Well, who could have thought, that the first hour at the new school would go so smooth? And especially for a girl like her…
The new girl with copper-red hair and sky-blue eyes thought to herself, as she sat down, waiting for her first class. The first hour was spent at the headmasters' office, where her oldest sister was making sure, that the girl would be treated here with respect and that she wouldn't be bullied by anyone because of her family state.
Aria took a gentle stroke through her red hair and gave a little smirk. She was a sixteen year old girl, just adopted from the orphanage by her oldest sister… But that wasn't the fact that made her smile. It was the bullying part. Though Aria was young and not very strong build, she had quite good self-defense skills. What you don't learn when you grow up in a place like that orphanage… A shiver ran down the girls' spine. She hated that place… It always reminded her, how her parents abandoned her. And not even both sisters could take away this feeling of betrayal that she felt.
Aria looked up from her place, when the bell rang. Most of the students were already in the class, talking about their own business, or about the new girl. She didn't really care, what people talked about her behind her back. She already learned to control her anger towards people, who are too afraid to say something in the eyes. The teacher came and everyone sat in their places. Aria noticed a cute boy, her age, with funny spiky hair and a pyramid-like necklace. The boy caught her look and smiled friendly, before sitting to his seat behind her.
The start of the class began as Aria guessed – with her introduction. She fixed her uniform skirt, as she stood in front of the class and looked at everybody with big smile on her face.
"Hello. My name is Aria Beladon. I am sixteen years old, like most of you, and I live with my two older sisters. We moved to Domino city not so long ago, and I was the first one that came to this school. If everything will go as planned, one of my sisters also should join this school next week."
Aria silenced for a moment and looked at the students. Some of them weren't paying any attention to her, some were listening, just because they had to, and few, including the cute looking boy, looked actually interested. The girl cleared her throat and continued.
"I also play this popular game, called 'Duel Monsters'. And, not being very modest, I'd say, I'm pretty good at it." She chuckled. "So, if You want to, You can always ask me to play with You. I won't refuse."
Aria smiled one more time at the students and the teacher, and went back to her seat. Teacher stood up from her desk and walked to where Aria was standing before her.
"Thank you, Ms. Beladon. This was a very nice introduction. I am sure, you and your sister will like in this school." She smiled and took out the text book. "Now, let's turn to page twenty-two."
Aria, along with the other students, did as she was told, but soon she felt a gentle tap on her shoulder. She looked back and saw the same boy with spiky hair. He was leaning over his desk, towards the girl.
"Sorry for bothering you" He said with a gentle voice. "My name is Yugi Moto. I just wanted to ask, would you like to join me and my friends at 'Duel Monsters' game at the next break?"
He gestured towards the two guys and a brown-haired girl, who were sitting at the next row. Aria looked at them and the girl waved at her with a cute smile. Aria looked back at the boy and smiled at him.
"Of course, I'll join."
Yugis' eyes glowed when she agreed.
"That's great. I really want to see how good you are. I've never played with anyone, besides my friends…"
Aria nodded.
"I can't wait to see, what you can do, too…" she said with the same smile, before turning back to the teacher and continuing to study.
The break came quite fast and Aria soon joined one of the guys' desk for a game of 'Duel Monsters'. Yugi introduced Tristan, Joey and Tea to her before starting a match with the blonde guy. The red-haired girl watched the two guys duel, from time to time exchanging some words with Tristan, Tea or Ryou – a silver-haired boy from the same class. Apparently, this was one of the first Joeys games, which meant, he didn't really knew the rules for the game, which quickly led him to defeat. But, even though Joey was an easy opponent, Aria could still see how skilled Yugi was. Very skilled, actually. Aria even had to question herself, when he asked, if she'd like to duel with him. After some thinking, she finally agreed and replaced Joey. She took out her deck, which contained mostly fire and dark type monsters, along with some spell and trap cards. For about ten minutes, they both went head-to-head, showing how good their strategies were and how determined both of them were. Only pure luck could decide ones victory in this kind of match. And for Arias slight disappointment, she wasn't the lucky one today. Yugi brought Dark Magician to the field and destroyed her Crass Clown, leaving her with zero life points. Aria stared at the Dark Magicians' card for a moment, before chuckling lightly and starting to put her cards back to her deck and shuffling it.
"This was a great duel, Yugi." She said, while looking at the boy. "You are a really great duelist"
Yugi blushed a bit, making the gang laugh slightly, and scratched the back of his head sheepishly.
"Thank you. You are really good, too, Aria…" he returned the compliment.
The girl nodded, while putting away her deck.
"My oldest sister taught me everything she knows about 'Duel Monsters'. It really helped me in some parts of my life…" Her eyes became sad for a moment, but she soon shook that look away. "She also buys me cards, like this one, for example" Aria took out her deck again and took out one card. "She gave me this Magician of Black Chaos today, before I went to school. I had it in my hand, when we were playing, Yugi. If I had drawn the Black Magic Ritual card, I would have won…"
Yugi nodded. This was indeed a powerful and rare card.
"Where did your sister bought this card?" Joey asked. "I need this kind of cards too"
Aria thought for a second.
"I think the shop is called 'Kame Game Shop' or something similar…"
Yugi widened his eyes.
"No way… My grandfather owns that shop…"
Joeys and Tristans eyes twitched. "Your grandpa owns a game shop and you tell us that just now?!"
Yugi smiled sheepishly. "I'm sorry, but you never asked before…"
"That's not an excuse!" The guys still went crazy about this.
Aria giggled seeing this and looked at Yugi, who had this apologetic look on his face. When those two were finally calmed down by Tea, Yugi looked at everyone.
"Hey, guys, would you like to see one super awesome rare card that my grandpa has? I think he should agree to show it to us…"
Everyone nodded to his proposal. It would be nice to see, what kind of card was it, so everybody agreed to go to Yugis place after the school.
When the classes were finally over, Aria made a quick call to her older sister, to inform her, that she'll be back a bit later. With hopes, that her sister was too busy to decline this, because of her work with the company, that she opened recently, Aria was quite surprised to hear a 'no'.
"B-but Satin…"
The girl used one and only nickname for her sister, trying to plead for letting her go with her friends.
"Aria, I have no idea who those kids are. I don't want to risk your safety." A voice came from the phone.
"But they're really nice. You already one of their grandfather, remember? At the game shop?" The girl explained and waited for an answer.
The other end was silent for a moment and Aria already expected the worst. Even though she knew, that Satin loved both of her sisters; she was also very protective of them. Aria almost managed to talk her into letting her and their other sister to public school, instead of studying at home with some creepy teachers. Finally, Aria heard a deep sigh and a silent 'fine'.
"Just be back by dinner. If you'll need a ride home, call me, I'll send a car to get you…"
Aria jumped slightly in the air.
"Thank you, Satin! I love you!" and after hearing the same from her sister, she hang up and went towards the gang, who were standing a bit further, waiting for Aria to finish her conversation with her sister.
After hanging out for couple of hours with Yugi, Joey, Tristan and Tea, Aria finally was going home. It was almost dinner, and she had to get home in time, so she called her sisters driver Louis and asked for a ride home. The car soon moved, after she sat in the back seat. The girl looked through the darkened window, not really concentrating what was outside of the car, but more thinking what happened at the game shop.
When all of them finally rushed in to the shop, Yugi called for his grandpa. The old, but nice looking, man popped out his head from behind the counter and, seeing, that his grandson brought his friends, slowly stood up, leaving everything, whatever he was doing down there, for some other time.
"Oh? Customers?" He asked, looking at all of them.
"No grandpa. I brought my friends because they wanted to see your super awesome rare card" Yugi explained. "Can we see it, grandpa? Please?"
After this everyone started to plead grandpa Moto, so they could see the card, including Aria. Grandpa thought for a minute and shrugged.
"Why not? Just be careful with it"
He took a small box from behind the counter and opened it. Inside, there was a dragon type card.
"Behold. My Blue-eyes White Dragon. A very rare card." He explained with a proud voice.
"Huh? It doesn't look very special to me…" Joey said, while taking the Blue-eyes out of the box.
Grandpa grabbed the card from Joey.
"I said, be careful. It's a very precious card to me."
Aria looked at Joey. "And really rare, too. There are only four in whole world. My sister would go crazy for this card… She loves dragons…"
Grandpa looked at her with questioning look, while putting the dragon back in the box.
"Your sister? The one, that bought Magician of Black Chaos from me?"
Aria nodded.
"Yeah, she's my sister…"
"She already saw my Blue-eyes and even asked, if she could buy it, but I explained her, that it's not for sale for sentimental reasons, and she was polite enough to stop asking about this…" Grandpa said while smiling.
Aria also smiled. Yeah, that sounded like Satin… Grandpa already wanted to hide his rare card, but the door suddenly opened and a tall brown-haired guy, with the same school uniform and a briefcase, entered the room. Joey looked at him and smiled a bit.
"Kaiba? I didn't knew you were interested in 'Duel Monsters'. Maybe we could play sometime?"
Aria looked at the guy with the briefcase and raised her eyebrow. 'So, this is Seto Kaiba?' She heard about him couple of times. 'CEO of the Kaiba Corp.' she thought and frowned. 'What is he doing here?' Her question was soon answered,
After Kaiba 'politely' declined Joeys offer to play together, he made his way to the counter, where the dragon card was laying. He greedily gazed at the rare card, before turning to grandpa Moto.
"I am here for your Blue-eyes White Dragon. In exchange, I offer you this." He opened the briefcase and put it on the counter. It was full with all kinds of 'Duel Monsters' trading cards.
'So many cards for one Blue-eyes?' Aria thought, looking at the briefcase. 'Wow. Kaiba really wants this card…'
Grandpa looked at the cards that the guy was offering to him, thinking. He finally shook his head.
"No, sorry, but no deal"
Kaiba frowned and took out his checkbook.
"Then the price. Say how much. Five, ten thousand, one million dollars?"
Yugis grandpa shook his head again.
"You don't understand. This card is not for sale. It's too precious for me… A dear friend gave it to me as a sign of our friendship… I can't sell it."
Yugi smiled at his grandpas words.
"You would say the same, even if it's not a strong and rare card, right grandpa?"
Solomon Moto nodded. "That's right" He looked at Kaiba, who was furious at the moment.
"It's not over, old man. I will have that dragon!" he yelled and walked out of the shop, after taking his briefcase.
Aria stepped out of the car and looked to the building she now was calling home. The building was huge, well, for her, at least. It was like a palace to her, even though, it was just a small manor with two floors. A small banquet hall, work room, kitchen, dining room on the first floor and six bedrooms and few activity rooms on the second. Satin bought this house after she got the money, which she inherited from her father. Aria sighed and smiled lightly. She was lucky, that she met those two girls at the orphanage… They were her sisters now… And she was lucky, not only because she managed to get out of there, but also because she didn't felt alone anymore. She had a family… She was happy… What could a girl want more? Aria chuckled from this thought, while getting inside. Well, maybe a good duel…