaiba Corp most of the time. There were benches scattered about, as well as street lamps, planter boxes full of flowers, and trash cans. Many people took breaks out here, including her every now and then, although at the moment she appeared to be alone. Most importantly to her though, it was all concrete and there were no reflective surfaces around. Turning, she picked a bench that was a bit more out of the way than the others and sat down heavily.

Feeling completely unhinged she sat staring blankly at the cement wall in front of her before slumping forward over her legs and putting her hands on her face, trying to block them out as well, because they still looked foreign and wrong to her. Trying to force herself to calm she began to suck in large amounts of air through her nose before slowly releasing it through her mouth. She wasn't really sure how long she sat there before she heard someone sit down next to her. She knew it was Seto, she could sense it and see tingles of magic even behind her closed eyes, and that in itself was frightening. Still, she would have been able to guess anyway. "Is this real?" She asked at last. "Are we in a real place this time?"

There was a slight pause. "You're in our world if that's what you're asking. You should be able to see magic in the shadow realm all the time. There isn't much magic in this world. I think that's why it stands out so easily for you."

"I feel wrong." She told him quietly, hardly comforted by his reassurance. "Like I'm not real. Like my body is some strange costume I'm wearing, and I guess it is." He set his hand on her back, saying nothing, but the physical contact settled her marginally. "Did you always know who you were, that you were here before, or did this happen to you?"

"This happened to me." He replied.

That brought her some comfort, not that she wanted to imagine him feeling this way, but at least he was stable now. It meant that she wouldn't feel this way forever and that did help. "How long did this last?"

"The first week was the worst." He told her in that straightforward way he had. "Once I remembered."

"And how long did it last?" She repeated. He said nothing and she kept waiting, wondering who was going to outlast the other. When it was apparent this was something she needed he sighed quietly. "Eight months."

"Eight months?" She repeated in near panic. There was no way she could handle this for that long. She could barely handle it now and it hadn't even been a full day. "You felt like this for eight months?"

"You were dead." He told her, his voice clipped. "I hadn't even known you existed and then all at once you were dead again." There was a brief pause. "I grieved for you."

Slowly, she raised her head up to look at him, shocked. He met her eyes calmly, but she saw the shadowed anguish there, saw the other man in him shimmering in and out of existence as he watched her. "I wasn't even real." She whispered, not sure at all how to handle that sort of response, or who it was she was talking to. She wasn't sure if Seto was here all the time, or if this other man, this priest, was in him as well. She was unsure now, unsure if they were the same or different, or if they were somehow mixed up together. The uncertainty didn't help her mindset, although she felt no fear of the other man now. "How could you care if I wasn't real?"

"You were real." He said firmly. "I didn't know you had reincarnated. I never expected to see you again, but you were real." He watched her quietly for a moment before tucking her hair back out of her face. "You being here again doesn't erase what happened before. It doesn't negate it. I had to learn to live with that. I had to learn to live knowing about what happened to us, what happened to you."

Leaning into him she pressed her face against his hand. "I'm scared." She whispered truthfully.

"I won't let him hurt you." Seto promised with real conviction.

"I'm not afraid of this person." She told him, pressing closer to him. "And I'm not afraid of the magic." Forcing herself to sit up she looked up at him, and saw the question in his eyes. She felt her stomach rolling sickly. "I'm afraid of me."

He frowned at that. "What?"

"If I really am this monster…" She shook her head, looking away, because there was no getting around that she was now. "It must be true what that man said yesterday. I must not have a soul if I killed so many people. No one good could do such horrible things."

Seto said nothing for a long time and she just sat there, wondering if she deserved feeling all this, because she truly believed it was a fitting punishment if she had done even half the things Ishizu had implied in her story. If what she saw in her dreams was real, she deserved all of it, and every blow that had ever been delivered to her. It was unforgivable. "Before you were brought to the palace there had only ever been one sighting of the white dragon in Egypt." She turned back to him slowly, startled that he was speaking about this when it was so clear he didn't want to. "The story went that the monster appeared out of nowhere, out of a storm that appeared from nothing, and destroyed a small, prosperous village on the nile." She frowned and he went on. "Only one person survived it, and the dragon was spoken of in terrified whispers because no other beast had ever decimated an entire population before that." Her stomach rolled sickly and he kept on calmly. "But in truth the village had been destroyed before the dragon was released. A group of slavers had lost their pretty white prize, one that would no doubt gain them a fortune if sold to the right buyer, and they came looking for her. She had taken refuge in the village and when they began to burn and loot it she responded to the threat. The men didn't survive the encounter, but they'd shown no mercy to the villagers, slaughtering them without thought, and hardly deserved anything less." He met her eyes calmly and she could see he wasn't lying. "You vanished after that for nearly six years. No one saw the white dragon again until we met on the street in the capital city."

"How do you know about the slavers?" She asked in confusion, thinking that if she had told him this story in her last life she could have lied about it.

"Because I was the one that survived." He told her. "Ishizu told you a story, and most of it was likely true to some extent, but there was more to it than that. There were parts no one knew but us. When we first met, the very first time, I was barely thirteen. I helped you escape the slavers and sent you to my village while I tried to throw them off your trail." He shook his head. "You could have killed them long before that, you could have killed them at any point for any of the things they did, but you didn't. In your last life you had control of yourself in every way. You were lenient, forgiving, and merciful when you had no reason to be. Even when you were injured you held yourself in check. You did kill, but as far as I know it was always either in self-defense or to protect me. And I don't know where you were or what you did before we met, or in the time between when my village was destroyed and when I found you again, but I never once saw a soulless beast when I looked at you. You aren't evil and you aren't a monster." He seemed so sure, so convicted, that she relaxed minutely. "Perhaps you made decisions that you hated, but at least let yourself remember what those were and why you made them before you decide to condemn yourself. You're a forgiving person to everyone else. Give yourself that same courtesy before writing yourself off as a monster."

Absorbing that for a moment she stared down at the ground, believing the story, but also believing that she was as dangerous as she currently suspected. While his words brought her some comfort, it was also confirmation that she had killed. That… she didn't know how to feel about that, just as she didn't know how to feel about much of anything right now. "Did I ever hurt you? Or Mokuba?" She asked him at last. The firm belief that she had was still hanging over her, and she couldn't shake that feeling at all. And last night, for all his attention and reassurance, he hadn't denied that she had. "I can't stop feeling like I did." She rubbed at her head, and hating herself deeply for causing either of them pain. "And I keep seeing Mokuba in the desert running from me. I don't… Please, just tell me."

"You didn't hurt either of us." Seto told her. "You feel that way about me because part of you remembers what happened when you died the first time. You're emotions are leaking over from our last life. That… affected me, but you didn't do anything to me. Even after you died you helped me endlessly. You can't blame yourself for that. It was out of your control."

She supposed that made sense, because just the thought of Seto getting hurt sent her into a panic. She was sure if he died she would never really recover, but that didn't explain the younger Kaiba at all. "But Mokuba wasn't there in Egypt with us, was he?"

"No, Mokuba is new for lack of a better term. I don't think many people reincarnate." She heard irritation in his voice over that and she was sure he was just irritated by all of this. "And I have no idea how we did, so I can't answer that question if you were going to ask."

"Then why was he running from me? Why do I remember that happening?"

"Mokuba entered a shadow duel with this man during my demonstration at Kaiba Land. You allowed him to summon your soul to defend himself. Unfortunately, that transition confused you."

"He summoned my soul?" She sent him a baffled look.

Seto made an aggravated motion with his hand. "You aren't soulless. Your human body is housing what you actually are. You are human, but you're also the blue eyes. When you choose to, or when you're summoned, you separate your two halves. Somehow you managed to create yourself this way." He was watching her with real perplexity, something she rarely saw. Seto was so smart hardly anything confused him and it was clear he had been thinking about this for some time.

"How could I-"

"I have no idea." He interrupted, anticipating her question. "Nothing I ever learned about magic would explain that, or even allow me to hazard a guess. As far as I know you're an impossibility. Shadow creatures used to possess people and hide themselves that way, but it's not what you've done. You've literally made yourself a human body. Only people with magic would be able to see that you were different in some way, and I'm not fully sure they would know why that was. Even in my past life it took me nearly a month to realize that you made yourself." He shook his head a little. "But you've managed it twice now, so it clearly wasn't an accident or a fluke."

"I brought myself here?" She asked, feeling even more confused than she had been.

"In every sense of that statement." He agreed.

She found herself at a loss as well. She had no explanation for any of that, and found nothing related to that in her mind, only a blank fog. She realized she just needed a break from all of this, although how she was meant to get one she wasn't sure. "I just wanted a normal life. I just wanted a crappy apartment and some friends. That's all I wanted when I came here. This is all so crazy."

"I know." He agreed.

"I wish you had told me. I wish you hadn't lied." She admitted, although she wasn't angry about it, not the way she thought she should be. Maybe when this all settled down she would be, but right now the comfort of him when nothing else was comforting was enough to ease the strain around the lie. "But to be fair I don't think I would have believed you, not really. Not even with everything feeling so strange." She felt some of his tension drain away at the acceptance. "I have more questions, but I can't seem to care about the answers. It's not like me. I don't feel like me right now."

"It gets better." He assured her. "Once everything settles."

"We don't have time for that though, do we?"

"No." He replied.

She nodded slowly. "I'm a total emotional wreck right now."

"Yes." He agreed, and she rolled her eyes in amused exasperation.

"Thanks for that."

His lip twitched for just a moment. "You're welcome."

"I don't know exactly what my goal is here." She told him, figuring it was about time they got on the same page. "I thought you had wanted me in the tournament for fun, but clearly that's not what's happening. What is it you wanted out of this from me?"

"You're determined to get into a fight with me." He replied, avoiding the question.

She sighed heavily. "Seto."

"Bait."

She shook her head, not knowing what she thought was going to come out of his mouth, but this seemed to be on target. "Right."

"It's a strategic move." He told her. "I don't want you to be bait."

She raised an eyebrow. "It just happened that way, huh?"

"You're the one that made yourself human again. Don't blame me for taking advantage of the situation."

A strangled laugh left her. "If I thought for one second you were taking advantage of the situation-" She placed significance on the last word, fully implying the new aspect of their relationship, "-I will work out how to release my soul and eat you, or, you know, something ferocious. I don't really think I eat people. That seems a bit much."

His lips quirked up. "Do we taste like chicken? You're the only one I know that could answer that question."

"You have a sick sense of humor." She said, fighting off a laugh despite how weird that was. "What's the matter with you?"

"Mostly you." He replied, standing up and holding his hand out for her to take. "Are you ready to go back inside? I need you there."

"To be good bait?" She teased easily as she took his hand, feeling as if their conversation had stabilized her to a small extent.

He pulled her up, looking guilty, but kept the banter up. "To counter Wheeler's stupidity and lack of charm."

"I take it he made it to the semifinals?" She asked.

"I was nearly rid of him." Seto agreed as they headed back out of the alley. "He was the last one in, as usual. The slow dogs always hang at the back of the pack."

Shaking her head she followed after him, but slowed right before they turned the corner. He glanced over at her and she gave him a strained smile and let go of his hand. "There are about a million reporters right around the corner." She said in way of explanation. While he had said he wanted to be open about this, she didn't think a media storm about his love life right in the middle of his tournament was what he was thinking. It would be better for Kaiba Corp all around if everything was focused on the new duel disk. This would draw attention away from that, away from the product he had worked so hard on. She didn't want to take away anything from all the work he, and the rest of his team, had put into all this. "This should be about the new system, not some sort of crazy tabloid gossip. I don't mind waiting until after the tournament if you want to keep this about the new system." He stared at her for a moment, his face unreadable, then, without a word he took her hand again and walked out into the open. She squeaked in dismay, having not expected this. "Or, we could do this." She all but whimpered, realizing this was going to be insane and thinking she wasn't at the best place mentally to handle it.

He spoke as they headed back up the stairs, unnoticed for the first few yards, and clearly pleased with himself. "There won't be any reporters at the semifinals. Only Kaiba Corp cameras and broadcasting."

"Is that meant to be comforting?" She asked him as anxiety rolled in her belly. She spotted a few reporters glancing over causally, then doing double takes, and all but felt the excited shock at the sight. The first one that noticed lunged over to the cameraman with her, grabbed the lens, and pointed it directly at them speaking to him frantically as she spotted a story. She tried to ignore this, keeping her face blank even as she went on. "Where are we even going?" They had never gotten around to talking about that, and having assumed when this started that she would never make it past round one it hadn't occurred to her to ask him about it. She figured she would end up going regardless anyway, if only to cheer him on.

Seto smirked deviously as more cameras turned to them, a multitude of flashes going off and taking their picture as they moved up the steps and got to the main doors. Letting her go he pulled the door open and held it for her to go in politely. If not for all the attention they were suddenly receiving from their new audience it would have been a completely normal interaction, which made the whole thing even more bizarre to her. "A place where he can't get away."

She stepped through the door, noting that security had been increased since they got here this morning, Roland had put men nearly everywhere, and seeing even more duelist waiting than when she had walked out of the building. Many of them were looking over to see what the commotion outside was as flashes from cameras went off like fireflies in the summer nights. "Are you sure he's even here?"

"Yes." Seto said, his eyes glittering with anger. "He's here, somewhere." He indicated the other duelists, who were surrounded by more reporters and his own crew. "Don't trust anyone here except for Mokuba and I. He could be anyone and he's hiding his magic, but I feel him."

"Wonderful." She muttered, putting a smile on her face. She couldn't imagine this was going to become any less stressful and braced herself for some sort of impact, whatever that might be. She hoped she could keep her head in this game, because the stakes were higher than she had ever anticipated.

Author's Note: No excuses. Sorry for the wait!