Okay, here's my new Seto/Serenity fanfic written solely because I wanted to. I don't own Yu-gi-oh! (Although I do own a huge stack of SJ magazines with YGO in them, tho).

Reviews appreciated, because the idea for this story came from the depths of my frequently numbed mind and hasn't fully taken any shape yet.

Fire and Ice

By Sakura Takanouchi

Chapter One

School is not exactly a girl's best friend, but here I was at 7:30 in the morning. It was my first day, and I didn't want to be late. That's me, Serenity Wheeler. I had begged my mom to let me go to Domino High, and frankly, I'm surprised she agreed. Now I live in a small apartment not too far from school and just a short walk from where my big brother, Joey, lives.

He's several years older than I am, and we've been living apart ever since our parents got divorced. But he's always been there for me. I don't know what I'd do without him. He also goes to Domino High, another reason why I transferred. He has a lot of really good friends, and I couldn't wait to meet them.

Naturally, Domino High was a fairly big school, and I immediately got lost. I was wandering the halls trying not to look like I was lost, when the bell rang. The hallways emptied in minutes, leaving me alone to wander the halls looking for Lassiter; Room 211.

I noticed after several minutes that I was in the wrong building, and walked outside into a beautiful courtyard.

'This must be so pretty in the springtime,' I thought. There were several trees, and the fall flowers were in bloom. I turned around. No sign indicating the building I was supposed to be in. Then I heard voices coming from a long outdoor hallway, and I followed them. Maybe someone could point me in the right direction.

What I saw was the exact opposite of what I had expected to see. Several tough-looking teenagers were beating up a lone boy, who, despite trying to fight them off, was completely overwhelmed by them.

"How do you like us now, rich boy?" one of the thugs asked meanly. The boy didn't respond, but merely glared at him. He was bleeding from this mouth and had bruises on his shoulder showing through his uniform shirt. The blazer lay in torn shreds on the ground, and his tie was stained red.

I gasped just soft enough for them not to hear me. 'This sort of thing never happened at my old school!' I thought. 'What should I do?' Then, the boy raised his head and stared at me with listless, tired eyes. Eyes that held a pleading look, and yet scorned the thought of it. But they were the deepest shade of blue.

'I've got to help him!' I thought as she picked up a brick from the edge of the walkway.

"Any last words?" the biggest thug asked with a grin. The grin faded to unconsciousness as he fell, revealing me holding the brick above my head.

I was breathing hard, and was trying not to show how scared I was. I screamed, "Go away! Leave him alone!" And they walked slowly towards the building I had come out of.

I knelt beside the boy and offered my hand to help him up. "I should get you to the nurse, but I don't know where it is. I'm new here, and this is my first day. I'm Serenity."

He stood up without taking my hand, and he towered above me. I shrank back, but my back was already against the wall.

"I don't want your sympathy," he sneered and limped off to another building. He almost collapsed after walking several yards away from me.

"Stop! You're going to seriously hurt yourself if you don't let me help you." I put my arm around his shoulder to support him, and he did not resist. With my other hand, I used his tie to wipe away some of the blood that was trickling down his cheek.

"Now, where is the nurse's office?" I asked as we hobbled along in the direction he grunted in. Thankfully, the halls were empty, so no one saw him, or me. In several minutes we reached the nurse's office. I opened the door and helped him inside.

The nurse gasped, and started preparing a bed for him, as well as some antiseptic and cloths to put over the bleeding areas.

"Young man, you are lucky that girl found you. She probably saved your life, and now we have a witness to put those punks out of school," the nurse said.

I helped him sit down on the bed. "I hope you'll be ok," I said with a smile. Then I noticed the time. "Oh my gosh! I'm a half-hour late to my first class! I have to go find it now, I'm sorry to leave you like this," I started to say, but his firm grip on my hand stopped me.

"It's alright, I'll be fine," he said, not making eye contact with me. "And…thanks."

"No problem!" I replied, and left, asking the nurse for directions to my class. I found it easily, and tentatively knocked on the door. At the sound of, "Come in," I opened it and stepped inside. Twenty pairs of eyes stared at me.

"You are the new student we have been expecting? You are…thirty minutes late. Did you get lost?" At my silence the class broke out into laughter. But it was friendly laughter. I instantly felt at ease.

"I am English professor Mr. Lassiter. Class," he addressed, "This is Serenity Wheeler. Although she is a junior, at her old school, she is taking this class, which is why she is here. Please, take the fourth seat in the last row."

I walked down the aisle and sat at my place. The work was not difficult, as we had already gone through this at my old school. I opened my schedule and tried to remember the hallways I had walked down earlier that morning:

7:45-8:00: Homeroom, Lassiter 211

8:05-8:55: 12th grade English, Lassiter 211

9:00-9:50: 11th grade Social Studies, Shirakawa 352

9:55-10:45: 11th grade adv. Japanese, Hinomoto, 124

10:50- 11:40: Advanced Biology, Tsumei 533

11:40- 12:30: Lunch and free time

12:30-1:20: Chorus, Karada 104

1:25- 2:15: Art, Takanouchi 108

2:20- 3:10: Phys Ed, Imato Gym Building

'Today is going to drag along, I can feel it,' I thought sleepily. But I dare not fall asleep on the first day if school!

In a rapid succession of written notes unnoticed by our teacher, I got to know everyone in the class, an they got to know me. I had made several new friends by this process, but I had promised Joey that I'd eat lunch with him today.

My next three classes were all lengthy and boring, except for biology. Tsumei-sensei had taught a very enjoyable class, and we were just beginning the plants unit, one of my favorite topics.

I was beginning to get a feel of the school as that bell rang. I stashed my books in my locker and grabbed my lunch. It was homemade and contained my favorite foods.

On the way, I spotted the nurse's office and stepped inside. She was organizing papers, but she stopped to greet me.

"I was wondering…how is he?" I asked, realizing that I didn't know the name of the man I had rescued.

"Oh, him," the nurse smiled. "He insisted on leaving ten minutes ago to get his lunch, and never returned. He's doing fine."

I thanked her and went into the courtyard I had entered earlier to look for Joey.

I saw him sitting on a brick wall, opening a brown paper bag. I walked over to him and put my hands over his eyes. "Guess who?" I teased.

"Serenity!" He turned around and gave me a hug. "How was your morning?"

"It went great, considering I got lost and was late to my first class," I explained. "All my classes are great, and I made several new friends."

"Great, sis. Meet Tea, Yugi, and Tristan, they're my friends."

I shyly said hello to his friends. Even though he was older than I was, Yugi was so…chibi! And Tea seemed really nice. Tristan was weird, though. He kept staring at me, after we had been introduced. It made me feel uncomfortable, so I edged away from him and talked to Tea.

At a lull in the conversation, I had spotted him over in the corner of the courtyard, with a laptop computer in front of him as he ate. He had on a new blazer, which hid the stains in his tie (either that or he had gotten a new one) and was not surrounded by friends the way I was.

I got Joey's attention and asked, "What is his name… him, over there, with the laptop?" I pointed to show him whom I meant.

Joey did not reply, but I noticed his hands were clenched into fists. "Don't… talk about him… in my presence," he muttered through clenched jaws.

It was Yugi who answered for me. "That's Seto Kaiba. He owns the company KaibaCorp downtown. I guess he's an ok person, and a great duelist, although he is quiet, and aloof. He's a senior, in our classes, but I have never known him to talk at all during our classes. In fact, today is the first day he's gone to school in a week."

So I finally knew his name. But the anger my brother had shown at the mention of his name confused me. "Why do you dislike him so much?" I asked.

He stared at me. "Why do you want to know?" He returned my question with another.

Tristan saved me from Joey's question by answering mine. "At Duelist Kingdom and around here, Joey and Kaiba aren't on very good terms, especially because he always loses." He smiled at me, and I was thankful I didn't have to answer Joey. Because, in truth, I wasn't sure why I wanted to know more about him. I just did.

But a comment Yugi had made intrigued me. "Dueling?" I asked. "Can you tell me more about that?"

"Sure," Yugi replied, pleased. "It's a card game, called Duel Monsters. It's quite popular here in Domino. I'll bring my duel monsters cards tomorrow and I'll teach you how to play.

Lunch ended suddenly and I went on my way, trying to find my Chorus class. Luckily enough, Art was very close to it, so I didn't have to walk far to get to either class.

My art class was amazing. We were working on watercolors, and Takanouchi-sensei said we could paint whatever we liked. I made a landscape, with a clear sky and a rainbow. I was allowed to take my painting home with some watercolors to continue working on it, and I was thrilled.

As I walked over to the Gym Building, I saw one of the friends I had made during Biology and another from English. I walked over to them, waving a greeting.

"Serenity! So you're in our gym class this year!" My upperclassmen friends gushed.

"That's cool, but… at my old school the grades were kept apart for gym. So, we all take gym together?" I asked.

"Yeah! It's a required course, so we all take it together," they answered. One was of medium height and had long blue-tinted hair in French braids and wore glasses. Her name is Tomohiko Takoe.

The other, whom had just spoken, was a tall dark-haired girl who wore her hair cropped. She dressed trendily, with baggy knee socks with colored stitching and bright tennis shoes. Her name is Kaleigh Laurie.

Together we entered the gym building and headed for the locker rooms. Takoe and Kaleigh changed into their uniform gym clothes, but myself, having none, brought my own gym clothes to change into. We spent so much time in there that we had to run to get to the Gym on time.

Luckily, we got there just in time for roll call. I shouted "here!" when my turn came. We were set to play volleyball. It was Takoe and I against Kaleigh, as Kaleigh was on the Varsity volleyball team.

We were playing for several minutes (and losing) when I slammed the ball past Kaleigh and it went hurling around the gym. I started to chase after it when it rolled into the upperclassmen guy's basketball game. Embarrassed, I didn't want to interrupt their game, but I needed to get the ball back. The ball stopped at someone's feet, and he picked it up. Turning around, he looked for where it had come from. My gaze met the ice-blue eyes of Seto Kaiba.

I couldn't believe he was in my gym class! I was suddenly embarrassed, and couldn't say anything. I wished I had brought a better shirt, as mine was an old white T-shirt. Seto looked good, all traces of bruises and blood gone. I was unusually shy, and did not know what to say to him. Finally, I found my voice. "Can you throw back the volleyball?"

He threw the ball at me, and I promptly dropped it. He smirked at me and went back to the game. I chased the ball back to our volleyball game and we resumed playing. I was self-conscious now, and so we lost the game.

The final bell rang, signaling the end of the day, and we all walked back to the locker rooms to change back into our school uniforms. I took too much time wandering around the locker rooms and was the last to leave. I had just walked out of the door when who should come out of the men's locker room but Seto Kaiba.

We walked in side-by-side silence for a moment. I couldn't bear it, and had to say something, even if it was stupid: "Yugi's going to teach me how to play duel monsters."

Seto merely looked annoyed. "What about it?" he asked.

"Well, I was just thinking… maybe we could all duel together sometime," I answered.

Seto sneered. "Not one of your friends could ever hold a candle to me in Duel Monsters. Yugi is at best a worthy opponent. I would never waste my time dueling you." He quickened his pace and I stopped. He was so rude! I made a promise to myself, then, that I'd become a better duelist, someone strong enough to take on even Seto Kaiba.

That afternoon, I stopped by the first game shop I could see to buy myself some booster packs. I didn't have much money on me, so I would have to come back later.

A bell on the door rang as I entered the small but cozy game shop. Electronic Games lined one wall, and puzzles and other games lined the other. A display counter stood next to the cash register. An old man called out in greeting, "Welcome! What can I do to help you?"

"I'm interested in starting duel monsters, and would like some booster packs, please," I answered politely. Then, suddenly, Yugi came through a door behind the display counter.

"Hey! This is my Grandpa's Game shop! So you're looking for some booster packs?" He asked as he opened the display counter. "This one's the best, in my opinion. It's called the 'Legend of Blue-Eyes White Dragon' booster pack. There was said to be a rare blue-eyes white dragon card in one of these packs, but there are only 4 available in the whole world,'" Yugi explained.

"What happened to those four?" I asked, genuinely interested. I had never seen a picture of this rare card, but if there were only 4 ever available, then I wanted to know more about them.

"Someone owns three of them, and the fourth got destroyed," Yugi answered.

"Who owns them? And who would do a thing like that?"

"Seto Kaiba was the one who owns the three remaining blue-eyes and he destroyed the fourth one. You know…he was the one you asked about during lunch." Yugi looked at Serenity, who looked strangely at the booster packs.

'How could he do that? The image of that dragon on the booster pack looks so…majestic. So…beautiful.' I suddenly dug through my purse. "How much?" I asked.

Yugi just stared at me. "How much for the booster packs?" I repeated.

"Oh," he said. "It's $5.00 each, or 4 for $16.00." I paid for four booster packs, one being a legend of blue-eyes booster pack, and left the game shop with the promise to come back after school tomorrow.

I arrived at my apartment with some groceries and proceeded to make some ramen for dinner. After I had done my schoolwork and studied, I lay on my bed and opened the first booster pack.

It contained seven cards, and at first all I could look at was the artwork. Some of the monsters on the cards were beautiful, but others were so grotesque and horrid that I couldn't bear to look at them. 'I'm only going to have pretty cards in my deck,' I decided.

One by one I opened up those booster packs. Out of every seven, I noticed that I got at least one card with sparkly shiny writing, and several of the cards had sparkly shiny artwork. I put the cards I most liked in one pile, and the cards I didn't in another. The 'card reject' pile was greater than the other pile, much to my disappointment.

Only the Blue-eyes white dragon booster pack was left. Carefully I opened the package and seven cards fell out. I read aloud the cards as I looked at them, saying, and "Uraby… reject Man Eater… reject Kagemusha… ooh, that's pretty, so I'll keep that… and so on until only one card was left. I stared at it awhile before pronouncing its name, "Wingweaver." This card was beautiful, and from what I already understood about Duel Monsters, this card was one of the most powerful I had gotten that day. It looked rare, too, so I put it on top of my new deck (far from completion) and placed that in my desk drawer.

Sleep came sooner than expected, and I dreamt of Dragons and Duel Monsters.

A/N

Reviews appreciated, but of course not demanded… waves around a bucket with words saying, 'Click it or Kick it' Of course not demanding! Second chapter will be up shortly, but if you liked this, check out my other Seto/Serenity fic with dashes of other pairings mixed in called 'Meaningful Simplicity.' Check it out, yo!

Sakura Takanouchi