Dead. This was just how Malik felt that morning. Then again, he had felt dead for a long time. From the time he felt the burning knife slicing his back to this very moment, this was always how he had felt, dead. Was he any more than a walking zombie? Malik gazed down at his breakfast expecting some sort of an answer.

"Are you going to eat that at all?" Malik's sister Ishizu asked. Her blue eyes reflected deep concern.

"Yeah." Malik mumbled. Ishizu ran a hand through her raven hair.

"Honestly Malik, what's wrong?" she asked, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"Everything." replied Malik.

"Malik, you need to let go of your past, you may have done some less than honorable things but in the end all was well."

"Not even God would forgive me for what I have done."

"This is not true." Malik looked up to see his brother, Rishid. Rishid was a large, sturdy man. His head was bald save a single black ponytail which touched the back of his sinewy neck. "You are a good man Malik."

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The class bell had not yet sounded; Takashi Sensei's class was in its usual pre-class buzz. Malik, while he didn't feel particularly talkative at the moment, had decided to sit with Yugi and company. Yugi was a youthful boy and short of stature, he possessed an odd star-shaped mound of tri-colored hair.

"So," Yugi said, "I heard that we have a new classmate."

"Yeah," replied Jounouchi, a tall blonde, "but I heard that she's a bit of an otaku."

"I had hoped that she might at least be hot." Honda, the tall brunet piped in.

"Don't say such things," retorted Ryou Bakura, the soft spoken boy with silver hair, "We may, after all, be considered card game otaku."

"Exactly, don't be silly!" said Yugi, "By the way, where's Anzu?"

"I am not sure," Malik stated, this was the first thing that he had said to his friends all morning.

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"Sorry I got lost, Anzu, I don't really know my way around yet." A young bespectacled woman with long brown hair and brown eyes walked beside Anzu, the blue-eyed-brunet, down the hallway.

"It's alright, Rin, after all, you just transferred here."

Rin chuckled, half nervously, half jokingly. "I'm a bit of a moron sometimes."

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Takashi Sensei entered the room, the entire classroom fell quiet. "Class," she half shouted, we have a new student, Rin Johansen and she transferred from Sakura High. Her family originally came from America.

"Wadaya know an otaku and a ganjin." Jounouchi whispered to Honda.

Just then, Anzu and a girl that no one had ever seen before entered the room. "Class, this is Rin, Anzu has kindly shown her the way to our classroom." Malik had to admit, for an otaku she wasn't bad looking.

"So, if you are a gaijin, why are you called Rin." One boy in the back of the class piped up, thinking that he was clever.

"Well," replied Rin, the vexation in her voice was obvious, "My real name is Lyn, but my nickname is Rin, has been since I was four."

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Rin was immediately dismissed as a geek by the majority of the class, but she was more than welcome into Yugi and Malik's crew. Malik used this first day of knowing her to really analyze her. Rin seemed outgoing, friendly and intelligent. She did; however, seem to have a certain amount of self doubt and impulsiveness. Every so often, Rin would go off on a tangent in conversation, but all in all seemed like an alright person. Perhaps Malik was being judgmental, he was, after all, sitting back and sizing her up. But this was a mere habit of Malik's as he held the firm belief that he could trust no one.

A/N: So we have finally met Rin. I hope she isn't too boring of a character. XD She's rather normal compared to the cast of Yugioh. We'll learn more about her later.

If I'm not mistaken, Japanese high school students don't switch classes. Their homeroom I where they stay.

Gaijin foreigner, literally foreign devil.