Lilia's charge turned out to be none other than the housewarden of Diasomnia, Malleus.
Yugi could see why Idia was scared of him, but she kinda felt sorry for Malleus because the aura he gave off was so intimidating that very few were willing to befriend him properly. She could relate to how lonely that was, so you could imagine his surprise when the tiny freshman approached him with a familiar pet.
"I heard from a certain fairy you like Roaring Drago," she said cheerfully.
Malleus blinked at that. Then he slowly pulled out his own pet, which Lilia had gotten him ten years ago.
You could imagine his surprise when it made noises he had never heard before, and something new happened.
"Roaring Drago has a special function where if two come close together, they can become friends," she explained. Malleus perked up at that. "You've taken really good care of yours, I can tell."
"My apologies... I have no idea who you are."
"My name is Yugi. Lilia suggested I bring my old pet with me because he knew you still had one," she explained.
Malleus was intimidating, but he had nothing on Kaiba when he was in an extra bitchy mood. And honestly, the fact he was part dragon amused her because she could only imagine Kaiba's reaction to meeting him.
Yugi was making a special call. It had been a pain to get the time zones adjusted so that her friends weren't super crabby about her calling them at bad hours, but it was so worth it.
"Hey Yug! How's college life?" asked Jou. He was with Anzu and Honda.
"It's a lot of fun! I managed to find my online friends after a bit of trial and error. Gloomy is my housewarden and he was surprised to find I was in his house. And MuscleRed is pretty amusing, though his taste in food is really weird."
"Housewarden?" said Anzu.
"Think of it like a prefect," explained Yugi cheerfully. "The board game club members loved the games grandpa sent with me."
"Sounds like you're having a lot of fun," said Anzu. "Got any pictures?"
"Loads," said Yugi. "Where are you guys at?"
"We're at your place, because it's the only one with a decent computer and internet speed," said Honda.
Yugi peered passed them and beamed.
"Hi Grandpa!"
"Hoho, sounds like you're enjoying being in college. I'm glad they liked the games."
"So how many duels have you gotten into?" asked Jou.
"None," said Yugi cheerfully. That made them stare.
"None?" repeated Anzu.
"The headmaster might have sent that invite because of my reputation, but I'm the only real duelist in the school. The only other people who bother to play against me are Ortho and maybe Muscles who's real name is Lilia. Honestly, my dorm is more interested in figuring out how my duel disk worked than in actually using it to duel. Ortho's still trying to make a proper deck," said Yugi.
Ortho had learned the rules easily enough after downloading them, but had taken up the challenge of trying to beat Yugi at the game. The problem was that there were so many combinations that even when Yugi used a digital copy of her deck he still couldn't beat her.
Much like how most of the dorm was still trying to beat him at an online game, he was still trying to figure out how to beat her.
Yugi really, really wanted to set him loose on Kaiba once he got better. The results were sure to be hilarious.
"So what are the classes like?"
"Professor Trein's class is somewhat interesting, and his cat is really cute," said Yugi. "Professor Crewel has a weird thing about treating us like dogs though, but he's not mean about it. And I try to avoid Coach Vargas on principle."
"Treats you like dogs?" repeated Anzu.
"He calls us 'puppies' and is pretty fair about teaching us about how to make potions and take care of ingredients," explained Yugi. That seemed to relax them. "Flying class would be a lot more enjoyable if Coach Vargas wasn't such a musclehead though."
"Flying class?" said Jou incredulous. "What sort of college are you in?"
"A magical college," said Yugi with a straight face. "They have faeries, flying brooms and spells. It's awesome. Best of all no one has harassed me for a duel in ages."
From the look on their faces, Yugi openly laughed.
"I'm not kidding, Night Raven is a magical college. Hang on while I send you some pictures," she said.
Anzu immediately started drooling the second they got the pictures. Talk about some serious eye candy!
"Who's the guy with the horns?" asked Jou.
"His name is Malleus Draconia...he's the prefect of the house Lilia is part of. Lilia is the vice-prefect," said Yugi. "He has a bad habit of forgetting the time and missing meetings."
As the talk began to wind down, Yugi reluctantly ended the call. She had missed her friends, but she was enjoying her life at Night Raven.
Idia was doing his usual maintenance on the servers when he felt something...off. It almost felt like the inner labs of STYX, where they experimented on the dark energy that came from an Overblot. But this feeling was a lot stronger and nowhere near as uncontrolled. It made him shiver, as it reminded him of the phantoms.
Needless to say he stopped what he was doing to investigate the source.
He did not expect it to be coming from the brightest, friendliest student in his entire dorm.
"Yugi? What were you doing just now?" he asked slowly.
Yugi flinched, as it was clear she wasn't expecting him to notice whatever it was she was doing.
"I was trying to summon Kuriboh. Lower level monsters are easier and less intensive than Dark Magician."
"Summon what?" said Idia, baffled.
Yugi showed him a card. It was a fluff ball of a monster, with big green eyes and brown fur.
"What we you trying to do?"
"It's easier to show you than explain, really. I've been trying to figure out how to do it since he left, but I've had only marginal success."
Seeing his curiosity, Yugi concentrated and tried again. For some reason, she really wanted to show Idia her trick.
At first nothing happened...then to Idia's alarm, her pen darkened at an alarming rate...before flowing down her arm into the card. Something in the picture began to bulge, before a green paw formed from the cardboard.
The paw was followed by something furry and alive.
A fluffy creature appeared from the card, which now had a blank picture, and made a strange cooing sound.
Yugi stared at it for a few seconds, mostly surprised it worked this time, before letting out a delighted laugh and immediately cuddling the creature.
Idia was openly shocked...because it was obvious Yugi's pen had gone through all the same warning signs of an Overblot...but she was still the same as ever.
"Wha...how? What did you do?"
"I've been trying to figure out how to use shadow magic for ages now. It's tricky doing it without his help, but I think I'm starting to get the hang of it. It helps that Marik and Bakura were willing to give me tips, after a while anyway," said Yugi, cuddling her Kuriboh. It cooed at her, blinking it's big green eyes.
She had to catch them in a very good mood, and even then they were so fickle about what advice they eventually gave her. Both of them hated the Pharaoh for good reason, so by extension they were less than happy to give her advice.
Aside from the few times she had gotten stuck, she had found it easier to experiment by herself through trial and error.
This was the first time she had pulled off something concrete, as she refused to shadow game anyone.
Idia was staring at her with such intent it made her blink.
"What?"
"Yugi...are you aware that your spell pen gave off all the same signs as an Overblot when you did that?" he asked.
"What's Overblot?" she asked baffled.
The more Idia describe of the condition, the more Yugi's face went blank. It sounded familiar alright...just not in the way he was thinking.
"Do you have any other literature on the subject?" she asked.
Because this was sounding entirely too much like what she experienced in the first days Atem woke up and went on a rampage...and to a lesser extent once his spirit had properly woken up and helped her to duel while she tried to piece together who he was and what happened to him.
As it turned out, Idia had a lot of books on the subject. His family studied Overblot, though she sensed there was a story there he didn't want to talk about just yet.
Either way, Yugi resolved not to practice it too much for now. Not until she had done some research.
Idia, when he went back to his room, couldn't help but think about what he had just witnessed. Yugi seemed like the last person to fall into an Overblot state...and yet he knew that feeling. He had to deal with it all the time back home whenever he had to visit his parents at work.
That feeling had been very strong that day as well. He could still remember the scene of those...things...reaching out for him and his brother. He had rushed to get the security system back up. He couldn't remember what happened after, because he blacked out.
However when Yugi used it...it felt almost identical...but at the same time, lighter? It felt somewhat refined to him, and not as vengeful or dangerous as what he was used to.
A few days later...
"That's so cool! Did you use your signature spell to summon that?" asked one student. Yugi was still cuddling her Kuriboh, which hadn't disappeared yet.
"Signature spell?" repeated Yugi.
Yugi had to blink as the student enthusiastically told her what that was.
"Wait...so everyone has a signature spell that only they can use that can't be replicated?" said Yugi.
"Most of us can't really use it that often...it's really magic intensive," said another student. "But it's an unofficial requirement to become a housewarden."
"I have no idea what that is," said Yugi. "I was just using magic my older brother taught me before he left."
It was clear from her tone that his 'departure' was permanent. They wisely didn't bring that part up.
"So how did you do it?" asked Ortho. He was rather curious.
Yugi thought about what monster cards she had that wouldn't be too hard to summon. To be honest, she had used Kuriboh as a base because of how familiar she was with him.
She looked through her deck, before she settled on another low-powered but familiar card.
Everyone ooh and ahh'd over Mystical Elf, who was a relatively passive creature that was more about defense than attack. Ortho, however was staring at her. Hard.
Yugi once again found herself in front of Idia, only this time he had a bewildered expression on his face.
"I don't know what sort of magic you were using just now, but you were sending certain sensors I have off the charts."
"Sensors?" repeated Yugi.
"Our family has a unique company that investigates and handles certain issues that arise when using magic. One of which is Overblot. Whatever it is you're using is almost identical to that energy signature," explained Idia. "The problem is that from what I can tell, you're not suffering from that condition and your body seemed naturally attuned to the frequency."
"From what I can tell, what you call 'overblot' I call Shadow magic," said Yugi. "I read the articles you've given me and it's almost identical to what my older brother used before he went away permanently."
Idia considered this.
"Sounds to me like you and your brother are natural shadowmancers. They haven't been seen in over five thousand years at least, though occasionally one crops up and overdoes it, leading to incidents."
Yugi nodded.
"If it's what I think it is, then your family is going to be seeing a lot more of people who can use them. Shadowmancy was unlocked a few years ago. I know for a fact Bakura and Marik have been using it for much longer than I have."
Idia looked at her seriously.
"Are you planning to practice this shadowmancy again?"
"I want to be as good as my brother was before he left," said Yugi.
"Do you mind doing it where I can record what you're doing and see if we can improve our own understanding of it? If my family finds out I allowed a half-trained shadowmancer practice unsupervised, it won't be pretty."
Especially considering all the time, money and effort they put into containing those people. If he could pass Yugi's training off as an experiment, they might be able to avoid the worst case scenario.
"We would still be friends, right?" said Yugi.
"Well yeah, how else am I going to find someone capable of matching Ortho in an online game?" said Idia as if it were obvious.
It was a matter of pride for the dorm, that Yugi was able to actually challenge Ortho to almost equal terms. What she lacked in Ortho's basically cheat abilities she made up for in skill and luck. She was the only person besides Idia who could actually challenge the cyborg.