This idea has been floating around my head for awhile. It takes a cliche story line but I hope to spin it in a different way to do myself (and you reader) some true justice.

All criticism and comments are appreciated- please no flames, I would like constructive criticism only. The only way I will be a better writer is if you, the readers, tell me what needs to be worked on.

I've normally done only one shots with the exception of one story that I didn't even finish. I am hoping to remedy that and rewrite that one and I promise, I solemnly swear, I will be completing this story.

I have taken some creative liberties with this story- it is not completely canon. I will be ignoring most of the original story arcs and creating my own alternate universe. I don't necessarily consider it AU because I'll be keeping the main elements that make Yu-Gi-Oh what it is. If I had to wager what I am keeping canon, I would say trust in what happened up until the Rare Hunters/Gozaburo Kaiba saga. Tournament has ended; my story begins. I will also be using the Japanese names for characters i.e. Anzu, Jounouchi and Honda instead of Tea, Joey and Tristan.

Please enjoy.

There was something about her that just pissed him off. And Seto Kaiba wasn't one to let petty little things get under his skin but here he was, glaring at her as if she were dog shit on his shoe.

Sure, he could probably list a few things that were the most obvious. The first was her undeniable loyalty to her friends. Just watching her give undying support to the mutt, the midget and the biker (he had yet to come up with a suitable insult for him but he was Seto Kaiba, he'd come up with something devastating) made him sick to his stomach. The brunette girl was smiling brightly at her companions, patting that infernal dog on the back as he declared his vengeance on some duelist that had bested him the other day.

Yeah he could take the easy way and point that flaw out. But... that just wasn't it.

The second might've been her naive nature. She just didn't seem to understand that she was a female and as such, individuals of the opposite gender (or sometimes same depending on who was looking) were going to look for the attractive features that were ingrained in society's mind. The fact of the matter was she had several of these attractive features; he had no shame in admitting to himself that her legs were something most men would kill to have wrapped around them. But she didn't seem to notice that. Even her own friends, the so-called pursuers of justice in the dueling world, would stare when she would bend over to retrieve a fallen pencil knocked carelessly to the side. But she had no idea; she would straighten herself up, beam at them over her accomplishment, and continue the conversation as if nothing strange had happened and that their eyes certainly weren't glazed over from the view they had just received.

That too would be an easy thing to be irritated over but goddamn it, that wasn't it either.

Perhaps it was the third- how damn close she'd gotten to Mokuba recently. After their adventures with his tournament a month ago, her little noble act of saving Mokuba from the clutches of Marik's men had snared the younger Kaiba hook, line and sinker into her delicate grasp. All the boy could talk about was how amazing the girl had been, how brave she was, how sweet she would be when she'd speak to him, all these things that made Seto sick to his stomach. And what was worse was the infernal blush that would be painted on Mokuba's face as he praised her; wouldn't it be his forsaken luck that his little brother had some crush on the friendship preacher of his foe's group?

But still. That wasn't the problem.

A loud crash and a burst of laughter shook him from his angry list of dislikes, his gaze snapping upwards to lock with the group as they cackled incessently at Jounouchi lying on the ground from some (apparent) awkward stumble.

His glare intensified sharply as her own azure colored eyes made contact with his. Her lips broke into a wide smile as she gave him a slight wave before returning to her friends and their current amusement.

Seto's eyes widened instantly before he bit back a snarl. That's what it was. That's what bothered him so damn much that he couldn't stand the sight of her moreso than that of the mutt.

She wasn't afraid of him.

Maybe that was too harsh; it wasn't fear that he wanted. But there should have been some negative emotion emanating from her towards him. He wasn't a saint, he had proven that several times in all the instances they had run into each other. He was a privileged bastard and he knew it. That was the Seto Kaiba reputation. But yet each time he ran into her, no matter how many times she would try to reprimand him for his attitude or get frustrated with his lack of empathy to any situation, she would still smile at him as if he was another friend of hers.

His hand gripped the pencil on his desk tightly, staring at the floor with a suddenly calm and somber appearance. It was all so clear that he didn't understand why it took him so long to figure it out. He wanted her to hate him, loathe him, curse his name every time she woke up and wish for his misery when she went to sleep at night. Nobody was that pure of heart that they couldn't muster up the simplest emotion of hate.

The pencil snapped from his strong grip, carelessly tossed aside a moment later now that its usefulness had all but disappeared. Fortunately for him, it was their lunch break and the classroom was empty save for himself and the group in front of him. He didn't need the unneeded stares as he made his perusal of the situation facing him and his reactions of said perusal.

It only took him another second to hear her voice as she spoke to her friends, soft and melodious, fill his senses before the irritation was back on track, the irritation that was quickly transceding into rage.

She continually misunderstood all of his intentions every time he assisted them; he was a selfish man and only did things for his own gain. While the rest of the group had the knowledge that this was who he was and accepted the fact that he was not one to do favors out of the goodness of his heart, she still seemed to regard him in some sort of reverance and held him on a pedestal that he wanted to watch crumble at his feet.

He wanted Anzu Mazaki's hatred. He wanted to prove that this seemingly unblemished woman could feel anger and misery and all those negative things that Seto thrived on himself. He wanted to break her; he wanted to destroy her; he wanted to hold her heart in his hand and slowly crush it in front of her eyes.

He would. By god he would.

"So uh... Anzu, have you noticed Kaiba glaring at you for the last ten minutes?"

Yugi's words caused all the laughter to abruptly end as all four of them took a not-so-secretive glance at the CEO in question. His gaze was no longer on them but from the look on his face plus the remnants of a destroyed pencil littering the floor around his desk, it wasn't too hard to believe Yugi's statement.

Jounouchi immediately straightened himself to his full height and made a move to stomp towards the man seated ten feet away from them but was halted almost instantly by the three at his side. "Let me at 'im, if he's makin' some sort of angry face at our Anzu, he needs ta get a swift kick in the ass!" he yelled loudly, somehow not gaining Kaiba's attention as he made his declaration. Honda was the first to actually pull him back away from the scene, shaking his head at his friend's hot-headed reaction. "Dude, just let it go, man. He's probably still pissed off that he lost his tournament and probably didn't have a chance to glare at her yet. I've seen him glare at all of us before; this ain't any different," he said with a shrug, watching with an internal sigh as Jounouchi seemed to accept this thought process and calm down slightly.

Both Anzu and Yugi released a breath they hadn't realized they were holding before dropping their grips on his jacket. They shared a grin and their own shrugs at his attitude, watching as he quickly moved onto another subject of conversation and forgetting his previous issue instantaneously.

As Yugi and Honda both jumped into the new topic of what they would do with their decks when the new packs came out (something that had been rumored for the last week or so) Anzu allowed her gaze to wander back to Kaiba. Oh yes, she had seen the glare he had been throwing her direction; she had tried to offset him with her own smile and wave earlier but it did little to dissuade his attitude. If anything he had seemingly gotten angrier at her actions.

The emotional side of her wanted to walk over there and see if she could get him to talk to her. Lord knew he had no real friends of his own and if he was that destroyed over losing yet again to Yugi, he probably needed someone to talk to that wasn't his little brother. The rational side however knew that if she even made it within arm's length of him, he would deliver some scathing retort on how she should just dance herself right back over to where the group was.

Suddenly his eyes were on her and she forgot to breath.

It was blue on blue as they held their gaze, her throat closing up on her as she tried to figure out the emotions swirling in his own eyes but not being able to decipher anything. She could sense the anger radiating off him but in a moment of clarity, she realized that it might have absolutely nothing to do with Yugi and the tournament and might actually involve her directly.

She was as brave a woman as her friends seemed to think she was; after another ten seconds of the intense staring match, she broke their link and turned back to her friends. A shudder overtook her as she felt him continually stare at her. Anzu wasn't sure exactly what she had done to piss him off but it must've been something pretty serious. She threw caution to the wind and glanced back at him one more time and, without realizing what she was doing, smiled again.

A moment later, Anzu was pulled roughly behind both Jounouchi and Honda as they squared off with Kaiba, his figure tall and imposing as he stood at his full height. In the instant that she had given him the friendly gesture she was known for, the elder Kaiba brother had surged forward from his seat and had been only a few steps from her before her friends dove into the fray instead.

"Da fuck is your problem, man? You got somethin' you wanna say to Anzu, you can say it over der!" Jounouchi shouted as Anzu silently thanked whatever gods there were that they were the only occupants of the classroom. Yugi was at her left side, his gaze curious as he watched the situation. He knew that Kaiba wasn't one to react so suddenly like this and while he knew Kaiba would never physically hurt any of them (except maybe Jounouchi) he wasn't sure what had caused this sudden action.

Honda was once again holding Jounouchi back but not as firmly as he had moments before; he too was in a fighting stance in case Kaiba tried anything he didn't like. The CEO that had caused this sudden uproar let out a harsh laugh. "Oh look, the trained dogs are protecting their owners. Worried that I might do something to your precious keepers, mutt?" he said with a smirk, watching as the blonde tried to launch himself forward to hit him but was held back by a furious Honda. As much as Honda wanted to punch the pompous son of a bitch in the face, doing so would have serious repercussions that he wasn't ready to deal with. "Lay off Kaiba, you're the one who came after Anzu so suddenly!" he stated sharply, his grip tight on Jounouchi's jacket as they both watched Kaiba shrug.

"I'm so sorry that I startled your little dog; I was just getting up to stretch my legs. She just happened to be in my way. Hey Anzu," he said in a drawl, "would you mind calling off your canines? I have better things to do than play dogsitter right now."

He watched with a sense of smug satisfaction as her eyes lit up with an intensity that he was used to, that fire that he saw every time one of her friends was attacked. And he was not disappointed.

"Kaiba, what is your deal, you're the one acting so weird and they were just trying to defend me!" Anzu reprimanded him with her hands on her hips. And in a moment that validated everything that had just been running through his mind, she smiled serenely at him and raised her hands to her heart. "We just want to be friends with you-"

"No we don't."

"-and how can we when you push us away-"

"I can live with dat."

"-everytime we try to reach out to you-"

"That's simple, he's a bastard-"

"That's enough, Jounouchi!" she said with a snarl, a snarl that she would hardly direct at Kaiba when he knew he fully deserved it, but instead delivered to her own friend as she smacked him over the head. He watched for a few moments as they bantered angrily back and forth over his attitude and her desire to be friends with the enemy before he cleared his throat and stepped forward. Immediately silence fell and both Jounouchi and Honda were back in their defensive positions but he paid them no heed as he stared coldly at Anzu, his next words obviously directed at her.

"I have no interest in being friends with you. With any of you. And the sooner you realize that I'm nothing but a businessman, someone who is only interested in his own personal gain and not interested in your pathetic attempts at some sort of friendship, the sooner we'll all be able to move on with our lives."

The pity he saw in her eyes made him want to scream.

Without another word, he stormed past them all and out of the classroom, leaving four individuals of various mental states behind.

Jounouchi sat down immediately and placed his hands behind his head as he leaned back in his seat. "Ya keep tryin', Anzu and he just don't wanna be friends wit us, and who wants 'im anyways!" he said with a shrug, eyes closed as if that ended the conversation on the matter.

"I know he doesn't want it but maybe he needs it," she responded quietly, her attention falling on the doorway that he had just left from with a look of sadness and determination all wrapped up in one.

She would become his friend. One way or another, she would open this man's heart and get him to finally accept people outside of Mokuba into his life.

She would. By god, she would.

There. Chapter one is finished. It's been a little bit since I've written anything out like this so please please please, constructive criticism is greatly appreciated. If I'm doing something right, let me know. And all ideas are welcome! I know (in a general sense) of what direction I want to go in but all variables in between are up for debate.

This should end up being the shortest chapter of them all since it's an introductory one. Hopefully it does not disappoint.