The Touch of Sapphire

Chapter 3

*Kappa is a twitch emoticon. I just had to use it lol

Ashley's POV

Joey spent the night, so I woke up to a nice big breakfast from him. Mai was so lucky to have him. He can literally do anything around the house, no questions asked. Food puts me in a good mood, so I was a happy little cookie as I headed into the Kaiba Corp building.

Surprisingly, it was a calm morning as I walked into my department. I went to the back, and sat comfortably in my chair. I don't know why, but I had a really good feeling about today. I couldn't describe it. Oh yeah, maybe it's because I'm the literally the H.B.I.C. of animation. Okay-maybe I shouldn't let this get to my head. Kaiba would have no problem putting me in my place.

Speaking of the devil, Kaiba waltzes in, his briefcase in hand. Everyone quickly went back to work, or at least pretended they were working. He made his way toward me, and there was already a scowl on his face. He stood over my sitting form, his eyes meeting mine. "Why aren't you at your new desk?" Well good morning. How are you? Fine, thanks. Asshole. "I didn't think having a new desk is important." "Just take your things into your office." I sighed and obeyed my boss. I began to pick up my things and headed towards the private office in the back.

I couldn't help but notice everyone's eyes on me. Some with shock, some were shaking their head. Little Christina was sitting in her chair, mad that Kaiba didn't acknowledge her presence. My face was tomato red and he noticed. As I ducked down and put my documents and paperweights down, I felt his stare on me. I made eye contact with Kaiba, and it turned into a weird non verbal conversation. A fucking weird connection.

He knew I didn't tell them, and that I was nervous. "Alright listen up!" Kaiba got everyone's attention. "Orton is your new Lead Designer. Do your job and you'll have no problems. You defy her and you deal with me." That struck me in an odd way, but I didn't say anything about it. Was he protecting me? Why though? Of course, it was fangirl Christina who had to say something.

"What's so special about her anyway?!" She was already under my skin. I had no problem telling her off now. "Now you listen here you little witch, I-" I had a good fuckin' response but my boss pulled me behind him, and offered his response instead. "It's as if Ashley didn't tell you off enough yesterday. You're fired!" How did he know about yesterday? What the hell? Well Seto Kaiba knows everything about everything. Joey is right. He IS being too nice to me. I crossed my arms and smiled as she started to freak out. He turned around to me, seeing the questioning look on my face. "You didn't need to waste any more breath on her. In fact, you should've fired her on the spot. Leon told me about it this morning."

I did not know Leon spoke to Kaiba on the regular like that. "What're you people looking at? Go back to work!" I sighed and went back to my desk. I pulled out a blank sheet of sketch paper and began to think about ideas for new character costumes. I zoned out for a good minute when Kaiba slammed a piece of paper on my desk. "The virtual world we're going to be working on features my new mods to the duel disk. I want you to do these sketches instead. Then we'll go about programming it. Give your workers something to do."

I nodded and took my sketches to the main room. They all stopped talking and looked up at me, waiting for their assignment. I calmly explained what they should do, telling them all about the costumes and variations to the characters. I told them that I'm always available if they had questions. I wasn't going to be intimidating like Namakemono. However, I don't think they'll ask because Kaiba was stationed in my office.

Before I went back to my office, i paired a young intern with a senior designer, Aikido. He seemed off, and I couldn't tell what, but I didn't like him. I made a mental note to try to keep an eye out on him.