Hello folks! Thank you for being patient!

College and job searching has been keeping me busy so I'm sorry about the extremely snail pace updates. I would try to promise to keep to a certain schedule…but we all know that genius doesn't like to be rushed.

Anyways, here's another chapter for you to enjoy. Admittedly, it isn't very long and is more of a connector between major events. Seriously, I cannot wait for one of the upcoming chapters because it is so dramatic! And Kaiba isn't even in it! But hopefully you all can be patient, especially for the chapter when Kaiba does appear.

Anyways, did anyone guess the card the last chapter is based off of? If you guessed Lucky Chance, you were right! Now this one is little harder, but I'll give you a hint: it's a monster card of royalty and eight stars. Think you can guess her name? Good luck!

Disclaimer: I do not own anything of Yu-Gi-Oh!

Chapter 3: Meeting of Fate – Friends

—Unknown PoV—

"What do you mean you lost him?!" the man thundered, slamming his hands on his polished mahogany desk.

The two men standing before him in the well-furnished office flinched harshly at the loud sound, quivering lightly where they stood in the face of their boss's anger. One was sporting a broken nose, and the other had a bandage wrapped around his head as well as a bruise across his left cheek. Both of them were also sporting decently sized goose eggs on the back of their heads.

"How the hell do you lose a twelve-year-old kid?!

"We're sorry sir! We—," the first thug-for-hire stuttered.

"You're sorry? You're sorry?!"

"There was this girl! She came out of nowhere!" thug-for-hire number two blurted, either ignoring or completely missing his comrades' panicked expression.

The man's expression hardened. "You mean to tell me," he hissed like a snake, tone sub-zero and dropping. "That you two not only lost Mokuba Kaiba but got your asses handed to you by some little girl?"

With little left to lose, the duo nodded vigorously, faces pale and sweating bullets, their expressions petrified from absolute terror.

"YOU INCOMPETENT IDIOTS!"

—Mokuba's PoV—

After the first two hectic encounters with the enigmatic mystery known as Rose Arknight, Mokuba for once to ran into her in a more harmless everyday sort of scenario. Well sort of.

We had been out walking around Domino City for a bit, heading for the arcade maybe, when he heard a familiar voice say casually, "Well this is a surprise."

Whipping around, he smiled in greeting upon seeing the girl. "Hey Rose!"

"What's up Champ?" the silver-haired girl said, adjusting her hat with her free hand. She asked teasingly, "Not throwing a party or playing tag today?"

He rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment at the subtle reference to their last meetings. "No."

"Well that's good. So whatcha doin' out here?"

"Nothing really," he admitted falling into step beside her. "I was thinking of heading to the arcade, but—." His stomach suddenly growled, finishing his sentence for him and setting his lightly tanned features ablaze with blush.

Violet eyes dancing with mirth, Rose laughed lightly before saying, "Well, why don't you join me for lunch then since I'm already heading that way? My treat."

—3rd person PoV, Half an hour later—

"No way!"

"Yeah and he keeps trying to turn the key to get it to work. But it's raining you know and he cursing up a storm and everything because he keeps getting shocked by static each time he turns the key, and his truck wouldn't start," Rose explained, a huge grin in place and violet eyes laughing as she used her hands to illustrate her story between sandwich bites.

"And none of the guys who saw you working on his truck told him?" Mokuba marveled, an equally huge grin on his features. He took another small bite from his hamburger.

"Nope," she said, popping the 'p' sound. The look on her face could only be described as entirely too impish as she grinned.

Mokuba laughed, nearly choking on his soda as he did so. "That's awesome! What happened afterwards? Did he figure it out or something?"

"No. Eventually I just told him to pop the hood and fixed it."

"And what did he do when he realized it was you?"

"Well, he tried to curse me out and ended up laughing, telling me quite plainly that I was a devil incarnate and wondering why he made friends with a crazy person like me," Rose informed him quite plainly, the innocent tone making the story all the more hilarious.

Mokuba laughed some more.

"What about you kid?" she asked, using a French fry—stolen from Mokuba's plate—to point at him. "Got any good stories from school?"

But he just shook his raven-colored head. "No, our teacher is pretty strict. She barely lets us out to recess and makes us do all these difficult projects." His face spoke of utter misery via students dying, or as it's also known as, studying.

Her expression turned sympathetic at that. "Awe that's no fun. What's your current project about?"

"She's making us do a project about real world jobs. We're supposed to be doing some sort of community service for a month or so, I guess to 'get a feel for applications of math, reading and science in everyday life jobs'," he told her, making bunny ears to emphasize his teacher's words, expression less than pleased.

Rose sipped her soda. "That's rough. So who are you going to shadow? Someone in your family?"

Mokuba made a face. "Well I was going to help my big brother since I sort of do that every day, but…" he trailed off.

"'But…'?" the table's female occupant prompted, sensing there was more to the story.

"Well, I don't know really. I feel like it's overused or something. Like I'm relying on my brother too much," he admitted in a low tone.

Absently, Rose wondered if she should say something but quickly shook it off. She had no place saying something about the kid's family when she barely knew him. So instead, she did her best to give him a comforting look as she said, "Well I hope things work out for you. I wish I could help, but I can't really say I have much experience with that sort of scenario."

"That's okay Rosie. Thanks anyways." He offered a smile to show there were no hard feelings.

The silver-haired girl cocked a brow in the boy's direction at the new nickname. But instead of keeping her mouth shut and letting the conversation die, Rose decided to take the chance to start teasing the kid a little, if only to keep the conversation from dying. "Really? Of all related nicknames for Rose in the entire world, you chose 'Rosie'?" She wore a teasing smirk, letting him know she was only joking.

The kid grinned and the conversation carried on from there, all the way to the time they both stepped out of the door of the diner together.

"Well I guess this is—," Rose cut herself off, catching sight of a familiar duo walking towards them from the direction Mokuba's back faced. "Mokuba, don't look now but our friends from our last encounter are heading our way. Six o'clock."

The kid tensed. "Really?"

"Yep, and they especially don't look too happy to see me of all people," she muttered back, eyes locked on both guys. That was an understatement. Both of them looked pissed when her eyes met theirs (even if she couldn't see behind their sunglasses), cracking knuckles and flexing muscles threateningly as they approached.

"What are we going to do?" the kid hissed. He looked torn between panicking and flat out bolting for cover.

Rose paused.

"I've got an idea. But it's crazy." The older girl caught his gaze and sent him a small smirk. "You willing to take a chance and follow my lead, Champ?"

Mokuba only hesitated for a second before returning the expression and giving her a firm nod. He knew he could trust her.

"Okay here's the plan…"

—Later—

Door swinging wide open, Mokuba helped Rose limp through the door as much as it was possible for him to do so.

"Thanks again for the help Champ. I don't know how I would have got home otherwise," Rose said.

"That's okay Rose. I'm glad I could help you out," he replied before a huge grin took the place of the sweet smile on his face. "I still can't believe you did that by the way. I mean letting them get close enough to get us then turning around at the last moment and charging them, yelling 'Psyche!' That was hilarious!"

He giggled uproariously, still supporting her.

"Well I still can't believe that we managed to lose them only for me to end up twisting my ankle just by stepping off of a curb," the girl with amethyst eyes pouted a little, wincing when she accidentally used her injured foot to try to walk.

"So did you just move here?" the kid asked, obviously noticing all the boxes lying about as they headed to the set of stairs on the left.

"Yeah," she admitted, making her way slowly down the steps with extreme caution. There was no need to add a broken neck to the mix. "Moved here less than a week before I first met you."

After barely making it down the steps that led down to the garage area, Mokuba then helped her over to one of the desk chairs before finally letting go, watching the older girl plop herself down without further ado and hiss a little in either relief or pain. However, as he finally turned around to take in his new surroundings, his eyes caught on an oddly familiar form in the corner of the garage.

"Whoa, is that a motorcycle?" he suddenly gasped in excitement as he took in the half-covered machine. From what he could see of the scarlet-colored machine, it looked nothing like the normal two-wheeler's he had seen aside from the overall shape. Nonetheless, it wicked from what he could see.

"Uh-huh," she said with a little grunt, grabbing an empty wastebasket from nearby, flipping it over, and proceeding to haul her newly injured leg onto the makeshift footstool for inspection.

"Wow. I never knew you had one, though I guess I should have known better with the way you dress."

Drawing back her pant leg a little, Rose felt around the inflamed and steadily swelling area, wincing once or twice. Admittedly, she was no medical expert, but nothing felt broken. So hopefully, the injury was only a minor sprain of some kind, and not a torn ligament or anything else as equally serious. "Oh yeah?" she panted, grunting a little more. "And what's that supposed to mean? 'The way I dress?'"

He knew she was only teasing him despite edge the pain gave her voice. "Rosie, you dress like some wannabe punk or something."

"Gee thanks," she snarked with candid dryness, finally drawing back from her examination until her spine hit the soft leather of the chair.

He laughed at that, noticing how her amethyst eyes twinkled a little in good humor.

"So what are you going to do, Rose?" he finally asked in a worried tone. Part of him felt like it was his fault. "What about your job? You can't go to work like this."

He seemed so genuinely concerned; Rose felt touched he cared so much. How long had it been since someone showed that kind of care for her general state of being? At least over or close a decade, give or take a couple years.

"Don't worry," she assured, leaning back in her seat, foot still elevated. She'd get ice later. "I'm going to be running an auto repair shop out of here, but not for a little while yet still."

"Neat. But I still feel bad you got hurt because of me."

"Hardly," she snorted wryly. "The only reason I got hurt was because of my own stupidity and mine alone. Don't even think of blaming yourself."

"But—"

"'But' nothing, Champ. Trust me kid, hang around me long enough and you'll find that I'm still pretty klutzy on my own without anyone's help needed."

"Fine."

He still didn't look exactly convinced as he said it though.

Knowing she needed to do something to get him to cheer up, Rose decided to change tactics. Maybe distracting him could work? But how and with what?

Maybe I could ask him that? she thought to herself when an idea surfaced. It might work. And I definitely could use the help now that my foot is injured.

"Hey, Mokuba," she said. "You remember that project you were telling me about earlier for your school?"

"Yeah? What about it?" he retorted curiously.

"Well I was thinking," Rose began carefully, monitoring the kid's expression closely as she spoke. "Since my ankle is going to put me out of commission for a couple days, even after I heal somewhat, I'm still going to need a little help around here keeping things in order once I open up the garage."

"And?" What she was getting at here?

"Well, how would you feel about helping me around my mechanic's garage sometime, and maybe even help me tinker with my motorcycle a little and a couple of my other projects too if we get the chance?"

The kid gaped openly at her for a moment for suddenly coming back to himself and lighting up like a Christmas tree.

"That would be awesome Rose! Thank you!"

"Just be sure to get permission from your family too alright? Just so they know you're here."

"I will! I promise you won't regret this!"

A/N:

Awe! Mokuba and Rose are getting closer! Hopefully, we'll see Kaiba in the next chapter though. I know you all are anxious to see him again. But just be aware that he and Rose aren't going to meet for a while yet still. That's for later.

Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed and will be kind enough to leave a review and maybe a favorite or follow for myself and this story! Oh and please check out my Polls. They do change once in a blue moon or two and sometimes the results impact certain stories if I get enough feedback (like say 10-20 different voters).

Still, please leave a review and have a wonderful day!