Several weeks had passed since Jonouchi's meeting with the white-haired girl. It wasn't just colder now - it had even snowed once before. The last month of the year had begun.
Jonouchi hadn't told anyone about the girl, not even Yugi. He hadn't seen her since, but that didn't really bother him. Nonetheless, he kept wondering what she was looking for there, why the boys were after her, and whether she might have run into them again.

Atsui Sekitan (which by the way means "hot coal") was the name of the new teacher who taught history in Jonouchi's class. She had pitch black hair, dark eyes, and a hot temper. Nobody, not even the worst troublemakers in the class, dared to take on her. The young woman didn’t hesitate for long - anyone who didn’t notice her or who was somehow uncomfortable wrote detective work until he smoked his pear.Although she was strict, the students liked her especially because her classes never really got boring. The girls in particular admired their impulsive teacher for her self-confidence and her way of dealing with the opposite sex.
Fraulein Sekitan had a habit of rushing into the room like a storm, so that students who were still deep in conversation did not get to their seats until she was long behind her desk. Some tried to hurry, some stumbled in the process.
When she entered the room that morning, calm returned unusually quickly. The young teacher looked around the class, saw an empty table in the back row, which shouldn't be empty, and scowled. Then she addressed the word to the class: “I wish you a good morning.” The students returned their greeting, then she continued. "I want to introduce you to two new classmates. Do me a favor and behave properly."The door opened and the teacher turned to the blackboard. The students watched the two girls who slowly entered the room: first a little girl with chin-length, wavy, fiery red hair, then a slightly taller one, but no taller than the other girls in the class, with long white hair down to the shoulders. ..
Jonouchi's mouth fell open. It was her! It had to be her!
The two girls walked up to the desk and turned their faces toward the class. The little redhead smiled happily, but the white-haired one seemed a bit nervous. She didn't look directly into the class and apparently hadn't noticed Jonouchi yet. Miss Sekitan meanwhile had written the names of the two on the board.
Kashiwa. Haruko and ... Natsuko?
The teacher rubbed the chalk dust off her hands and stepped back to her desk. One of the boys raised his hand, but spoke without being asked: "The same name? Are the two sisters?"
"We are cousins," replied the little redhead.Miss Sekitan gave the boy an angry look, which made him duck his head. "I want you to treat them both kindly and respectfully," she said warningly. "If I only hear one complaint from you, the tatters will fly here - did we understand each other?"
"Yeah," the students shouted in unison, but it sounded rather bored. It wasn't a promise. They were both good-looking, really pretty, so they would hardly be spared the boy's sayings and turns on.

Jonouchi cocked his head and looked at the names of the two on the blackboard. Their first names consisted of two characters each. The first stood for a season, so Haru for spring and Natsu for summer. The new girls talked about themselves. Haruko, the white-haired one, very little, Natsuko all the more. The students looked at each other in disbelief when the redhead said she had two cousins ​​named Akiko and Fuyuko. (Autumn and winter).

Now Haruko had noticed Jonouchi, but she didn't seem surprised.No, she even smiled. She smiled at him, which of course the others didn't miss. Yugi, who was sitting right next to Jonouchi, looked rather confused.
Miss Sekitan was about to begin another sermon when the door was thrown open. Her head jerked around in annoyance, and the two newcomers, as well as all the other students, looked at the brown-haired boy who was standing in the doorway, completely breathless.
The teacher took an audible deep breath. "Aha, Mr. Kaiba. Will you honor us with your presence again?"
Some of the students giggled muted. Seto Kaiba made an angry face.
“It's nice that you show up again.” Miss Sekitan put her arms on her hips. "But you're still too late. You will wait outside the door."

The students were amazed. No one had escaped the tension between her new teacher and Seto Kaiba, and yet she was overwhelmed that this brash young woman could so easily evict him from the room.Jonouchi wanted to start yelling right away, this scene amused him so much.

Before Seto Kaiba could reply or justify anything, the teacher had shooed him into the hallway. She even followed him there, and although she closed the door behind her, you could hear her lecture her very special darling.
Yugi grinned sheepishly. "Poor Kaiba. She really seems to be after him."
“Why poor?” Jonouchi leaned over to him. "That serves him quite right. At first he doesn't show up here for ages and then too late. If that happened to one of us, she'd piss us off - and the same rules still apply to him."
“What's wrong with you, Jonouchi?” Anzu gave him a mocking look. "Are you so bitter?"
"But it's true," remarked Yugi. "So far, no teacher has dared to put Kaiba in their place, and Miss Sekitan seems to like to expose him ..."“Excuse me?” Natsuko leaned towards Yugi. "That boy ... was that really Seto Kaiba?"
"Uh ... yes."
"He's in our class?"
"Clear."
Jonouchi, who had seen the exchange between the two, noticed how Natsuko gave her cousin a concerned look. Haruko had been staring at the door the whole time and neither noticed the conversation between Yugi, Anzu and Jonouchi, nor that of their cousin and Yugi. She listened to what was going on outside the door.

"I don't care why you're late," Miss Sekitan repeated for the third time. "I know that besides school you have other, perhaps more important things to do, and I'm pretty sure I can't teach you anything more. But it's still your duty to show up for class."
"I know that myself," said Seto Kaiba grumbling. "Otherwise I would not be here."
“I didn't assume you were here voluntarily.” The teacher turned to leave, but paused a moment before reaching for the door."You will wait here until the hour is up," she said. "And during the break you write down the test you missed last week."
After she finally got back to the classroom, she first allocated a place to her new students. Natsuko sat down directly behind Bakura, Haruko got the seat next to Kaiba, which either didn't like it that much or worried her. Obviously she didn't feel particularly comfortable here.

During the break, Yugi, Jonouchi, Anzu, Honda and Bakura gathered. Natsuko joined them, but Haruko looked after her uncertainly. You couldn't tell if she didn't want to come with us or if she just didn't dare.
"Haru-chan." Natsuko pulled her cousin to him. "Don't be too fussy, they are all very nice here."
Jonouchi leaned down a little to the two of them. "She knows that," he said with a smile, but Haruko didn't look at him. "Do you still know me?"
Haruko didn't respond to his question, but Natsuko looked back and forth between the two of them, puzzled."What is it? Are you the blond curly head she was talking about?"
Yugi, Anzu, Honda, and Bakura looked at each other in confusion. Jonouchi scratched his head in embarrassment. "I didn't tell you that, did I?"
"Then tell it now and let's not die stupid," Anzu grumbled.
Jonouchi roughly explained to his friends what had happened. He didn't mention that Haruko had initially grinded the three guys himself. After he finished, Honda put him in a headlock.
"You, what do you only do when I'm not there?" He grumbled. "Just run away and leave me standing there stupid! And then play the hero alone, eh? It looks like you!"
Jonouchi freed himself from his grip. "Don't give a shit. The guys were the total weakling. Even Bakura would have been able to deal with them."
“What, me?” Bakura held up his hands defensively. "I've never fought, you know that."
Jonouchi turned back to Haruko, but his words got stuck in his throat.The girl glared at him, as if he had just berated her in her presence. Now that she was looking directly at him for the first time, he finally recognized the color of her eyes. They were blue. Light blue and cold as ice.
With a jerk she released herself from her cousin's arm and left the room. The others looked after her, confused. Natsuko even opened his mouth in amazement.
Anzu frowned. "What's the matter with her?"
"That is normal," replied Natsuko, who quickly recovered herself and also went towards the door. "Excuse me. I just want to check on her."