#truth be told i kept putting it off because i haven't reread the manga for years and i was really struggling to find the concentration for

[shadowgamed]

Magic, the occult, ancient Egyptian spirits and nonsense talk of fate and legacies of the past... it's all nothing but bullshit.

Seto knows that. No matter what, it has to be true. He's not stupid - he knows the things he's seen, but... Seto is a man of science, and he also knows just how unreliable the human mind can be. Perception is a fragile thing, and the mind is easily tricked and influenced by what it thinks to be true... that in combination with the solid vision system he created opens up a great number of explanations, most involving the shock of that system on the mind being far greater than he anticipated.

Deep down, it feels like he's making excuses. But is a far-fetched scientific explanation really any more absurd than a supernatural one? Besides, even if by some miracle the supernatural really was real, there's no way-

-He'd ever be a part of it. Seto's mouth curls into a grimace at the thought. It all comes back to the mind. His own, loathe as he is to admit it, has been a mess lately. Ever since Battle City, when he'd finally thought that Yugi might have been right; that there was more value to friendship than he had first thought... he thought he'd finally been ready to start again with Mokuba, but letting go of the chains of the past is harder than it sounds. It infuriates him. Seto Kaiba is a man of the future - no past can hold him down or stop him from doing what he wants to do!

But he's impatient, and the road before him is a slow one. Still, though - just when he'd felt like a weight had been lifted from his chest, it now feels like a new, different one has replaced it just as quickly. It hadn't been that way at first... he'd been happy with Mokuba, taking steps towards their dream, but it had snuck up on him slowly and with the subtlety of a serpent - so the question is: what changed?

He wants to see Yugi. That's something he knows for sure. The thought that it's something he needs is something that he won't acknowledge, so instead, he tells himself it's to challenge him again. That's the reason he came back to Japan, and yet... right now, faced with him again - all he can manage to muster up is a sneer.

You look like you weren't expecting to see me. Is it really that much of a surprise?"

@nevertem ( starter for atem! )