Cairo, Egypt

The plane touched down after the eighteen hour long flight. One of the last passengers to get off was Miko Hayashi. She stumbled as she tried to juggle her many bags. The flight attendant grabbed one of the heavier bags before Miko was about to fall. Miko tried to laugh it off but blushed anyway. She thanked the woman as she rearranged the cargo. Finally she was ready to make her way to the taxi area. She looked around at the many people rushing to and fro. "Mister Kaiba said that there would a limo waiting around here somewhere." Miko sighed and started walking through the crowd. Local Egyptians stared at her as she passed. 'Is it something I'm wearing?' Miko thought as she tried to give off a friendly smile. She paused to look at her outfit. She wore a simple dark purple, three quarter sleeve shirt and black pants. She had her Kaiba Corp jacket on which was black, went down to her mid-calves, and the silver KC logo was on the collar. The Egyptian wind was chilly and she pulled the jacket tighter around her.

A man in desert robes walked up to her and smiled. He wore a turban and sunglasses. The man had a badge on his chest that bore the company name, External Data Resources. He smiled at her. "Hello, you must be from Kaiba Corporation. I am Asahi and I was sent to take you to your hotel."

Miko blinked a few times then giggled. "I'm glad you are here, I was afraid I would have to catch a cab. See I forgot the hotel's name that my reservations are at and it would suck to have to have the cab go to every hotel in Cairo." She laughed louder and handed her luggage to the man. Miko was a little bit of an airhead when it came to having to remember little things. She accredited most of her forgetfulness to the stress her job caused her. Miko worked closely with Seto Kaiba as his Chief Graphic Designer. Mr. Kaiba had sent her to Egypt to meet with the executives at EDR to show them the latest in his Duel Disk systems. Kaiba was allowing her to arrive a few days early to prepare and a few days after to enjoy the country. She was happy that he decided to, it would give her plenty of time to do her side research.

Once the limo pulled out and into the heavy bumper to bumper traffic, Miko pulled out one of her textbooks. She graduated her designing program over a year ago, having already finished most of the classes in high school. Three months ago she began to secretly take classes in order to study reptiles. She was fascinated with the creatures and they were her passion in life outside of her work. Although she knew that she had no need to keep her extra classes a secret, she still chose to. Seto Kaiba, her boss, would never understand her passion to reptiles and would never let her live it down. Not only that, but he believed that she should only focus on his work and would never accept her trying to focus on anything but. He would probably just triple her work load out of spite to get her to quit her studies anyway. Yeah, he boss was an ass but she still admired him for the way he made the company into what it was today.

The limo parked out front of the hotel and the man opened the door for her. She thanked him and watched as he gave the bellboy the copy of her reservations. 'This company sure is pulling out all the stops to make my visit go off without a hitch. I can't wait to walk around the city and see what information I can gather on the wildlife.' Miko smiled and followed the bellboy to her room. The room was beautifully decorated in tan paint and dark oak wood. The bed was covered in Egyptian silk sheets and smelled strongly of honeysuckle. Miko smiled and put her bags in the closet. She looked around the empty room for anyone. Smiling to herself she ran and jumped onto the bed. "Bonsai!" she yelled as she dove for the soft mattress. She laughed as she bounced on the springy bed. "I haven't been able to do this in years." She sat on the side of the bed and stretched her arms out. "So what should I do first?"

Miko dug through one of her bags for her notebook. She stuffed it into her messy purse. She took the keycard for the hotel room from the table the stuffed it into her jacket pocket. Finally she grabbed her phone and dialed the Kaiba Corp. number. When the secretary answered she asked for Seto Kaiba. After two minutes her boss came on the phone, he sounds irate like normal. "What is it? This better be good you are interrupting a meeting." He barked into the phone.

'I always interrupt a meeting asshole. If you didn't fucking decide to work all the time maybe you might be tolerable.' Miko put a smile on her face; the last thing she wanted was to fight with her boss again. "I just wanted to let you know I arrived safely in Egypt, Mr. Kaiba."

He growled softly. "Why the fuck do I care? Call me after you have your meeting with the EDR."

Miko forced her smile to stay on her face; if it fell she would start yelling at him. "Yes sir, but the meeting isn't for two days."

"Then don't call me for two days. Oh and make sure you are not late. If this deal falls through you can kiss your job and your teams' job goodbye Miss Hayashi." Seto hung up the phone.

Miko shoved the phone violently into her purse. "Douchebag, mother fucker, arrogant asshole; why do I put up with him? I knew I should have taken that job at Industrial Illusions, but no! I wanted to work closer to home and therefore settled for Seto fucking Kaiba. I knew I should have listened to my instructor when he warned me about Kaiba." Miko sighed and punched a pillow, pretending it was Kaiba's face.

Miko worked her hardest for him, but it was never enough. After one project was completed, two more would take its place. With each new project would come even faster and more outrageous deadlines. Only once did she not get a project done on time and Kaiba flew off the handle. He almost fired her that day but after he saw the phenomenal work she was doing, he extended the deadline. Now she would push herself to exhaustion in order to finish each and every project on time. Ever since the Duel Disk project was started, Kaiba was pushing her and her team to the extremes. He was even more uptight and assholeish than normal. It was starting to get to Miko and on more than one occasion she had considered giving him a piece of her mind but then she remembered the one and only time that she and her boss got into it.

Kaiba was on a tirade about a project that wasn't exactly like he envisioned and it was pushing Miko to her limits. She stood up in the meeting room, in front of Maximillion Pegasus and about three other top executives from multiple companies and let into him. The two went back and forth for hours until Miko finally walked out. She should have quit that day but she didn't. The one thing about the job with Kaiba was that he would push her to do her best and constantly challenge her talents, and she loved it. He might be an incredibly, insensitive Nazi but at least he allowed her to be all she could be and strived to bring out her best.

Miko smiled as she walked out of the hotel. She turned north and walked randomly into the city. She passed a lot of people who were busy talking in Egyptian. Soon Miko found herself in the heart of the city's marketplace. She stared wide eyed at the bustling city around her. After digging for her camera, she began snapping pictures of the various stands. Suddenly she ran right into something or someone. She screamed and rushed to get back up onto her feet. Her camera and bag were still scattered onto the ground. She brushed her jacket off. "Man what in the world did I hit?" She looked around and noticed random fruits and vegetables lying on the ground. She stared at them before noticing the man starting to get back up to his feet. "Oh my god, I am so sorry!" she said as the realization struck her that she hit another person. "Are you okay?"

The man laughed and looked up at her. "Yes I'm alright, no harm done." The man had beautiful purple eyes and sandy blonde hair. He stood up and brushed the sand from his tan slacks and purple vest.

Miko smiled and tried to hide her blush. 'I need to stop walking when I'm trying to do something. I always wind up running into something or in this case a nice guy trying to buy groceries.' Miko bent down and retrieved the man's basket. She quickly gathered all the produce and handed him the full basket. "I'm really sorry about that, I'm such a klutz." Miko reached back down to retrieve her bag and camera. She stuffed the camera back into her bag.

The man laughed. "Don't worry about it miss; I tend to run into things a lot too. My name's Marik Ishtar." He offered his hand out to her and gave her a warming smile.

Miko shook Marik's hand. "I'm Miko Hayashi. Do you live around here Marik?"

Marik looked around nervously. "I live outside the city. I actually have to run if you don't mind Miss Miko."

Miko furrowed her brows. "Okay then. I hope I'll see you around soon."

Marik smiled, his eyes beaming. "Sure, I'll be here tomorrow afternoon. You should come and I'll show you around the city."

Miko smiled. "How did you know I wasn't from around here?"

"Simple, because you are wearing a Kaiba Corp. jacket, I haven't seen that logo since we got back from Domino City." He said.

"Oh so you've been to Domino?" Miko giggled a little, she hadn't expected to meet a friend out here. She thought that most people here wouldn't know English let alone be a friend to her.

Marik looked around again; he seemed to be on the lookout for someone. "We'll have to talk later Miko. I really have to go, sorry." Marik sprinted off towards the western portion of the city.

Miko watched him as he went. On the outskirts of the marketplace, Marik met up with a tall man. The mostly bald, tanned man was there waiting for him. He looked slightly annoyed to the young man. They both walked towards the city's gate. Miko smiled and walked towards a building that looked the most like a restaurant. The smells from the building were sweet and the attracted Miko. After a nice meal, she began to wander back towards the hotel. It took her twice as long to find the building as it should have. Once back in her room, she slipped into a shower. Afterwards she sat her alarm and went to bed. Tomorrow she would start her research and might her new friend.

Next time: the start of Miko's journey into the depths of Egypt and the mysterious Marik tells her about the secrets the desert may hold for her.