Author's Note: Thanks everyone for the feedback! It really does help to push me to keep writing.

Chapter 3: Warning Signs

The mid-afternoon sun was ambushed by dark, ominous clouds, but the rain halted momentarily as Seto Kaiba stepped outside of the school building and into the grassy courtyard. Deep puddles formed in the dying grass that surrounded the sidewalks, making everything outside look like a monochromatic painting in shades of gray. A chilling breeze blew around Kaiba, but he showed no signs a reaction except for the slight fluttering of his hair. Kaiba was buried deep in thought; his own hot rage kept out the cold. Flashbacks of that morning's events raced through his mind and each time only made him angrier and angrier.

There had been an unspoken rule at Domino High about Seto Kaiba: Don't ever mess with him. The rule was established the first day of his freshmen year. A group of seniors threatened Kaiba for his wallet, knowing that he was the heir of Kaiba Corp. and expected a nice fat reward. But not only did Kaiba manage to kick all six of their asses without breaking a sweat, but the next day, all six students were expelled for various reasons. All he had to do was a little background research on each of them, and he was able to find out that each of the six boys had a very dirty history filled with vandalism and other crimes. And if he wasn't able to find a crime on their record, he created one. That was the power of money.

Kaiba considered how to punish the girl who dared to break that unspoken rule. Pulling out his laptop from his briefcase, Kaiba managed to hack into the school database in exactly 4.2 seconds. He had done it before, four years ago, after those six boys attempted to rob him, and now he was going to exact revenge in a very similar way.

Not knowing her name, Kaiba filtered the database by gender, then by height, which he estimated to be about 5'6", and then by eye color, which was brown. He gave a small smirk at how much information the school collected about each student and how well it worked out for him. The nurses' cards each student filled out at the beginning of the school year made it mandatory for each student to fill out this data in the event a student was in an emergency and needed to be physically identified. All the information was entered into the database Kaiba was now sifting through, and to top it all off, each record included a photo. After a few minutes, he finally found the girl he was looking for.

IZUMI MAEDA

STUDENT ID #: 1541526425

ADDRESS: 327 HAKO RD. #24

STATUS: NEW STUDENT (GRADE 12)

AGE: 18

HEIGHT: 5'6"

HAIR: BLACK

EYES: BROWN

SEX: FEMALE

ALLERGIES/ILLNESSES: N/A

- - -

The bell rang for the end of school. The thunderstorm that poured down for the majority of the day was now transformed into a light drizzle. But still, the outside looked bleak and gray as students ran to the various bus stops near campus to wait for their transportation home. A few other students, including Izumi, headed towards the motorcycle parking on the other side of the street from school. Before she could start up her old, rusty but still working bike, a familiar faced popped up in front of her.

"Hi! Remember me?" Yugi said cheerfully, relieved to finally have found the brown eyed girl from this morning. "I'm Yugi Moto, and these are my friends Joey, Tea, and Tristan." he said, as he pointed to each of his friends. "So what's your name?"

"I'm Izumi Maeda. I just moved here from Osaka, so I'm pretty new to this school," Izumi said as she smiled at the group in front of her.

"Listen…" Yugi began, as he started to blush once more, "I just wanted to thank you for what you did this morning. It wasn't necessary at all and I wish I could have stopped you from doing it because it was no big deal or anything, but I'm really sor-"

"Yugi, please, don't apologize," Izumi said. "I don't know what the big deal is about standing up to a bully, but all day long I've had people ask me if I was the girl who fought with Seto Kaiba. It was getting so bad that I just went to the library during lunch so I could avoid all the questioning. I just think everyone is taking this way out of proportion. The thing about bullies is once you stand up to them, they get so shocked that they just stop, so I'm not too worried about Kaiba."

Yugi, Tea, Joey, and Tristan all exchanged glances.

"Your theory might be right about some bullies, but those bullies aren't Seto Kaiba," Tristan said with a sigh. "He once got six senior boys expelled on his very first day of school here because they tried to steal his wallet. Not only did he kick their ass in a fight, but he also got them kicked out of the school, so he wasn't publicly humiliated or anything. Now you, on the other hand, punched him in the face."

Izumi rolled her eyes. "It was a slap, not a punch."

"Really? I heard it was an elbow," Tea said, a confused look on her face.

"I actually heard you shoved him on the ground then kicked him in the face," Joey said with a smile. "At least that's what I wish happened."

"The point is," Yugi continued, "you slapped him in front of everyone, and you left before he could even think of a comeback. Now, if I know Kaiba, and he's not very hard to predict sometimes, he's going to want revenge."

The entire group looked at Izumi with serious expressions, but Izumi didn't seem to absorb their warnings. She merely shrugged and said, "All I know is he's some big CEO of some fancy company and therefore thinks he can get away with anything. Trust me, there's not much in my life he can possibly use against me so revenge won't actually be quite that easily achieved. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get to work."

And with that, Izumi got onto her bike and rode away from the group as they each exchanged looks of fear and disappointment.

"That girl sure is naive," Tristan said, shaking his head. "I just hope she's right about having nothing to use against her, but knowing Kaiba, he'll manage to find something out of nothing. I just hope he doesn't do anything too drastic."

"Knowing him, he probably will," Joey said. And with that, the group made way towards their bus stop and towards home.

- - -

As Izumi rode towards the Intercontinental Hotel in downtown Domino, where she worked as a receptionist, she never once noticed the black sedan with dark, tinted windows following her.