"So I have," he agrees. If Dragon is anything, it's patient. He always bides his time, when the stakes are serious. He's spent more than a year cooped up in Haruto's Underworld, biding his time to strike between one heartbeat and the next. Waiting until Kirika will have no support is child's play.

"My business?" he asks, mock-confused. "I merely desired to speak to you." She, unlike Oriko, is steeped in despair. "Reassure you that the fate of your partner is as sealed as yours, perhaps." It wouldn't do, to leave one without the other.