Okay, I know I should be working on the translation of the next chapter of The Dragonrider (and I do, just life happens *sigh*), but yesterday I had the urge to write this scene from another longfic I'm planning to work on after the Kaiba x OC one. That will focus on the life of Seto Kaiba from age 8 to 20.
This snippet I'm sharing now takes place when Seto is 15 years old, soon after the takeover of KaibaCorp and gaining the World Champion title in Duel Monsters.
Summary: A random fortune teller calls him out on the street and actually manages to lure him into her little shop to tell him things he might not want to hear.
Inspired by a certain scene of King of Thorns by Mark Lawrence.
cw: blood-drinking
rating: T (maybe M, but only because of the dark tone and the presence of blood)
Read the story under the cut!
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.
But even though he kept his promise the next day and erased the fortune teller’s shop from the face of the earth, her last prediction seemed to come true: her words had already taken root in his heart, and he knew they would haunt him for many nights to come.
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