A group of Slifer Red students walked down the path away from Obelisk and towards the Slifer dorms, carrying boxes and bedclothes, pushing through the mass of students that only got more dense the closer to the main building they got. The area was reminiscent of large city-wide celebrations, like firework displays or Obon, during which some people tended to meander along the outskirts of the crowd while those in the center were more active. There was no walking around; one had to snake through, risk bumping into nearly every person there until finally emerging worse for wear out the other side. The noise levels were comparable to a festival as well, although the atmosphere was more hostile.

"Slifer's full up, go back to your dive!" A Ra shouted at the Slifers from the crowd.

One of the Slifers, maybe the only one who heard, dejectedly turned around while the others he was with kept going.

"We want Sheppard!" Students chanted at random intervals, making a poor showing of being an organized, united front.

Kylie pursed her lips, taking in the scene in front of her. Over half the student body had congregated in front of the main building, the Slifers and Obelisks along with a couple Ras who evidently had nothing better to do, to protest the lack of housing on campus. Only a few rooms were usable in the Slifer building still despite the construction crew's best efforts at diagnosing electrical problems that could start yet another fire, and those were now at capacity. After the common area cave-in in the Obelisk dorms it was determined that only the rooms in the back of the building, those farthest from the damage, could be considered structurally sound. All this added up to massive overcrowding of usable rooms in both buildings, and Ra needing to take in some of the surplus.

Being one of the unlucky few whose room shared a wall with the common area (although she was on the second floor), Kylie was displaced to Alyssa Hayashi's dorm, which she used to live in with Madison Saitou. Since Madison was still counted as a student despite being unofficially "missing," that meant that they technically had three students living together and they were the only Obelisk girls who had a modicum of personal space. Zachary, likewise, was too close to the common area and had to move to the Ra dorms, after his two-day stay in the infirmary put him at the bottom of the list for an Obelisk room. As she anticipated, he reacted like the relocation was a personal affront, some kind of insult to his dueling skills.

"It's like they're telling me I need to get used to living there," he complained loudly when she visited him. "They'd probably put me in Slifer if they could, the lousy…"

"We want justice for The D!" A Slifer shouted from beside Kylie, not appearing to understand what exactly was happening on campus, although she appreciated his enthusiasm.

Kylie hated seeing Duel Academy like this. She wanted to go back to when the students would spend their free time dueling, not practicing their right to peaceful assembly.

"Soldier!" Kylie's attention snapped to Tyranno Hassleberry, who had appeared beside her at some point during her lamentations. "We need all members of the student council in Sheppard's office pronto!"

She flinched at his unnecessary shouting, feeling there was only one time to raise one's voice and that was when cards were about to get played. Then anything went. Literally, including murder. Which is perhaps why she could empathize with the Slifer demanding The D's name be posthumously cleared—anyway, that's what she assumed he wanted.

Kylie nodded and followed Hassleberry into the thick swarm of bodies between them and the main building's entrance, glad that there were so few Ras present so she wouldn't lose his yellow blazer in the crowd. At length, the two emerged from the other side and Hassleberry politely opened the front door for her, the sounds of 'boos' and other rude shouts following them inside. Several influential Obelisk students had organized a boycott of classes until the housing situation was satisfactorily dealt with, so anyone seen entering the school proper was seen as a traitor, Kylie had learned.

"Is it still just the two of us?" Kylie asked him as they climbed the stairs to the offices. When she joined student council the first week of classes, Hassleberry and Blair Flannigan were the only members, but Blair had to quit soon afterward in order to focus more on her school work.

"An army of two is all you need," Hassleberry responded. "Although no, we added a few more members to our ranks since last meeting. You'll like 'em."

He led her into Sheppard's office. She was immediately reminded that the last time she was here was the night of the Slifer dorm fire, when she had to struggle to hold back tears, deathly afraid that she would be kicked out of the Academy. Seeing the desk again, the window they looked out to see the pillars of smoke billowing from the burnt building, made her wish they could have met elsewhere. She didn't like going places that held such terrible memories.

"Tanaka, Hassleberry," Sheppard called from the side room of his office. "Come on in. Maki Mori is already here."

Kylie bowed at Sheppard and took a seat at the round table directly across from Sheppard. He looked tired and overworked; most likely was, considering rumor was that he was the faculty member in charge of re-assigning displaced students to their new living quarters. Maki Mori, a pretty Obelisk Blue girl that she didn't recall ever seeing before, sat one seat away from her. Maki wore the standard Obelisk Blue girls uniform, but had a light denim jacket over it—likely because the dress code was significantly more lax since classes were temporarily suspended. She had very large eyes that reminded Kylie of Evan's, and her hair was a unique grayish color reminiscent of Madison's but much longer than Madison's short pixie cut. Hassleberry chose to stand by the door, his hands clasped behind him.

"It's a pleasure, Ms Tanaka," Maki smiled warmly to Kylie, although the gesture felt distant somehow. "It's such a shame we haven't been in the same homeroom. I've heard such impressive things about your dueling style."

"Thanks, hon," Kylie uncomfortably returned the smile, eager to pay attention to what Chancellor Sheppard wanted to say to the group.

"Now that introductions are out of the way," Sheppard began, "we have quite a bit of business to attend to. Primarily, the concerns of the student body the three of you represent."

From beside Kylie, Maki closed her eyes and nodded her head.

"I understand the living situation is… less than ideal." Sheppard leaned forward in his chair and scanned his eyes over some papers sitting in front of him. "We presently have twenty-two Slifers living in Obelisk, four in Ra, and six in their own dorm—the maximum occupancy that I can allow for safety concerns after the fire." Kylie focused all her attention on not shifting in her seat. "Nearly half of our Obelisks are not in the rooms assigned to them at the beginning of the year, with one-quarter displaced in the Ra dorms. I think everyone here is very aware of how crowded and uncomfortable this situation has made all our students, as there are very few who have not been directly impacted by the moves. But I didn't agree to a meeting so you could hear me talk—I'm sure you're all eager to have an open dialogue with the faculty about what we can do until Obelisk and Slifer are considered safe again."

Kylie looked around the room at the word 'faculty,' wondering where exactly aforementioned faculty was. Why weren't the heads of the dorms present, at the very least?

Hassleberry was the first of the student council members to speak. "Aiko Kyō was supposed to be present to talk about the demands from the students, but since she's not here I'll be in charge of that. There's talk about wanting to reopen the Abandoned dorm—"

"That's out of the question," Sheppard interrupted, waving a hand in the air. "The basement is flooded and we condemned the building for a reason. A myriad of reasons."

Thinking back to her single trip to the Abandoned dorm, Kylie was tempted to question what those reasons exactly were. Aside from obvious signs of neglect in the cracked windows, the peeling wallpaper, the occasional loose nail poking out of the floorboards she hadn't noticed any appalling conditions. Especially not any that compared to the recent state of Obelisk Blue where the electricity was unpredictable at best, baths were taken at near boiling temperatures to hopefully kill of any bacteria living in the discolored water, or a window fell completely out of its pane as though it had shrunk, crashing loudly in the cafeteria but fortunately not injuring anyone. Not to mention the entire matter of the lounge room floor collapsing for seemingly no apparent reason. Surely whoever was willing to live in the Abandoned dorm could deal with the mold or whatever else was going on in there.

"Overcrowding has made studying and getting a decent night's sleep almost impossible," Hassleberry argued from behind her. "It gives everyone who hasn't been made to share a room with an extra two people an advantage."

"Ra still has their study rooms available twenty-four hours a day," Sheppard told him. "And there's the library and many facilities in the main building—"

"With all due respect, sir, those rooms are all overcrowded as well. It's nearly the end of autumn, we can't keep expecting everyone to go outside on the lawns to do their homework. The student body is fully prepared to refuse to attend classes until something gets done. Whether that means opening another dorm, hiring more construction workers to get Obelisk and Slifer done faster, or bringing in temporary housing like trailers. Otherwise there's more than a few who are willing to stage a mass exodus of the Academy."

"There already has been," Sheppard sighed, speaking more to himself than the others. "Six students have already transferred to West Academy and several left without submitting any kind of paperwork to the offices; ten I think—"

"Twelve," Maki supplied.

"Thank you, Ms Mori."

Kylie lowered her head. "There are a lot of mad people out there," she observed, thinking back to the crowd she had to tunnel through to get into the building. "What happens if a resolution takes too long, and classes don't resume? Or if too many people leave?"

Sheppard looked at her and then back down at the table in front of him. "Duel Academy will get shut down if we don't meet a quota of graduates every year. If enough third years leave, and a couple of them have, then we could lose our accreditation. Fortunately, that takes a while to come into effect and we would likely have the dorms up and running again before that becomes a problem. But we are hemorrhaging money trying to fix these buildings and our staff is already bare bones. Doctor Crowler has been moonlighting as a custodian for the past few months and I doubt he'll be willing to clean up another food fight in the library; he almost quit last time."

"Why was there a food fight in the library?" Kylie asked, wrinkling her brow.

"Failed demonstration of blood type personalities and diet," Sheppard explained. "I can assure you we will be more strict about only teaching you students about card games from now on. Cards may be difficult to collect off the floor but at least they don't stain carpet."

"Not to mention the blood," Hassleberry grimaced. "I still have some type A I can't get off my boots and I shine them every morning." He shook his head sadly, looking down at what Kylie assumed was the offending combat boot although they looked perfectly spotless to her.

"I…didn't hear about that," Kylie couldn't fathom how she not only missed the demonstration, which she could only imagine at this point involved massive amounts of syringes and copies of Ketsueki-gata de Wakaru Aisho, but details on how such a thing could lead to a fight.

Maki glanced over at Kylie with a small smile. "You missed it too? I would have loved to know my blood type."

"Let's stay on topic," Sheppard said, standing from the table and collecting his papers as though he were preparing to leave. "I have a meeting with Seto Kaiba to get to in Domino City that I need to get ready for. I will take your concerns and solutions to him so we can get back to the important things, like educating Japan's youth in Duel Monsters. I appreciate the three of you speaking with me."

With that, Sheppard rounded the table and left the room. Kylie couldn't help but feel like they hadn't accomplished anything in the past ten or so minutes; surely Sheppard and whoever else was in charge of student housing were already aware of the problems Hassleberry talked about. She got up as well, walking past the Ra with her head lowered in what she could only describe as defeat. When she was finally in the hallway, deliberately keeping her gaze to the ground to avoid the tall windows on her right that would show her only a herd of faceless and nameless Academy students gathered to yell and insult, she heard quick but light footsteps come up from behind her.

"Ms Tanaka!" It was Maki, clutching a small pile of books to her chest as she struggled to catch up to Kylie.

Kylie slowed down politely. "You can call me Kylie," she told her, trying to sound like her usual cheerful self but feeling like it came up a bit short.

"Kylie," Maki repeated with what Kylie could only describe as gratification. "You're Alyssa Hayashi's—and Madison Saitou's new roommate? I'm surprised we never met until today."

"We're still less than halfway into the semester," Kylie responded. "And I usually… keep to myself." Not entirely by choice: it seemed to her that, while most students shared her passion for dueling—they'd have to or they wouldn't be here, for the more part—they were more often than not put off by her intensity. That was one reason why she liked Evan Suzuki so much; he was pretty quiet and reserved on his best days and oftentimes acted like he barely even understood the basic premise of the game, but when he thought he knew what he was doing he did it with fiery passion. It made him a fun dueling partner, if not a weird and sometimes frustrating one. She also had Zachary, who didn't seem to enjoy dueling as much as most unless he was winning (which was incredibly rare) although he certainly appeared to love being an Obelisk Blue.

"Keeping to yourself is no fun," Maki frowned slightly. She was an expressive person, Kylie noted, especially with those large blue-green eyes that dominated her features. "I have an idea! While we don't need to worry about homework or studying lecture notes, why don't we find a night this week to do something together? I'm sure there's something to do on this island besides learning and dueling."

Kylie pushed open the door to the main building, exposing them to angry chants of wanting Chancellor Sheppard to make a formal announcement to the students outside and for The D to be re-enstated in the Dueling Hall of Fame (Seems like that random Slifer student managed to get more people riled up about him, Kylie realized). "I like learning and dueling," she answered hesitantly, torn between wanting to get to know Maki better—maybe then Madison (if she ever reappeared) wouldn't accuse her of being a bad role model for young girls (although what young girls she was referring to Kylie never figured out) for only having male friends—and not wanting to address the issue of there maybe being a lot of time to get to know her. "But I'm up for almost anything!"

"Great!" Maki exclaimed, although she had to be loud for Kylie to hear her over the shouts and snippets of conversation as they walked around the outside of the crowd. She opened her mouth to say more, but Zachary emerged from somewhere in the amorphous blob of students and stepped in front of their path.

"Zachary!" Kylie was happy to see him; ever since his move to the Ra dorms they didn't eat together any more. Of course, he was still an Obelisk so he could make the journey over to the Blue cafeteria but she didn't begrudge him for not wanting to, even if that meant she had to eat alone most days and with Alyssa when she was feeling particularly lonely. "Don't tell me your protesting too?"

"Of course I am," Zachary crossed his arms in that way he did when he was fully prepared to enter temper tantrum mode. "I've received unfair treatment by the Academy and as an elite Obelisk student I should be compensated—why are you with Mori anyway?"

Kylie was taken aback by the venom in his voice; she was unaware the two had ever met considering he was in her homeroom as well, and, in all honesty, she completely forgot Maki was still standing right next to her in her excitement in seeing her best friend again. "We're talking about hanging out, maybe dueling—"

"You'd hate that," he shot a glance at Maki that Kylie had only seen him give his ex-boyfriend Toma and Madison before. "She challenged me to duel her for the last daifuku in the Ra cafeteria a few days ago." Kylie glanced over at Maki, realizing that she must have been displaced to Yellow as well. "She plays a frankendeck, it's was a nightmare."

Maki smiled serenely at him and patted him on the arm. He flinched away and narrowed his eyes at her. "You're just mad that I'm hard to counter and you lost. Anyway," she turned her head abruptly to Kylie. "I'll let the two of you chat. See you later, bestie!"

"Oh god," Zachary screwed up his face as he watched Maki disappear around a group of male Obelisks who were debating whether they should return to their temporary rooms on Ra or just stay outside protesting until absolutely necessary. "You're not going to make me be nice to Mori like Logan makes me with Suzuki are you?"

"Since when are you nice to Evan?"

"I stopped throwing rocks at him."

The pair began walking away from the crowd. "Do you want to eat dinner at Obelisk tonight? Or are you having fun eating with Logan?"

"Take me the hell away from that nerd," Zachary snorted. "Did you know he counts calories? He's not even on any type of diet or anything, he just likes doing it."

Kylie looped her arm through his. "And you have encyclopedic knowledge of serial killers. I'm sure your new roommate loves your book collection, by the way."

"Pfft. Ishii makes me keep that stuff boxed up."

"Kind of don't blame him…"

"Shut up," Zachary told her jokingly. "Let's go get some possibly listeria-laced shrimp, if Obelisk is still the beautiful train wreck I left it."

"Well, it hasn't gotten any worse."

"As if it could," he replied, squeezing her arm gently.