Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Darkness flashed across his vision, the world seeming to morph and shift around a spinning tunnel of black and green.

He was falling.

Someone screamed. He wanted to get up, to help them— but he couldn’t seem to find ground.

“YUSEI-!!!”

That voice…

Whose voice was that…?

All he could hear was the air racing past his ears and echoing voices that were either screaming in the distance or bouncing around in his skull.

His body felt like it was shattering, being pulled at and moved around across space. His right arm started to burn, the carousel of green and black in his vision melting away into a faded crimson.

And then everything stopped.

Yusei woke up with his arm burning. It was a familiar sensation, when the Crimson Dragon was trying to tell him something.

So why did it feel so wrong?

He shut his eyes almost immediately after opening them, sunlight beaming directly into his face.

…wait, the sun?

Yusei shot into a sitting position, looking around, “Why am I outside?!”

Around him, there was some kind of public park. He was lying on a hill that was too perfectly rounded to not be manmade, and there were paths and flowerbeds nearby. Even on its own, it didn’t look like anywhere he’d been before, but the strangest thing was the presence of giant, hexagonal pillars visible not too far away. Not the kind that would be decorative, but… massive pillars in the sky with what seemed like mini cities held up on each one of them, each one connected by roads stretching out between the tops.

“What…”

Before Yusei even had the time to process where he was, he heard someone call out in the distance.

“Hey, you!”

He turned around, seeing a Security officer coming towards him. Not good. For all he knew, he was trespassing.

So he ran.

Eventually, he found himself in a more run-down area of… wherever he was. Definitely the place people were less likely to notice or care about his presence.

Now, first thing to do was figure out what was going on.

Yusei felt a tug on his arm, the mark of the Crimson Dragon faintly pulsing with light. It was notably dimmer than usual, but that might have just been lighting, or that the situation wasn’t very dire. The strangest part was that it was shaped differently than how he remembered— no longer a spade-like tail, but the head — and though it didn’t exactly feel wrong for it to look like that, he was a bit confused as to why it would suddenly change without warning. Why would the Crimson Dragon need to do that just to teleport him somewhere?

Whatever the cause of it was, the mark seemed to be pulling him in a certain direction. So, given that he didn’t have many other options, Yusei started walking.

~

It wasn’t very long until he saw the roof of a building shatter— something probably fell through it, if he had to guess, and based on the lights and noises he heard from inside, there was probably a duel going on.

Yusei stepped down into the building— some kind of subway station, probably, and was met with not just a duel going on, but… some kind of hostage situation?

There were four children, two adult men, and three other people in strange masks present, with one of the older kids dueling against both of the men, seemingly to protect the other kids— the most notable of which being a pink-haired girl trapped in some kind of cage. The men didn’t seem to be working together, though, as one seemed upset at the other’s presence.

The other man, however, was summoning monsters— very strange monsters. Maybe it was the names, or their appearances, but something about them just… put Yusei on edge.

But… why? What about them was so eerie?

On instinct, he raised his duel disk and ran to the side of the kid dueling.

Intrusion Penalty. 2000 LP.

He flinched as some kind of shock was transmitted through his body. What rules were they playing on…?

The kid next to him (whose hair looked kinda like a tomato, so… tomato kid, until further notice) looked up at him, “Who are you?!”

“My name’s Yusei. Didn’t think it would be fair to let you go up against two guys on your own.”

Tomato kid thought for a second, then nodded with a smile, “Thanks.”

~

When the duel was finally over, and several very strange things had occurred— including but not limited to: one of the kids and one the men disappearing in a flash of purple light, an actual ninja showing up, and the masked guys disappearing upon being threatened by said ninja.

Most importantly, however, now that the other man— Sergey— had been defeated, he used his… rocket legs… to boost forward and grab the pink haired girl— Yuzu. So then, having seen the holograms here physically interact with the world around them— though he had no idea how— Yusei was only a bit surprised when Stardust Dragon acted on its own to save the girl, grabbing Sergey and tossing him aside with it’s claws, directly into the wall.

“Huh.”

Tomato kid ran over to his friend, “Yuzu!!”

About that same moment, the ninja appeared next to Yusei. “You duel well. Who are you?”

“My name’s Yusei.” he paused, “…I just got here, like, a few minutes ago, what’s happening?”

~

By the time the group calling themselves “The Lancers” had managed to explain the situation, two more of their members had arrived and a riot had started outside. Granted, a lot of that time wasn’t spent explaining the situation at all, but instead making sure everyone was alright. And aside from tomato kid— Yuya— who was worn out from the duel, they all seemed fine.

That was when, in the early hours of the afternoon, another bombshell of information was dropped. Outside, past the noises of rioting, an announcer was heard talking about a duel tournament— likely the Friendship Cup he’d just heard about. That wasn’t the important part though. What turned everyone’s heads was the announcement of who was dueling.

The first was Sergey, who must’ve gotten away after Stardust tossed him through that wall, and a kid who looked like Yuya that was apparently MIA and would be replaced in the duel by…

…Jack Atlas.

“He’s here too?”

The Lancers hadn’t told him about this. Maybe they assumed he was only in the dark about the dimensional war thing, that he was just a regular guy from the “Synchro Dimension.” So, of course, they all looked at him a bit strangely upon hearing that comment.

“Yeah?” said one of the other Lancers: Sawatari. “He’s the king? Did you not know that either?”

“He’s… the king? Here?”

Almost everyone nodded.

“…Jack Atlas? As in, my brother Jack Atlas?”

“Your what?!”

“My brother?”

Yuya looked skeptical, “Jack Atlas is… your brother? Like… the Jack Atlas,” he pointed out the window at the tv showing the duel announcement, “ that Jack Atlas?!”

“Unless he has a doppelgänger here for some reason.”

“And…” started Tsukikage (the ninja), “you are unaware of his status as the King?”

“I…” Yusei paused, “Well, no, but… last I remembered, he just… didn’t have that title anymore.”

“And why would that be?”

“Because I beat him? But this is a different city, so—“

Yuya shot up from the bench he was sitting on, stumbling a bit, “You what?! ”

“I beat him? In a duel?”

“ You—??“

The question was cut off by the announcement outside that the duel was starting.

“Sorry, but I need to go see this. Thank you for your help.”

As he left the building, Yusei heard Yuya run up behind him, “Hey, wait!!”

“Yeah?”

“If you’re the kind of person who can beat Jack, we could definitely use your help against Academia! Can you at least consider it?”

Yusei looked at his right arm. The Crimson Dragon had brought him here for a reason, surely… and an interdimensional war did seem like a pretty good one.

“Yeah. I’ll help you out. Besides, if you’re planning on dueling Jack, our paths will definitely cross again.”

“Great! So… see you later?”

Yusei nodded.

~

He’d been walking around for a bit, watching bits of the duel on the TVs placed around the city. Due to his general unfamiliarity with the area, Yusei so far hadn’t been able to find the actual stadium where the duel was happening, and any directions received from bystanders didn’t seem to help much. The riots had all but stopped, due to most people’s attention being focused on the duel.

Because of this, small crowds were forming anywhere with a good view of the broadcast, and it was amongst one of those crowds that Yusei noticed a familiar mess of orange hair.

“Crow..?”

Yusei moved through the crowd, trying to get a bit closer. He called out again, a bit clearer this time, “Crow?”

He didn’t receive a response, but as he got closer his suspicions were confirmed— that was definitely Crow. But why would he be here…?

Yusei tapped his brother’s shoulder, “Hey.”

Crow whipped around, “What the— ?!”

His eyes widened, like he’d seen some kind of ghost. “No…”

“What? Is something wrong?”

“You…” carefully, he reached out, gently putting a hand on Yusei’s arm. It was shaky, like he wasn’t sure whether he’d actually feel anything there.

“…it’s really you…? Yusei?”

“Yeah, it’s me. Why would I-“

Crow pulled him into a tight hug, “Yusei…” his voice was nearly as shaky as his body, like he was about to cry.

“Hey…? Crow, what happened?”

“ What happened …?” He loosened the hug a bit to look up at him, tears beginning to run down his face, “I should be asking you that! Where have you been this whole time?! We thought you died !!”

“I… what?”

If appearing in a city he’d never seen before wasn’t enough confusion for a single day, that definitely was. Yusei didn’t answer right away, trying to think back to any reason why he would’ve been presumed dead, or even just what he was doing before he got here, but nothing came up.

“Yusei?”

Did it have something to do with why the mark on his arm changed? Someone screamed. Was he forgetting more than he thought? Why? A spinning tunnel of black and green. How long had he been gone? He was falling. How long had he been here? How did he even—

“Yusei!”

He felt Crow shaking him back to attention.

“Hey, snap out of it, what’s wrong?!”

He took a second to slow his breathing, trying to find the words to respond.

“I… I don’t remember how I got here.”

Chapter Text

“Okay, breathe.”

They’d moved away from the crowd, sitting down on a nearby bench.

Crow put a hand on Yusei’s shoulder, “It’s okay, calm down. What… what’s the last thing you remember before waking up here?”

“I… uh… it was like… right after the Fortune Cup, I think..?”

“The… what?”

“The Fortune Cup?”

“…” Crow looked… confused? Why would he-

“You mean the Friendship Cup?”

Yusei thought for a second. The Friendship Cup was the tournament going on right now, wasn’t it? But why would that have anything to do with… maybe it was an evolution of the same tournament? But that would mean this was Neo Domino, and enough time would have to have passed for it all to shift like this… had he really forgotten that much, or did something else happen? With the dimensional stuff the Lancers told him about…

“No? I—“

Before he could even voice his confusion, both of them had their attention drawn to the broadcast of Jack’s duel with Sergey, in which, unsurprisingly, Jack had emerged victorious.

“Jack…”

Crow waited a second before saying anything. “He’s… about the same, yeah.”

That pause… he couldn’t help but wonder what his brother wasn’t telling him. He could understand Jack being king again in his absence, but with everything else going on…

“Hey, what—“

“Attention citizens of City.”

Every screen nearby suddenly switched to a view of a man in a purple suit.

“Due to the recent requests to do something to stop the Common’s rioting, I, director of the Public Security Bureau, am declaring martial law.”

“What?!”

Crow stood up, “That… the riots are just gonna get worse!” he tugged at Yusei’s hand, “C’mon, we gotta…”

“You go.”

“What? No, I-“

“I need to go try and talk to Jack.”

Crow hesitated for a moment, “but…”

“I’ll be okay. Just trust me.”

“…You better come back.”

“I promise.”

-

It was in his second attempt to find the duel palace that Yusei ran into Yuya once again. He was talking with four kids, Yuzu, and another guy that Yusei recognized from his earlier encounter with the Lancers but didn’t get the name of.

Getting closer, he could hear one of the kids speaking, “Crow raised us to survive and never give up!” the boy said, “No matter what, we don’t fall apart!”

Huh. Those must be some of the kids Crow looks after, then. Odd coincidence, but alright.

“Yuya, hey.”

The boy turned around to look at him, “Yusei!”

Three of the kids, including the one talking earlier, poorly held back gasps and looked at each other for just a second, but didn’t say anything to him.

“Hey, are you going to the Duel Palace too?” Yuya continued.

Yusei nodded.

“We were just talking about how we know a really fast way there!!” said the smallest child, “C’mon!”

While they were all making their way through the back streets, one of the kids spoke to him.

“Hey, your name is Yusei, right?”

Yusei nodded.

“Huh. Thats a really weird coincidence. You look just like this other guy—“

“I was thinking the same thing!!” interrupted one of the other kids, “He even has the same marker.”

Oh, they’d probably seen a picture of him somewhere, especially if they are some of the kids Crow looks after. And with what Yusei had heard from Crow earlier… it would make sense why they wouldn’t think it was really him.

“Hey, it’s right up here!”

They’d arrived near the duel palace, but there were rioters and security forces in their way.

Yuzu spoke first, “There are so many… how are we gonna get through…?”

“Hey,” one of the rioters spotted them, “more people looking to hide in there!”

Another one responded, “Anyone heading there is our enemy!”

“Are we gonna have to duel all these people..?”

“Hey, look!!” One of the kids turned around, pointing at a group of large mechanical birds flying towards them, carrying… people?

“Kurosaki!”

The man on the bird (Kurosaki?) called out to them, “Get on!”

And that’s how Yusei found out for certain that holograms here could be made of solid matter just… on their own? Like, without any psychics involved (unless they were psychic and he just didn’t know yet) or even a duel going on. It didn’t seem like a very strange idea, necessarily, but it was odd how… casual they were about it. Besides, wouldn’t that be dangerous..?

Before he had the time to ask about that, they were set down inside the Duel Palace, where the press immediately ran up to them and handed a mic to Yuya, who began his declaration that he was going to duel Jack.

Very soon after, however, the security that was previously outside stopping the rioters were closing in on them.

One of the other Lancers who had shown up with Kurosaki earlier (Sawatari, if he remembered correctly) spoke up, “Why are they attacking us??”

Yuzu got into position to duel, “We outnumber them, at least…”

“That’s not always enough.”

Yusei looked at his hand, seeing a few cards he didn’t quite recognize. When had he gotten these?

… Regardless, they had to end this quickly.

-

They took down security easily, but right behind all of them were the rioters, who finally had an opening to get in.

Yuya took a step back, “they don’t look very interested in dueling us…”

“Well—“

“Silence!!” A voice rang out through the stadium, light flickering as a giant hologram of Jack appeared, berating the rioters, “You will not dishonor this place with your violence! Yuya Sakaki and I are about to duel with City’s future on the line. If you care at all, you’ll sit and watch it to the end!”

The city’s future…?

Yusei turned towards Yuya, “Sounds like you should get going.”

Yuya nodded, “Yeah!”

The other Lancers offered similar words of encouragement, and Yuya ran off to start his duel.

-

“First into the stadium is Sakaki Yuya!!!”

“Me and Yuya are on similar skill levels,” Sawatari complained, “Why does he always get the important moments?”

One of the other Lancers, an old man that Yusei hadn’t yet caught the name of, crossed his arms, “People all have their purposes, just like cards,” he turned towards one of the kids, “Isn’t that right, Sam?”

The boy nodded, “that’s what Jack said.”

“Jack said that…?” Yusei repeated, “really?”

“Yeah! It took me a while to figure out what he meant, but he told me that all cards have a purpose, even the ones that look weaker than others.”

Yusei smiled a bit, “Thats right. Even cards so common everyone has them, or ones that people throw out carelessly… none of them are worthless.”

Yuzu thought for a moment before speaking up, “Oh, Yusei, I don’t think I ever thanked you for saving me from Sergey earlier. I don’t know what would’ve happened if…”

“It’s nothing. I just saw that there was trouble and had to do something about it.”

“Regardless, you helped us out a lot there. Thank you.”

“Hey,” Sawatari said, “I would’ve helped out too if I hadn’t gotten there late.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you would’ve…”

They watched the duel in silence for a bit. The cards Jack was using… so far, none of them were ones Yusei had been familiar with. He’d… probably added them while he was gone, that wasn’t too unusual.

He was Synchro Summoning now. Level eight… that must be…

“The cry of the champion shakes the heaven and earth. Let the conqueror’s unique power be carved into your body!”

Or not. That… definitely wasn’t Red Dragon Archfiend’s chant. So what could he be…?

“Synchro Summon! The raging soul, Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend!!”

The monster looked nearly identical to Red Dragon Archfiend, save for a cast of bone around one of its arms. How did that happen? When did that happen? How would a Red Dragon Archfiend variant even exist anyway, and why would Jack be using it over the original? The most likely explanation would be that its effect is more useful here, but that doesn’t answer the question of how it exists in the first place.

With how the main visual difference was an injury, and the “scarlight” in its name… Yusei couldn’t help but wonder… what had really happened while he was gone?

“Jack…”

-

As the duel progressed, so did the riots outside. The Lancers started to leave to go stop them, but the children protested.

“Please don’t hurt anyone!” begged the little girl.

“Don’t worry, we won’t stop them with brute force. But someone has to do something.”

Yusei stood up, moving to leave with them, “Then I’ll join you.”

Reiji nodded, “Thank you. We’ll probably need all the help we can get.”

Even when they were all running off to stop the riots, Yusei kept an eye on Jack and Yuya’s duel. Yuya was doing well, and after a while he’d even gotten out a brand new synchro monster, apparently. But despite his efforts, Jack was a lot further ahead of him.

It was in the middle of trying to talk down a group of rioters (with some of the Lancers helping, of course) that Yusei heard the announcer say something about the duel that particularly caught his attention.

“There’s no road ahead! What will the King do?!”

This seemed to grasp the attention of others as well, since the yelling significantly quieted when it was said. The screens broadcasting the duel showed Jack jumping over a gap in the road, his d-wheel surrounded with a red light. Was that…?

“Double tuning!!”

“What?”

There were several gasps of surprise, and the yelling in the crowd was giving way to a few cheers or excited comments. The noise all blurred together in Yusei’s ears, a feeling that not even the summoning chant of Jack’s new monster was immune to.

His arm felt like it was on fire. It was the painful kind of resonance, on a level he hadn’t felt since the first time the mark of the Crimson Dragon appeared there.

The Crimson Dragon… it was there, behind Jack, flying past his new monster and—

“AGH-!!!”

“YUSEI!! HELP!”

Falling. Falling. Green and black and faces he didn’t recognize. Buildings falling, ground breaking.

“YUMA! JUDAI!”

He gasped, the noises from reality crashing back around him like heavy waves in his ears.

“You okay?”

Yusei looked to the side, Sawatari looking at him, probably a little freaked out.

“I’m fine. Let’s keep going.”

Chapter Text

The riots had significantly calmed down by now, most people pausing to watch Jack’s duel with Yuya. In this case, “pausing” meant actively going to the place the duel was happening by any means necessary to get a better look. There were d-wheels, cars, a helicopter… apparently the people had found the duel very moving.

It made sense, sure. Jack’s dueling style had always been the kind of thing that captivated others, and Yuya’s own kind of entertainment, though vastly different, seemed fun to watch as well. It was just… a bit odd, how strong the reaction was. Like, the citizens even got a monorail over there. How did they—

It was then, all of a sudden, Yusei felt someone tap his shoulder. He turned around, seeing a lone security officer standing behind him.

“What-?!

“The director wants to see you. Come with me.”

The director..? He couldn’t mean… no, earlier, that man on the tv had called himself the director. The role must’ve changed at some point while he was gone. But then why would he want to…?

“What for?”

“You can ask questions later.”

The area around Security’s headquarters was a disaster. Most people were watching the duel, but the ground was littered with debris, and the occasional sparking security helmet. The officers sent to stop the riot must’ve either been defeated or retreated.

“Interesting how you managed to avoid this,” he said, glancing over at the guard that had brought him here.

“Keep walking.”

When they entered the building and the subsequent stairwell, Yusei heard a scream from upstairs. The guard seemed to panic, trying to pull him away from it, but Yusei pushed him away (into a wall, but he was wearing a helmet so it was probably fine) and ran up the stairs.

There, around the bends of the hallways, he saw the director guy from the tv broadcast holding Yuzu up by the shirt collar, yelling about an academy or something.

“Hey!!”

He ran towards them, right as Yuzu was able to struggle out of the director’s grip.

“What do you think you’re doing?!”

The director looked at him, an insane smile on his face, “Finally,” he stepped forward towards them, “You’re here. If I take even one of you to the professor…”

Yusei held an arm out in front of Yuzu, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’m not going to let you take anyone anywhere.”

“Step away from them, Roget.”

From the other side of the hallway came Reiji and Tsukikage, with Reiji being the one speaking.

“You only want Yuzu as a hostage to protect yourself. Thats your plan, isn’t it? To return to Academia and turn her over to win favor? You’re running away from the consequences of bringing chaos to City.”

“I’m not running away! It’s a strategic retreat!” Roget screamed, “You’ve seen nothing of my power!” He ran towards a nearby room, and right as they began to follow him, he returned with some kind of gun-like weapon. It didn’t look like a real gun, thankfully, but it was definitely meant to launch something.

He was aiming at Yuzu. If it was anything dangerous… Yusei couldn’t just let somebody get hurt.

Before a second thought could even arise, he felt an electric shock course through his body, a green net wrapping around him.

He looked up at Roget in disgust, the other man stepping back, preparing to run. “You were gonna throw that at a kid?!”

Yuzu gasped, “Yusei?! Why would- are you okay?”

“I won’t just let someone else get hurt while I’m here. Besides… I’m used to electricity.”

Tsukikage nodded at Yusei with respect, and Reiji stepped forward toward Roget, “Looks like your plans don’t tend to be very successful.”

Roget stepped back cautiously, looking for a way out. He darted back into the room, only Reiji managing to follow him before the door shut closed.

Tsukikage cut the net with some kind of small knife or dagger, and Yusei got up, wincing, “Thanks.”

Yuzu tapped on the door, “what do we do now…?”

Tsukikage tried to input a few commands on the lock, but none were successful, “There’s not much I can do to open it…”

“I can go look for another way in.”

“Are you sure?” Yuzu frowned, “This place is in chaos, it might not be safe to split up…”

“I’ll be fine. I’m just gonna check if there’s another door. That room looked pretty big, there should be another entrance somewhere.”

Yusei ran off down the hallway, looking for a potential other way inside, when he came across a wall of glass windows looking out over a massive circular room. There was a glass elevator on the side that might lead to the room from before, based on where it was positioned.

He entered the room, looking down into the circular pit. It was massive, dark, and almost bottomless, with a faint green glow coming from the ground. Black and green. It was unsettling for sure, and maybe the kind of thing that would make someone dizzy from looking at it too long, but nothing too unusual. Just a big room…

Yusei ran his hand along the wall, heading towards the elevator. The room seemed to stretch and warp, the exact size feeling… undecided, almost. Trying to focus on the wall, he realized it felt… rough, too rough for this kind of room. Like someone had covered it in concrete webs.

Spiderwebs.

The green light, amongst all the shifting, seemed purple for a second, like… like the—

“Why do they still accept me as their friend?!”

Yusei felt his knees touch the floor, the world pulsing with black and green and purple. Everything felt out of place, like the present was mixing with memories that weren’t even meant to be there. For a moment, it felt like the walkway he was on was moving, swaying from side to side. The electricity from earlier wasn’t strong enough to cause this kind of thing, so what was happening..?

“I just… need to keep going.” Despite the shakiness, Yusei stood up, right as he heard a buzzing that had started coming from the elevator. It was moving now, along with a man standing inside its glass: Roget. Trying to escape, probably.

CRASH-!

The glass from the way into the room scattered, most of it falling into the pit in the middle, and then, accompanied by their monsters, were two people standing just outside the room.

“You’re not getting away so easily!”

Jack and Crow?

Despite being glad to see his brothers, Yusei couldn’t help but wonder why Jack was using Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend right now. Earlier, he’d assumed it was just a strategic thing, but for something like this… why that version specifically? It’s like he didn’t even have RDA with him…

The dragon then broke the elevator, sending Roget falling until he caught onto the ledge of one of the walkways.

That was the catalyst for the rest of the Lancers showing up as well. Yuya in particular swung in on some kind of rope (that very well may have been another one of those physical holograms) and landed on the walkway next to Yusei.

Reiji was the closest to where Roget had fallen, having come from the same room, “You’re not getting away!”

Roget, who had climbed back onto one of the walkways, laughed. “I’m not going back to Academia without an offering for the professor. So if I can’t get ahold of the girl… I’ll just destroy this place. Better that than facing the professor’s wrath..!”

Roget dashed towards a control panel on the other side of the room, pressing various buttons until he turned back around to look at the rest of the room. The massive pit in the middle of the room started glowing green, much brighter than before.

“No…” Yusei whispered, “That… it can’t be.”

Yuya turned towards him, “What do you mean? What is it?!”

Roget answered the question for him, “We’re standing on the largest dimensional teleporter ever made! I’ll admit it is a bit unstable, but I’d rather be lost in the void than go back to the professor empty-handed!”

A teleporter..? Yusei had thought it looked more like a reactor, honestly.

A… very specific reactor, but he’d rather not think about that at the moment. Especially considering the light was getting brighter, pulsing and moving, and, in that light, for just a moment from the other side of the massive room, Yusei saw Jack looking directly at him, eyes wide, before saying something that was cut off by the noise of the teleporter as it turned on all the way, launching a giant green pillar of light through the roof of the building and into the sky.

“Yuya!!!” Yuzu’s voice called out. She was hanging onto the edge of a walkway, the pillar of light seemingly trying to pull her in.

Yuya ran over to her, “Yuzu!!”

The light expanded to fill the room, various screams barely audible behind its humming and buzzing.

Green and black. Screaming. Buildings falling. A voice he couldn’t recognize.

He tried to run over to help them, but someone grabbed his hand before he could get any closer.

Purple. Spiders. The past? Why did he—

An unfamiliar voice spoke from behind him, “Yusei. Don’t.”

“Why do they still smile at me without a second thought?!”

He turned around, only getting a slight glimpse of a blue-haired man holding him back, “Who are you?!”

“NO-!”

And the room was empty.

~~~

He felt like he was falling. Maybe he was.

Or maybe this was a dream. After all, he was pretty sure he wasn’t dueling a second ago.

“Just know that we’re behind you. All of us are.”

“The future isn’t determined yet!”

“I fight for my friends!”

“Shooting Spiral Soni—“

The noise was cut off, and the surroundings changed. It was a lab of some kind, the windows showing a clear blue sky with a few buildings nearby. He could hear birds chirping outside.

“You gotta listen!” Said a voice nearby, sounding a bit strange, like it was being heard through water or a bad radio, “we came here because—“

“You’ve said it before,” said another voice, that of an adult, “But our city is perfectly safe, I assure you. And I don’t appreciate your baseless accusations that our best duelist is—“

The environment shifted once more, into a broken city covered in fire and debris. A loud crash followed by screams heard from the side. He wasn’t too startled, knowing this was a dream, but-

“YUSEI!!”

The him in the dream turned to the sound of the voice, which happened to be one of the ones he heard earlier, seeing a boy with red and black hair. Yusei couldn’t see the kid’s face very clearly, but the him in the dream seemed to know who it was, running over.

“Yuma!! Oh, you’re okay… where’s—“

“I don’t know! He just disappeared! That dragon thing—“

Another building fell, revealing a glimpse of a massive black and green monster in the distance, blocking the light of the sun.

~~

He sat up with a gasp, and the first thing he noticed was that the air smelled of ash and dust. The only visible buildings in the distance were grey and in varying states of ruin. Did the teleporter..? No, this must be a different city entirely…

“Ugh… what was all that?”

“Hey, you’re awake!”

Yusei shot up off the ground, turning to face the blue haired man from earlier. He was wearing a white jacket with two blue and yellow stripes at the top, sitting on the ground like he’d been waiting a while for him to wake up. He looked familiar, but it was hard to place where exactly from.

“What- who are you?”

The man tilted his head at him, “You don’t remember?”

“…Kinda been having some issues with that today, unfortunately.”

“Issues?” It sounded like less of a question, and more of an attempt to gauge… something. What exactly, he wasn’t sure.

“Why do you need to know about it?”

“I have some information you might find helpful,” the man paused for a moment, “Uh… you don’t need to tell me anything, though. I get that you don’t really have a reason to trust me, considering…”

“Information, huh? Well, if that’s the case, where are we?”

The other man stood up, looking out at the destroyed city, “Heartland City, or what’s left of it. They call it the XYZ dimension.”

“The XYZ dimension?”

The man nodded, “Did the Lancers not tell you about that?”

“They did, a bit. They said they were based on summoning methods, though I haven’t heard of XYZ up until today.”

“Yeah, those are… new. They’ve supposedly been around for a while, but I wasn’t exactly there when they first came out.”

“Huh.” Yusei looked out over the destroyed city. The Lancers had briefly mentioned some kind of invasion… guess this was the aftermath of that. This kind of destruction… why would anyone do this? What for? And how could a single school..?

He shook his head, turning towards the other man, “I don’t think I got your name, by the way.”

The man thought for a second, then smiled at him, like he was looking at an old friend, “Call me Bruno.”

Chapter Text

Heartland city was clearly a place that had been through a lot. Behind all the ruin and debris there were dusty glimpses of color, little pieces of evidence that something bright had been there once. Yet, despite the specks of evidence of it having existed, it was no longer there. What was there was dust and ruin, and an unsteady feeling that the city around you could fall apart at any moment.

“It’s horrible,” Yusei narrowed his eyes at the new, yet still upsettingly familiar surroundings, “Why would someone do this?”

Save for his voice in that moment, the city was quiet, at least where they were. There were no small animals running about, no voices whispering in the shadows, and no obvious places where people would be staying. Maybe that was on purpose, after all, this wasn’t a battle, it was an attack. Of course the people would be hiding. Thats what set this apart, wasn’t it…? It hadn’t had time to establish anything atop the rubble or find any hope; it hadn’t had space to breathe or even allow anyone a moment of safety. It was dying.

“From what I know? Academia is trying to do something with the dimensions.”

Yusei looked over at Bruno, “…How do you know all of this, anyway?”

He shrugged a bit, “I’ve been looking into it. They’re using some kind of technology to turn people into cards as a kind of… energy source? Most of them run off before I can ask anything.”

“Turning people into cards?!”

“Yeah, they—“

“How about we give you a demonstration?”

They both turned around at the sound of a new voice, seeing two people in matching, yet different colored jackets approaching them.

“Academia…”

Their duel disks were already activated, and it didn’t seem like there was any getting out of this.

“Academia has a few ranks,” Bruno whispered, “I don’t think these two are very high, we should be able to get through them quickly.”

“I wouldn’t back away regardless.”

TAG DUEL!

The academia member in red went first. For a moment, Yusei’s attention was drawn more to the red jacket itself. Why, exactly, was… hard to tell. He hadn’t seen it anywhere before or anything. Maybe it was just… whatever.

“I normal summon Ancient Gear Knight,” the soldier started, “Then I’ll use the Polymerization in my hand to fusion summon Double Ancient Gear Hunting Hound with the two Ancient Gear Hunting Hounds in my hand.”

[Ancient Gear Knight- ATK 1800 DEF 500]

[Double Ancient Gear Hunting Hound- ATK 1400 DEF 1000]

The red academia solider ended his turn.

Yusei’s turn was next. He shook his head a bit, ignoring that red jacket still calling for his attention, and drew.

“Alright. I can send a monster from my hand to the graveyard— Necro Defender— to special summon Quickdraw Synchron from my hand. Then I’ll normal summon Speed Warrior, and since Quickdraw Synchron can substitute any other Synchron monster in a Synchro summon, I’ll use it to do just that!”

Yusei had seen the Synchro monster earlier, when he was dueling with Yuya against Sergey. It must’ve shown up some time in between what he last remembered of being in New Domino and arriving here, at least that was his best guess.

"Clustering anger brings with it a warrior from a fierce god. Become the path that lights the way! Synchro Summon! Howl, Junk Berserker!"

[Junk Berserker- ATK 2500 DEF 1800]

Yusei set a facedown before ending his turn. He couldn’t attack yet, as it was a tag duel, but this was a decent start. Though— where did that summoning chant come from? Anger…?

The next turn was of the academia soldier in yellow.

“Using the Ancient Gear Hunting Hound in my hand and the Double Ancient Gear Hunting hound on the field, I fusion summon! Triple Ancient Gear Hunting Hound!!”

[Triple Ancient Gear Hunting Hound- ATK 1800 DEF 1000]

The yellow solider set two more cards and ended the turn. He turned to the one in red, “You better pick up the pace.”

“Says the one who couldn’t even bring out—“

“My turn!” Bruno said, “I draw. I normal summon T.G Cyber Magician. Its effect lets me use it to Synchro summon with it and non-tuner monsters in my hand. So, I’ll use it with Level 4 T.G Rush Rhino to Synchro Summon! Level Five! Regulator Open! Thruster Warm up, OK! Up Link All Clear! Go! Synchro Summon! Come on! Tech Genus Hyper Librarian!"

Yusei felt a kind of tug in his brain, like… it was trying to pull up information that wasn’t there, but more aggressively than before. He shifted his feet a bit, the sunlight peeking over the ruined buildings feeling too bright, like lasers shooting directly into his eyes.

Bruno, having the fourth turn, had attacked, destroying both of the other team’s monsters and getting them down from 8,000 to 6,700 LP.

The Academia soldier in yellow flipped up a trap card, “Ancient Gear Reborn!” he cried, “I can bring one Ancient Gear monster sent to the graveyard this turn back, and add on an extra 200 attack points! I choose Triple Ancient Gear Hound!”

[Triple Ancient Gear Hound- ATK 2000 (1800+200)]

“But that’s not all! With my other trap, Ancient Gear Spark Shot, when exactly one Ancient Gear monster is special summoned from the graveyard, I can inflict half its attack points as damage to you!”

[8000-1000=7000]

The next turn was back to the red academia student. (Why was Yusei so focused on that jacket?! It’s just a uniform…)

“I draw!” The student looked at his hand, seeming disappointed, and a bit angry. “I normal summon Ancient Gear Engineer and set one card. I… end my turn.”

The one in yellow turned to his ally, “You couldn’t do anything better than that?!”

“I’m sorry! I just got unlucky!!”

“You— luck had nothing to do with it!! This is why I never work with Slackers!!”

Slackers? Probably a school thing, considering they were named Academia… though, what kind of school would send children off to a war zone like this?

Yusei sighed. Yeah… these were children… it was horrible, really. Maybe when the duel was over he could… talk to them? Try and do something to help whatever situation led them to—

Oh. It was his turn.

“Alright!” He wanted to end this quickly. His hand was… not the best for that, but there was one way out. “I activate Cards of Consonance! By sending one tuner from my hand to the graveyard, I can draw two!”

Junk Synchron was the only tuner in his hand, but sending it to the graveyard was actually a good idea in this situation, considering Beserker’s effect. The cards he drew were Bright Star Dragon and Blue Expense Falcon.

Perfect.

“First off, Junk Beserker’s effect! I can banish one Junk monster in my graveyard to make one of your monsters loose attack equal to the attack of the monster that was banished!”

[Triple Ancient Gear Hunting Hound: 2000-1300‎ = 700ATK]

“Next, I’m summoning the tuner monster Blue Expense Falcon, which lets me special summon a level four wind monster from my hand! In this case, Bright Star Dragon! Its effect lets me increase the level of any face-up monster on the field by two, so I’m bringing Blue Expense Falcon to level four as well!”

The red academia student stepped back, “He has two level four monsters…!”

The yellow one snapped at him, “He’s a Synchro summoner, you idiot!!”

“Now,” Yusei continued, “I’m using Blue Expense Falcon and Bright Star Dragon to Synchro Summon! Gathering wishes will become a new shining star! Become the path that lights the way! Synchro Summon! Take flight, Stardust Dragon!”

He looked over at Bruno, who, lightly tapped at Hyper Librarian on his duel disk. What— oh yeah, he should read that…

Yusei smiled, “And since I Synchro Summoned, T.G Hyper Librarian lets me draw a card!”

…!

This card, it…

”Yusei. I need you to show this to—“

How did it get in his deck? Why would he even have a card like this..?

Yusei shook his head, he could worry about that later. “Time to battle! Junk Beserker attacks your Triple Ancient Gear Hunting Hound!”

[2500-700‎ = 1800]

[6700-1800‎ = 4900]

“T.G Hyper Librarian attacks your Ancient Gear Engineer!”

[2400-1500=900]

[4900-900=4000]

He wouldn’t be able to finish them off right away, but… “And finally, Stardust Dragon attacks you directly!”

“Hold it right there!” Yelled the Academia student, “I activate Negate Attack!”

..!

Stardust stopped in its tracks, and Yusei looked down at the new card in his hand. He’d never seen it before now, and yet it had ended up in his deck. Was this why, or was it just a fortunate coincidence?

Regardless…

“You hold it right there! Since you negated my monster’s attack, I can activate the quick-play spell, Double or Nothing! It lets me make another attack, and my monster’s attack points are doubled during the damage step! Go, Stardust Dragon!!”

[4000-5000=0.]

When the smoke cleared, the red academia student was standing there in shock, his yellow ally looking enraged.

“We…” the red one started, “the Professor is gonna…”

“And we’ll take it with pride,” said the yellow one, “We deserve it for being weak.”

“I… no!” Yelled the other, running off as fast as he could, “No!!!”

“You…! Slacker!!!” The yellow one ran after him, disappearing among the ruins.

“Hey, wait-!!” Yusei called out, but they were both already gone, “huh.”

Bruno walked back over to him, looking down at Double or Nothing! in Yusei’s hand, “Where’d you get that card?”

“I thought you would know.”

“I’ve never seen you use it before…”

“Oh.” That just made this a lot stranger. Bruno clearly knew at least a few things about the period of time Yusei was forgetting, and even he didn’t recognize this card… had it appeared just now, or was there some more time in between when he’d obtained it?

“If I had to guess, you probably got it after I died.”

Yusei froze, looking over at the other man, “….what?”

Before he could get a solid answer to… whatever that meant, they both heard someone coming towards them. Was it Academia again..?

“Yuma?!” yelled a voice, “Yuma, are you there?!?”

Yusei felt his body freeze up, suddenly refusing to move. It was like before, in the sense that he could tell his brain was trying to pull up missing information, but this time a lot more of it. Of course, nothing came of it but a headache, yet… That name… why did it…?

The source of the voice was a teenager, coming into the open from between the ruined buildings nearby. He was wearing a grey cloak, likely to blend in with the surroundings, but the hood was down, revealing short pink hair that was darker at the ends. He looked panicked, calling out again before spotting them.

“…you aren’t from Academia…” He paused, “Did you see someone else come through here at all?! Anyone dueling, or..?”

“Not really,” said Bruno, “We dueled some Academia soldiers, but they ran away. Are you looking for someone?”

“A friend of mine, yeah… hey, I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before, where are you from?”

“The Synchro Dimension. We were brought here by accident, but we really do want to help.”

“Synchro…?” The boy thought for a second, “Thats interesting, but I don’t have time to talk, sorry!!”

“Hey, wait!” Yusei called out, “Who are you looking for? We might be able to help.”

The boy didn’t even look back at them, “None of your business!!”

“Duel me then.”

The boy stopped, turning back around to look at him, “You don’t know what you’re getting into.”

“I think you might have some information I need, and I’m not going to let my only chance to find out about it just run away.”

The boy looked at him, hesitating for a minute, He was clearly a duelist, so the odds of him denying this were…

“Fine. But I’m going to make it quick.”

…basically zero.

Chapter Text

The pink-haired boy went first. His duel disk was interesting, with the blade being an array of feather-like panels, rather than the hologram blades that most other people here seemed to use. Why did the other people use hologram blades anyway? When would that technology have even…

“First, I’m summoning Chronomaly Gordian Knot. This lets me special summon another Chronomaly monster from my hand: Cabrera Trebuchet! Then, Gordian Knot’s effect changes its level to match the monster I summoned with it. And with them, I build the Overlay Network! XYZ summon!! Number 36: Chronomaly Chateau Huyuk!!”

[Number 36: Chronomaly Chateau Huyuk. Rank 4. ATK2000, DEF2500.]

So that’s XYZ… Yusei had seen some of the Lancers use a similar technique, now that he thought about it. The monster itself was interesting, being some kind of ancient buildings trapped within a blue sphere with the number 36 on it. He  did wonder what the significance of that number was specifically, though.

The pink-haired boy set a facedown card, and then it was Yusei’s turn. He wasn’t sure what that XYZ monster could do yet, so he had to be careful.

“Alright! First up, I can special summon Triangle Warrior by summoning two triangle tokens to your field in defense position. Then, I’ll normal summon the tuner monster Junk Synchron and use it with Triangle Warrior to Synchro Summon!! Clustering stars will call upon a new force! Become the path its light shines upon! Synchro Summon! Show yourself, Junk Warrior!"

[Junk Warrior: Level 5, ATK2300 DEF1300]

The pink-haired boy looked interested, “Synchro…”

“I’m not done yet!” Yusei continued, “I equip my Junk Warrior with the equip spell Fighting Spirit! It gains 300 attack for every monster on your field, and thanks to those tokens, that puts it at 3200–“

“Not so fast! Chateau’s effect can be activated on either of our turns, and it lets me detach one XYZ material from it to change one of your monster’s attack points to zero until the end of this turn!”

“Ah… well, in that case, I’ll set a card and end my turn.”

“Then it’s my turn! I draw! First, the spell card Chronomaly Technology! I can banish a Chronomaly card in my graveyard to draw two, but I have to send one of them to the graveyard. Next, the Field Spell, Sunken Kingdom!”

The subsequent hologram was, as the name suggested, an underwater city full of ancient ruins, the most prominent of which being a pyramid-like structure that had the “sun” shining down on it. Somehow, looking up, even though it was underwater, the sky projected by the hologram seemed… brighter than the real one had. Maybe it was the color.

“Now,” continued the boy, “Since I have a field spell, I can special summon the level five Chronomaly Tula Guardian! Then, I’ll normal summon Chronomaly Golden Jet, and use its effect to bring it to level five as well. Then, I’ll use them to XYZ summon! Number 33: Chronomaly Machu Mech!!”

[Number 33: Chronomaly Machu Mech. Rank 5. ATK 2400 DEF 1500]

Another number… were those just an XYZ thing, or was there something more to them? Regardless, if he used Chateau’s effect again, Yusei would probably lose, and so…

“Hold it!” He interjected, “During your main phase, I can activate Effect Veiler to negate one of your monster’s effects! And I choose Chateau Huyuk!”

Without that effect, none of those monsters could get past Junk Warrior, so he should be safe for another turn…

The boy sighed, “I end my turn.”

“Okay, my turn! Draw! I’ll start with—“

“Before you do anything, I’m activating Chateau’s effect to lower your Junk Warrior’s attack points to zero.”

Ah, of course.. Yusei didn’t have a way to negate that right now either, but at least he couldn’t get attacked, and the material requirement probably meant that effect couldn’t be used again.

“But that’s not all,” the boy continued, “When the attack of one monster on the field is changed, I can detach a material from Machu Mech to deal damage to you equal to the amount changed!”

Oh. That was… good, actually.

“Hang on!!” Yusei smiled, “When I would take effect damage, I can activate Synchron Keeper to negate it by banishing both a tuner monster from my graveyard- in this case Junk Synchron, and Synchron Keeper itself. Then, I also get to Synchro Summon a monster whose level is equal to those two combined!”

[5+3=8]

“Clustering hopes will become a new shining star! Become the path its light shines upon! Synchro Summon! Take flight, Stardust Dragon!”

This was a lot better than what he could’ve done otherwise…

“Now, Stardust Dragon! Attack his Machu Mech!”

[2500-2400=100]

[???LP: 4000-100=3,900]

Despite finally landing a hit, the other monster remained on the field.

“What..?”

The boy smirked, “Only a Number can destroy another Number.”

That’s what that was about?! Seriously?? Seems… oddly specific. How many Numbers were there, for that to even be fair?

Yusei sighed, “Alright. I end my turn.”

The boy drew a card, “I’m ending this now!! Starting with the spell card, Palenque Sarcophagus! When I control a Chronomaly monster, it lets me draw two cards! Next, Chateau Huyuk’s second effect lets me tribute a Chronomaly monster, even itself, to destroy one of your monsters whose attack points are different from what they were originally, and thanks to your Fighting Spirit, that applies to Junk Warrior!”

Oh, he was serious. At least Yusei still had Stardust…

“Now,” the boy continued, “Since I activated a spell card, I can special summon Chronomaly Aztec Mask Golem! Then, I’m going to tribute one of those tokens you gave me earlier to summon level six Chronomaly Sol Monolith, which can use its effect to change Aztec Mask Golem’s level to match its own!”

Two level six monsters… at this point, he knew what was coming. The one thing he couldn’t place was why the boy seemed a bit worried about it.

“I overly Sol Monolith and Aztec Mask Golem to XYZ summon!! Number 6: Chronomaly Atlandis!! And when it’s summoned, I can target a Number monster in my graveyard and equip it to add its attack points to Atlandis’! Since Chateau Huyuk tributed itself, I’ll use it, bringing Atlandis to 4600 attack points! This activates Machu Mech’s effect, letting me inflict damage to you equal to the attack it gained!!”

Yusei flinched, his LP going down 2000 points. This… wasn’t good. Even if he used the trap he had, he would still…

“That’s not all! I can also detach a material from Atlandis to halve your life points!”

[2000/2=1000]

“Now, battle! Chronomaly Atlandis, attack Stardust Dragon!!”

[4600-2500=2100]

[2100-1000=0]

The underwater hologram vanished, right as the impact of the attack hit, and Bruno, who’d been watching the duel without much commentary up until now, ran over to him, “Yusei!”

“I’m fine… I just wasn’t expecting… any of that, really.”

That was when, right before the pink-haired boy was about to leave, another voice rang out amongst the ruined city.

“III!!”

From the ruined buildings came two older teenagers, one in particular going over to the pink-haired boy, while the other— one with purple hair that vaguely resembled some kind of claw— stayed back a bit more, looking over at Yusei and Bruno like they might be a threat.

The pink haired boy (III? That’s what the older one had said…) waved a hand dismissively, “I’m fine, IV. They’re not from Academia. Besides, I won anyway.”
They kept talking, but the main thing seemed to be concern about one of the cards that was used. (“We tried it earlier and I was fine!! Something about the dimensions must’ve—“)

“Are their names… numbers?” Yusei whispered.

Bruno shrugged, “Wouldn’t be too strange.”

IV turned to them, “Who are you?”

Yusei stepped forward, “Yusei Fudo. This is Bruno. We came from the… Synchro Dimension.”

It wasn’t technically untrue, given that was where they’d left from. It was also a lot easier than explaining the actual situation, given that he didn’t really understand the full details either.

“The Synchro Dimension, huh?” The purple one glared at them, “How do we know you’re not Academia spies?”

“They really do use Synchro,” said III, “I saw it myself. Besides, if they were Academia, they would’ve run away when I won, right?”

“We can just go, if you want…”

“Then go,” the purple one said, “We don’t need your help.”

“You’re just going to let them go, Shark? We should—“

“No. We shouldn’t waste time with them when we have to…” the teen trailed off for a moment before continuing, turning away from the rest of them. “We have more important things to do.”

—

Even after the three XYZ users had left to do whatever it was they found so urgent, Yusei and Bruno still had to figure out what to do about all this.

“I could just bring us back to the Synchro Dimension, but you probably don’t want to leave the Lancers, right?”

Yusei nodded, “Yeah… I saw Jack and Crow there too, so they might be here as well. Though, what do you mean, you can just bring us back to the Synchro Dimension?”

“Well I wouldn’t really have been able to look into the Dimensional War without a way to get between dimensions. It’s… similar to something my friends used to use.”

“Yeah, and earlier you mentioned you died, what was that abou—“

His words were cut off by the sound of an explosion from the nearby buildings.

“What was that?!”

They ran over to the sight of the explosion, and thankfully, there didn’t seem to be anyone hurt. What there was was a young man standing atop a piece of rubble, a dragon behind him.

A voice called out from the side, “Yusei!!”

“Yuya, Yuzu… are you both alright?”

Yuya nodded, “We’re all fine. We don’t know where the others are, though.”

The man standing atop the rubble glared down at them. He probably thought they were from Academia too, didn’t he…?

“Hey!” said Yuya, “Are you with the Resistance? We’re friends of Kurosaki’s, we came here to help!!”

“Kurosaki?” The man repeated, “Whether you know him or not means nothing to me. If you mean well… prove it in a duel.

“Aright!” said Yuya, “Then that’s just what I’ll do!!”

Chapter Text

“Go, Galaxy-Eyes Cipher Dragon!!”

Yuya lost the duel.

The young man— Kaito— was incredibly powerful. The only reason they had been spared from… whatever he was planning on doing in the end, was that Kurosaki had shown up and vouched for them. With Kurosaki had come two kids, one of which was asking Kaito to come back with them all.

“Please, come and fight with u—“

“No!!” Kaito yelled, putting a card on his duel disk, “My goals are far beyond you!!”

The card he’d used had created a flash of light, and he disappeared within it.

“He’s gone…” Yusei turned towards Yuya, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine!”

Kurosaki walked over to them, “Where is everyone else?”

“No idea…” Yuzu sighed, “We’ve been looking for them since we got here, but the only people we’ve seen was this family that gave us some food…”

“Maybe we’ll find them on the way to the Resistance base… is that family that helped you still around? We should get them to safety.”

Yusei nodded, “Yeah. Good idea…”

“Who’s your friend, by the way?”

Bruno smiled, “I’m Bruno. Also from the Synchro Dimension. I got caught in the teleporter just like you guys.”

“Oh..!” Yuzu said, “Sorry you got involved in all this…”

“No, no, it’s fine. I was already looking into the Dimension situation anyway.”

Kurosaki narrowed his eyes at the other man, “Looking into it…?”

“He’s a friend,” Yusei said, “It’s not anything suspicious.”

“Well,” Yuzu said, “if Yusei trusts him, he’s probably fine.”

Yuya smiled, “Yeah! Now how do we get to the Resistance base?”

—

Sometime on the way to the Resistance Base, Yuya handed Yuzu a card.

“I found this on the ground when Kaito beat me earlier. It kinda matches your deck, doesn’t it? Besides, I’m already learning a lot of summoning methods, so maybe you could try too?”

Yuzu smiled, looking at the card, “Yeah! That sounds fun…”

The only bit of the card Yusei saw before it was put away was the black XYZ border, and the very bottom of the artwork, depicting rainbow music notes.

The rest of the walk, after making it out of the main city area, was stairs up the side of one of the nearby mountains.

“They don’t go up too high,” said one of the kids, “But this was just the safest place to make base, you know?”

“Don’t worry!!” Yuya said, “We can handle some stairs.”

The stairs were longer than they’d thought. The light was growing dimmer, and it was clearly almost nighttime. They’d sort of run out of conversation topics when Yuya said something else.

“Hey, uh… I do have a question.”

They all turned to look at Yuya, still all walking, and Kurosaki answered, “Yeah?”

“That Kaito guy… what’s his deal?”

“Kaito…” Kurosaki sighed, “I’ll admit I don’t know him very well. Not many people do anymore. We’ve reached out to him a few times, but since his family was carded…”

“Oh…”

“I’m worried it might’ve gotten worse while I was gone, honestly. Usually he has this little… robot guy with him.”

“Robot?” Yusei asked.

“Yeah… I saw it talk him down from carding someone once… That was the last I heard of him before Yuto and I left.”

“Huh…”

”I want to duel him again sometime,” Yuya said, “I can’t just—“

“Hey!!” said one of the kids, “We’re here!!”

At the top of the stairs, finally, was a building. A lodge, maybe? There had been parts clearly added on or renovated, though the original parts of the building seemed fairly old. It was a lot darker now, and the sun was most of the way through setting.

“Oh… yeah, I haven’t eaten all day, have I..?” Yusei said, mostly to himself.

“We have food inside.”

Yuya cheered, “Yeah!!”

~

“Aww…”

Yuzu elbowed Yuya in the side, “It’s perfectly normal soup, Yuya.”

“You should be grateful anything’s available in this environment at all…” Yusei muttered, before looking over at Bruno, “Are you not going to eat anything?”

“I don’t need to. It’s more important all the civilians get to eat first anyway.”

Don’t need to… slightly odd way to say you weren’t hungry, but alright.

Yuzu sighed, “I’m worried about the others… I hope they’re doing alright.”

“If anything, they’re safer at night…” Kurosaki said, “It’s easier to hide. And… also that Academia doesn’t like to card people in their sleep. They like to see the looks on people’s faces when they do it. It’s disgusting… but at least that means not many are out at night.”

“That’s…” Yuya paused, “Well, I’m sure they can handle anything they run into! I trust our friends.”

Bruno looked over at Kurosaki, “I’m going to go look around, if that’s alright?”

“Yeah, just know the most of the civilians probably won’t want to chat.”

Yusei stood up, “I’ll go with you. There are a few things I want to talk about.”

After a little while of walking through the halls, Yusei asked the question that had been bothering him for a while now, “You never answered my question,” he said, “What did you mean when you said you died?”

“Oh, yeah… I only realized you didn’t remember that after I said it. What happened, was… how do I put this…” Bruno paused for a moment, “Well, we ended up dueling each other in a… certain situation, where only one of us could come out alive. You were stronger…” he seemed to notice the expression on Yusei’s face, “but don’t feel bad about it, okay? I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way, and everything turned out a lot better because you won.”

What… what kind of situation would’ve even led to that?! What did he get himself into before…?

“…Tell me the whole thing.”

~

“…And I don’t really know what happened after that. You know, because… I was dead.”

…

“What.”

Even after the whole explanation, he didn’t personally remember any of it, and… that whole thing was just… a lot of information. How was he even supposed to react to all of that…? Time travel, androids… all of it was hard to imagine just from the explanation alone, and he still had a feeling that wasn’t even everything.

“I’m sorry, that must’ve been a lot. I know how it feels to…”

“No,” Yusei said, “It’s fine. I just… I don’t remember any of that.”

“Oh. That… that’s really strange… if anything, I’d thought that would’ve helped. If I had to guess why, though, I’d say that maybe if whatever happened to make the dimensions like this was intentional, it was probably that. If not… no clue.”

“I guess… but why would I show up now, then? Instead of earlier, if the dimensions have been like this for so long?”

“Honestly, I have no idea. I wish I could tell you more, but…”

“Yeah, I get it…”

They had stopped in front of a pair of double doors. He hadn’t noticed them much, more focused on what he was being told, but now…

Yusei put a hand on one, feeling the wood. It was clearly very old, and the door itself had lots of different patterns and details. “These are a lot older than the bigger parts of the building, aren’t they?”

Bruno shrugged, “Maybe. It’s hard to tell. What do you think’s back there..?”

“It wouldn’t hurt just to look.”

The doors creaked open to a circular room, likely meant for dueling, given the open center. On the edges, though…

“Woah…”

They were dusty, yeah, but the wooden statues there were incredibly detailed. Legendary monsters… there was Dark Magician, Blue Eyes…

…Elemental Hero Neos, and even…

…even Stardust Dragon, only about a fourth of the way done.

“What…?” Yusei whispered, wiping some of the dust off the massive, unfinished statue. And “massive” meant massive. Every statue in the room was around three hundred centimeters high, at least.

“Maybe it couldn’t get finished before the invasion started?”

“Maybe… why would there be a statue of Stardust in the XYZ dimension anyway?”

Bruno thought for a second, looking at the other statues. “There are fusion monsters in here too…”

They were both quiet for a moment. There were so many different ways this could’ve…

“Hey.”

They turned around to see Kurosaki standing in the doorway. “The other Lancers made it up… oh, and you’re not supposed to be in here.”

~

“Okay,” Reiji started, “since we’re all— who is that.”

Yuya answered before Yusei or Bruno could, “That’s Bruno, he’s Yusei’s friend!”

“Okay… fair enough. More allies are usually a good thing, after all. Now, since we’re all here, we need to figure out how to proceed.”

“Can the plan be ‘going to sleep??’” Sawatari whined, “A star like me needs rest!! We’ve been up all day, and I don’t just mean those stairs…”

“I agree, though not in that exact wording…” Yuzu sighed, “It’s the middle of the night. Can we have the meeting in the morning?”

Reiji looked around at all of the Lancers. It had been a long day, hadn’t it..?

“Fine. But first thing in the morning we’re discussing strategy.”

-~-

Yusei had fallen asleep faster than he’d expected. To be fair, despite his familiarity with all-nighters, a lot had happened.

Now, in a way similar to what had happened between dimensions, he was dreaming. Honestly, he had hoped he’d remember something, after hearing so much about the things that had happened…

and yet, what he really saw there…

…was someone from Academia, wearing a red jacket.

Chapter Text

Yusei and the other person looked at each other for a second, just… standing there within the darkness of a dream.

“…Who are you?” Yusei asked.

The academia student smiled, “I’m Judai Yuki! What about you?”

“Yusei Fudo. You’re… from Academia, aren’t you?”

“Academia? You mean Duel Academy? Yeah, I go to school there. Or… I’m supposed to. They haven’t let me do much recently.” Judai sighed, and sat down on the floor, if it was floor at all. It was more like… some kind of dream-created void. There were little flashes of color in the distance, but they never got any closer.

Yusei also sat down, “What do you mean?”

“I dunno, it’s just… recently things have been really weird, yknow? I’m not really supposed to talk about it, but since—“

“Since this is a dream, it should be fine?”

“Yeah, exactly!! So what happened, is everything was going normally up until like, a month ago, I think. I just woke up in my dorm like usual, but it was all dusty and empty, like nobody had been in there in years! Then, when I left and went to the main building to find out what was going on, these guys just came up and grabbed me!”

“Really..?”

“Yeah, they took me to the Headmaster’s office, but like, here’s the really weird part, it was a completely different guy than I remember it being… he told me that I’d been gone for a really long time… but that didn’t make any sense! I’d been there just the day before…”

Yusei thought for a second, “Something similar happened to me… though, what do you mean ‘they haven’t let you do much recently’?”

“That’s the worst part!!” He said, “The new headmaster— they just call him the Professor— he… has this really creepy guy that works for him. They call him the Doctor? Sometimes, instead of class, they make me go talk to him, and I…”

“And you what?”

Judai paused for a moment, “…I’m not really sure what they do.”

The lights in the void-like distance suddenly got brighter, overwhelming Yusei’s vision.

His eyes shot open, staring up at the ceiling. It was still dark…

That dream he’d had, what was that about? Was that an actual person, or was he just imagining things? What was going on at Academia?

Finding it pointless to try and go back to sleep, he decided to look around the building some more. Maybe there would be something else hinting as to why there was a statue of Stardust Dragon in that other room…

Walking through the halls, he caught onto the sound of voices from another room. Probably people keeping watch or something. Yet… it didn’t look like the door led outside. It kind of sounded like a duel.

He opened the door, peeking inside, just to see if his suspicion was correct, and yeah, there was a duel going on. Specifically a duel between Yuzu and a green-haired girl, who looked… almost scared?

“Fusion…” she whispered, looking at one of Yuzu’s monsters. Oh. “You-!!”

“Hang on!” Yuzu interrupted, “It’s okay! Bloom Prima won’t be around for long, because I’m using her and Shopina the Melodious Maestra to XYZ summon!”

“To… XYZ summon?!”

Yuzu nodded, “Yes! I’m gonna overlay these two level seven monsters to XYZ summon the rank seven monster: Number 76: Harmonizer Gradielle!!”

That monster… the rainbow music notes surrounding it… that must’ve been the card Yusei saw Yuya give Yuzu earlier. It was a number?!

The green haired girl was silent, staring up at the monster with a hand over her mouth.

“See?” Yuzu said, “I’m on your side! We came here to help you all!”

“I… I don’t believe you!!!”

“Well, whether you believe me or not, I’m winning this! Harmonizer Gradielle, attack ‘Tethys, goddess of Light’!”

The duel was over, and the green haired girl fell to her knees. “No…” she whispered, “no…!”

Yuzu walked over to the other girl, reaching out a hand. “I… I’m sorry I used my Fusion monsters, Tori. I should’ve… been more careful, instead of only focusing on winning. I don’t mean you any harm.”

Yusei stepped back, closing the door. That situation was clearly between the two girls. It wasn’t any of his business. There were other things to do… maybe he could find that room with the statues from earlier. There might’ve been something he missed the first time?

The floorboards in the hallway were creaky, which was probably what led to the next interaction…

“Yusei.” A voice said. He looked to the side, seeing Reiji and the ninja— Tsukikage— sitting at a table. “I want to ask you about something.”

“Uh… yeah, okay?” He sat down at the table with them.

“Where did you come from?” Reiji asked, “Most things about you match up with the Synchro dimension, yet… not everything. How do you explain that?”

Oh. That’s what it was. “I’m not from the Synchro dimension. Or any of the four dimensions, I think.” Yusei thought for a second, “I’m from Neo Domino City. I’m not sure how I ended up in the Synchro Dimension.”

“And yet, you said Jack Atlas was your brother?” Tsukikage asked.

“Ah,” Yusei paused. He did say that, didn’t he… “Well, he is, though not biologically. Crow, too. I’m not sure why either of them were there, though… I couldn’t really get any answers at the time. Apparently I’ve been gone for a while, but I don’t remember any of that.”

“Interesting,” Reiji said, “And how do we know we can trust you?”

“In a situation like this, there’s not much I can say. I’ve never been to the Fusion dimension, and I have no reason to work with people like that. Though, I did stop Yuzu from getting kidnapped like twice. If I were with Academia, I wouldn’t have any reason to do that, would I?”

“…I suppose you wouldn’t. I do have one more question, if you don’t mind?”

“Sure.”

Reiji looked him in the eyes, “Are you Yusei Fudo?”

He quickly glanced away, only a bit uncomfortable by the sudden eye contact, “That’s my name, yeah… you probably know about my father’s work, don’t you.”

“Quite the opposite. I’ve never heard of your father. I’m actually much more interested in what you did to get a class named after you at my father’s school.”

“…What?”

“He liked to talk about these… Legendary Duelists, ones I couldn’t find in any history book. I used to think he made it all up.”

Yusei didn’t respond immediately. Given what Bruno told him, he could imagine a few things he might’ve done that people would’ve seen as admirable, but… legendary? Really? And why would these people in what was presumably an entirely different world know about any of that anyway?

“That’s… odd. What did he say?”

“In the class itself? I was too young to go to any before he… left. What I did hear, however, was that you helped create a lot of complicated technology—“

“Reiji!!” Sawatari ran into the room, interrupting the conversation, “Yuya’s gone!”

“He what?!”

“He’s not here, I think he left!”

Yusei stood up as well, “Where did he go?”

“No idea! One of the kids here said something about his dad and he ran off! Yuzu and Gongenzaka already left to go find him.”

“I’ll help,” Yusei said. It was important to make sure the kid was okay… that, and he was hoping he’d run into Jack and Crow, assuming they also got caught up in the teleportation.

Reiji told Tsukikage to go look as well, as the ninja disappeared in a blur.

~

The XYZ dimension was just as silent as it was when he’d arrived. He’d made his way to the inner walls of the city without much issue. The walls were massive, though parts had crumbled away. What were they for, exactly? Was the inside special in some way? That was where the big destroyed tower was, so probably.

CRASH-!

Yusei turned his attention to the sudden noise from nearby. There, he saw several Academia soldiers just within earshot moving towards a man in a cloak. He stepped out of their view.

“Commander!!” One of them yelled, “Are you alright?!”

That was their commander, huh…? He looked younger than Yusei… was the entirety of Academia child soldiers and young adults who just graduated…?

…Disgusting. Who was in charge of the whole thing, anyway? Why would they..?

“I’m alright,” the commander said, “Let’s go back. I’m late for a meeting.”

The Academia soldiers disappeared in a flash of light, and Yusei stepped back out. It seemed like the noise had been caused by some debris falling over.

…there was a bit of movement beneath it.

Yuya threw a light piece of wall off of him, getting off the ground with a groan.

“Yuya!!”

“Yusei… I’m fine. There was this guy… I couldn’t get through to him. Not even with my dueling…”

“That guy from Academia?”

“Yeah… he met my father once. He said he wouldn’t card me out of pity…”

“Your father?”

“It’s a long story… what are you doing out here?”

“I and the other Lancers went out looking for you when you left. We should probably go tell them you’re okay.”

“…alright!” Yuya smiled, “Wouldn’t want anyone to worry!”

“Are you sure you’re alright?”

“Yeah… just got flung into a flimsy piece of wall. I’m not hurt.”

They started walking back through the city’s ruins, when they heard another discussion going on nearby.

Yuya recognized one of the voices, who was speaking angrily, “Kaito…?”

The source of the noise was on a lower level of the city, maybe what used to be some kind of walkway? Regardless, there were two people talking down there. Kaito, and a white-haired man in a similar outfit to those Yusei had seen on those two teenagers earlier— the ones named after numbers.

“Calm down, Kaito,” said the man, “I understand how you’re feeling, but—“

“No!!” Kaito yelled, “You don’t understand, V! You never could!! Not when your family is still alive!!!”

“That doesn’t mean you can just go around carding people.”

“Why not?! They’ve done it to thousands more of us!!”

“You should know better, Kaito. What would Yuma s—“

“Yuma…” Kaito interrupted, the name coming out as not much more than a seething whisper, “…isn’t here right now.” He turned away from the other man, “So just leave me alone.”

Chapter Text

When Kaito turned away from the other man, he happened to see Yuya and Yusei standing nearby. Yuya took a step back, likely remembering how he’d lost earlier.

The other man— V, supposedly— also looked up at them.

“You…” Kaito glared at Yuya, “Did you follow me here…? What do you want?!”

“Nothing!!” Yuya said, “We just happened to be passing by!!”

“Sure you did.”

V looked over at the younger man, “Who-“

“It’s nothing. They’re just people Kurosaki brought here.”

Yuya jumped down to the lower level, pointing at Kaito. “I want to duel you again!”

Kaito didn’t answer immediately, glaring at Yuya.

“No.”

“What?!” Yuya asked, “Why not????”

“I have more important things to—“

“YUYA!!!”

Yuya’s gaze darted over to the sound of the voice, “Yuzu?”

“Oh, you’re okay!!” Yuzu ran over to them, “I need to ask about that card you gave me!”

She was probably talking about that Number Yusei had seen her use earlier… though, considering who they were all standing next to, it probably wasn’t a good idea to—

“A number?” Kaito whispered.

“Kaito, wait,” V said, stopping the younger man from further approaching, “I don’t think you should—“

“I can handle it,” Kaito growled.

He pointed at Yuzu, “You. Duel me.”

“No way!!” Yuya said, “what’s your deal?! You won’t duel me but you’ll duel her-?! Why?? What did I even do?!”

“Yuya!” Yuzu interrupted, “I’m sure he’ll duel you later.” She turned towards Kaito, “I’ll accept your challenge!!”

“If you want to duel her, you need to go through me first!” Yuya yelled.

Yusei hadn’t known him for very long, yeah, but… this behavior felt kind of strange? Maybe Yuya just really wanted to avenge his loss from earlier. That was a fairly normal thing to want, wasn’t it?

“Well,” V said, “We could Tag Duel, if you’re so insistent.”

“I’m not partnering with you!!” Kaito snapped.

V whispered something, Yusei only picking up something about powers and trying to help. What “powers” could he be referring to…?

Yuzu nodded, “A tag duel is fine. Yusei, you don’t mind..?”

“It’s fine, I’ll watch.”

There was a bonus to watching from the side, too. He could focus more on the details… have some time to think about what’s going on. Besides, this “V” guy didn’t seem like he would let Kaito hurt anyone like they’d seen earlier, so it was probably safe.

Kaito took the first turn. It started off similarly to his previous duel with Yuya, using two Cipher Wing(s) to quickly bring out Galaxy-Eyes Cipher Dragon, and ending with a set card. He probably had a really consistent strategy, and with how Yuya lost last time… it wasn’t exactly a good sign how easily he could bring out his ace.

Yuzu was next.

“First up, when you control a monster and I don’t, I can special summon Solo the Melodious Songstress from my hand! Then, I’ll normal summon Aria the Melodious Diva and use the continuous spell Fortissimo to give Solo 600 extra attack points until our next standby phase.”

That wasn’t too bad, or at least it wouldn’t be against basically anyone else. Thankfully this was a tag duel, so it was still possible for Yuya to pick up the pace before they started getting attacked. Though, considering what Yusei had seen earlier, there was a chance Yuzu would bring out a Fusion monster and give the wrong impression…

Thankfully, Yuzu just set a card and ended her turn. They still had some time, and there weren’t signs of her intending to Fusion summon yet.

Next was V. Unlike Kaito, they had no idea what to expect from him. If Yusei was right, and he was connected to the two boys he’d seen earlier, he was probably pretty strong.

“At the cost of halving its original attack, I can special summon Solar Wind Jammer from my hand, in defense position. Next, I can send a machine monster from my hand to the graveyard to special summon Deep-Space Cruiser IX. Then, I’ll use the spell card Hologram Projection, which summons itself as a copy of the card I used it on— in this case, Deep-Space Cruiser IX.”

“Two level nine monsters…” Yuya commented.

(For a moment, Yusei wondered why everyone here felt the need to foreshadow XYZ summons like that. Is it a call to be on-guard, or do they all just feel like they need to say something about it?)

“Now, with my two Deep-Space Cruiser IX, I build the Overlay Network! Appear, Number 9: Dyson Sphere!”

There was a flash of light, but… no hologram appeared. The Number… where was it…?

Yuzu seemed to be thinking the same thing, looking around for the XYZ monster. Yuya, however, was looking up at the cloudy sky, which seemed even darker than usual.

“Since this is a tag duel and I can’t attack yet, I’ll set a card and end my turn.”

“I don’t get it… where’s his monster?” Yuzu asked.

Yuya almost sounded nervous, which considering how he usually was… wasn’t a great sign.

“I… don’t think it can fit on the ground, Yuzu.”

The clouds were parting now, for the first time since they’d gotten here, and yet they still couldn’t see the sky. A massive shadow overcast the city, and, looking up, they could see a massive object circling the sun.

“Is that it?” Yusei whispered. It didn’t look too large at first, due to the sheer distance it was at, but… taking that into consideration, it was huge. Not to mention that it looked like it had expansions that weren’t put out yet. That was a Number monster…?

Yuya stared at it for a second, before snapping back to attention and starting his turn. “I don’t care how big your monster is, it’s not stopping us!! Here I go! I’ll start by setting the pendulum scale with Stargazer Magician and Performapal Changeraffe! This lets me summon level 2-4 monsters simultaneously—“

Yuya trailed off for a second, before whispering a single word: “Yuto…?”

Yuzu looked at her friend, “Yuya, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing! It’s fine!! Now, I’m going to Pendulum Summon!! Come on out, Performapal Friendonkey and Hip Hippo! But they won’t be around for long, because I’m using these two level three monsters to XYZ summon! Rank Three, The Phantom Knights of Break Sword!”

Phantom Knights…? What—

“That’s Yuto’s card-!” Yuzu said.

Yuto… Kurosaki had mentioned that name earlier, though Yusei didn’t know who he had been talking about. If this guy was so important, then where…?

“I’m not done yet!” Yuya continued, “Now, I can use The Phantom Knight’s Rank-Up-Magic Launch to—“

“We know how Rank-Up works!!” Kaito yelled.

“Oh, uh- alright then!! A bit rude but— anyway!! I’m bringing out Dark Rebellion XYZ Dragon, and since I used a Phantom Knights monster, R.U.M Launch is attached to it as XYZ material along with Break Sword and its materials. Next, I’m going to use the level four monsters Solo and Aria that Yuzu left to XYZ summon agai—“

Yuya let out a sharp gasp as the overlay network above him started shifting in color, the usual blue galaxy collapsing into a red vortex, flashes of colored light shifting within. It was different than the ones Yusei had seen the Lancers use, and definitely very different from the ones the Numbers came out of. He’d hadn’t thought about it much up until now, but with how Yuya’s was shifting and flashing like that…

“What did you do?!” Kaito yelled.

“I- I don’t know, Yuto just told me to—“

The projection exploded with light, and suddenly, so suddenly that it was as if something had taken control of his body, Yuya began the new monster’s summoning chant.

“With the key to people’s hearts, a hero rises, bringing smiles to a brand new world! Take the stage! The Pendulum XYZ monster: Magician of Hope!”

Pendulum XYZ… interesting. So Pendulum could be added onto other things too. Yuya had used a Pendulum Synchro against Jack, hadn’t he..?

“Hope…” V whispered, looking at the monster.

“Now!! Dark Rebellion XYZ Dragon’s effect lets me detach two materials from it to halve one of your monsters attack points and add those points to Dark Rebellion itself! I choose Galaxy-Eyes Cipher Dragon!”

[Galaxy Eyes Cipher Dragon: 3000 to 1500]

[Dark Rebellion XYZ Dragon: 2500 to 4000]

“However,” Yuya continued, “Because of the Rank-Up-Magic, Dark Rebellion has two more materials, and as its effect isn’t once per turn, I can use it again!!”

[Galaxy-Eyes Cipher Dragon: 1500 to 750]

[Dark Rebellion XYZ Dragon: 4000 to 4750]

That was… a pretty good decision. He was probably hoping to get around Dyson Sphere by just ending it by attacking Galaxy-Eyes.

“Now, Dark Rebellion, attack Galaxy-Eyes Cipher Dragon—!”

“Hold it!” V said, “When one of your monsters with 2000 or more ATK declares an attack, I can activate the trap card Neverending Nightmare, which negates the attack and deals half of your monster’s attack points to you as damage!”

[Yuya and Yuzu LP: 8000 - 2375 = 5625]

“But Magician of Hope can still attack!! Go, take out his Galaxy-Eyes!!”

[Kaito and V LP: 8000 - 1750 = 6250]

Kaito didn’t seem too phased though, quickly using the effect of a card in his hand. “When a Cipher monster I control is destroyed by battle, I can send Cipher Mirror Knight from my hand along with one other card I control— in this case, my facedown, Cipher Shield— to the graveyard to bring back the destroyed monster.”

Ah, that’s why. Its attack was back too… but Dark Rebellion was still higher, so unless they could get rid of it, Yuya and Yuzu would probably be okay…

“My turn,” Kaito said, “First, I can use Galaxy Storm to destroy an XYZ monster on the field with no material, and since you used up all of Dark Rebellion’s last turn… say goodbye!”

Yusei sighed. Of course.

…did it get darker?

They all looked upwards, towards Number 9, which was… unfolding? If it had been about the same size as the sun before, with its panels out it was even larger. By a lot. It could probably cover the whole thing if it wrapped around it. Honestly, if there were any Academia soldiers nearby, they either were en route to their location… or running in fear.

“Now. Number 9 is going to attack your Magician of Hope!”

The attack was a white hole. Opposite of a black hole, spitting out matter rather than pulling it in.

Yusei stared up at the thing, partially in amazement and partially in horror. He’d been somewhat interested in the hypothetical science of the stuff for a while (just like, in whatever breaks his friends forced him into taking) and this was (hopefully) just a hologram, but it was a REALLY BIG HOLOGRAM. So that covered the amazement, yeah, and the sheer size of the monster covered the horror, but there was… another feeling there. One harder to place. Like… a subtle ache in his heart, however cheesy that sounded. Why, though..?

[Yuya and Yuzu LP: 5625 - 300 = 5325]

Regardless, it was odd how easily Magician of Hope went down, considering how it made such a big entrance…

“Next,” Kaito said, “my Galaxy-Eyes Cipher Dragon is attacking you directly!!”

“Agh-!!”

[Yuya and Yuzu LP: 2325]

Thankfully, they’d survived the turn. Yuzu was next, hopefully she could do something to turn this around…

Yuzu smiled, “Alright!! I’m using the effect of Soprano the Melodious Songstress in my hand to—“

“Yuzu…” Yuya warned.

“Do you want to win or not, Yuya?! I’m using Soprano the Melodious Songstress and Canon the Melodious Diva to Fusion Summon!!”

“Yuzu!!!” Yuya shouted, “We can’t do that here!”

“Hey!!” Yuzu called out, waving at Kaito and V, “We’re not from Academia!! Standard has all the summoning methods! Anyway, come on out, Bloom Diva the Melodious Choir!!”

The fairy was probably the best Fusion she could’ve brought out in terms of appearance, to be honest. It was really bright and colorful, basically the opposite of Academia’s Ancient Gears, and while its ATK was only a thousand, its effect probably took care of that…

“Now,” Yuzu declared, “Bloom Diva! Attack Galaxy Eyes Cipher Dragon!!”

“What are you going to do with—“ Kaito started, before being cut off by Yuzu’s explanation.

“Glad you asked!! When Bloom Diva battles a special summoned monster, I can use its effect to protect it, as well as destroying your monster and dealing any damage I would’ve taken to you!!”

Galaxy-Eyes Cipher Dragon was destroyed— Kaito and V probably didn’t have a card that could protect it right now, then.

[Kaito and V LP: 6250 - 2000 = 4250]

“And with that, I end my turn.”

That wasn’t all that bad. Bloom Diva’s effect should protect Yuya and Yuzu from attacks given that Kaito and V didn’t have an effect to get around it.

Which, as it turned out, they likely didn’t yet, as V’s next turn was just setting a card, to both his and Kaito’s dismay. So, while there was the possibility that it was a trap and could do something about it, Yuya and Yuzu seemed to have gotten pretty lucky.

Yuya smiled, “Here I go!! Since pendulum monsters go back to the extra deck when they’re destroyed, that’s where Magician of Hope is right now, and even though it’s half XYZ monster and doesn’t have a level, its effect lets me pendulum summon it back to the field anyway!!”

Ah, that’s what it did…

“Now,” Yuya said, “Ladies and Gentlemen!! It’s time to battle! Bloom Diva the Melodious Choir is going to attack Number 9: Dyson Sphere! Then, I can activate her effect to destroy it and give the damage to you!!”

“Hold it,” V said, “I activate the trap Elastic Space. When I would take effect damage, you take that damage instead—“

“You hold it!!” Yuya interrupted, “When you activate a trap during my battle phase, I can activate another trap that Yuzu set earlier: Melodious Illusion! I can target a Melodious monster I control, negate the effects of your trap, and then the Melodious monster I targeted gets another attack this turn!!”

“Ah-!”

[Kaito and V LP: 4250 - 1800 = 2450]

They could see the sun again, now that monster wasn’t blocking it anymore…

“Next up,” Yuya continued, “That Solar Wind Jammer you put out for defense earlier isn’t going to do much, because now Bloom Diva can attack again, and since Wind Jammer was special summoned… its effect activates again!!”

The monster, like the others, disappeared among Bloom Diva’s flowers.

[Kaito and V LP: 2450 - 1400 = 1050]

“I think we all know what comes next!! Magician of Hope, end this! Hope Spiral Strike!!”

And it was over.

Yuya cheered, jumping in the air, “Yeah!! Ka- ah, uh— We did it!!!”

Yuzu laughed, ignoring the verbal misstep, “Yeah, we did!”

Yusei walked back over, rejoining Yuya and Yuzu. “Good job.”

“I didn’t even get to use Gradielle…” Yuzu sighed, “Oh well. Where’d you get that new monster, Yuya? I’ve never seen it before…”

“I don’t really know where I got it,” Yuya said, waving a hand dismissively, “Yuto just told me to summon it, and there it was.”

“Yuto?”

“I’ll tell you later,” Yuya turned to look at Kaito and V, “Hey!! Kaito! Since I won, you’ll come back to the resistance, right?”

“We never made that agreement. But know this- I will be back.”

“Kaito, wait—!” V called out, but the younger man had already disappeared. He sighed, turning towards the rest of them. “I apologize for him. He… hasn’t been himself.”

“It’s okay,” Yuya nodded, “That was a really cool monster you had! I’ve never seen one so big before…”

“Ah. Thank you, though… it isn’t technically my monster. I’m holding onto it for a friend,” He looked over at Yuzu, “You said earlier that you had a Number, but I didn’t see you use it.”

“Oh!” Yuzu said, taking a card out from her extra deck, “Yeah, I just didn’t really get the chance to. It’s Number 76: Harmonizer Gradielle!”

“Hm. And… it didn’t possess you?”

 “I— no???”

Chapter Text

”The Numbers… there are a lot of them. They all belonged to… a friend of mine. Recently, however, they’ve been appearing in certain places around the city…” V paused, “Usually, they have… negative effects when anyone other than a few specific people pick them up. My family has technology that can resist it, though there are others who can do the same through different means. So, what I’m asking is: how were neither of you affected?”

“Uh…” Yuya said, “Well, when I picked it up, I didn’t really feel anything. I thought it would fit with Yuzu’s deck, so I gave it to her and she seemed fine too.”

Yuzu nodded, “Yeah. I didn’t feel anything either.”

“That’s odd…” V paused, “I don’t know if it would have anything to do with you being from another dimension, though that’d probably be the simplest explanation.”

“I would say we could check with me, but there are… a few things I could think of that could probably also apply if it didn’t affect me either.” Yusei sighed, “so that probably wouldn’t narrow it down much.”

“What do you mean?”

Yusei held up his right arm, moving the sleeve away to show his signer mark. “I have a feeling this would mess with it at least a bit.”

“Woah, what’s that?!” Yuya asked.

“The mark of the Crimson Dragon, it…”

“Oh,” V said, “That’s… pre-Incan, isn’t it? My brother is interested in old stuff like that. I think he mentioned something similar once.”

“Pre-Incan…?” Yusei questioned, “Not sure about that, I just know that I was chosen for…” he paused, “I think it was fighting some kind of great darkness or something.”

“How do you not remember something like that..?” Yuzu said.

“I’ve been asking myself that since I got here.”

Yuya tilted his head a bit, “Is it supposed to be glowing?”

“Is it?” Yuzu asked, “I don’t really see anything.”

Yusei looked at his arm. There was a faint light there, but like before, it was abnormally dim. “Yeah, it does that sometimes. Usually when it does it’s brighter…”

“Hm,” V said, “Well, I don’t know anything about that, unfortunately. My brother would know more about it than I would, but even then…”

“Yeah, it’s fine,” Yusei thought for a second. “Have you looked into the dimensions a lot?”

The other man nodded, “As much as I can without leaving the city. There are people who need me here. Though… most of what I’ve figured out has been that they’re artificial in some way— they weren’t always split like this.”

“They weren’t?” Yuzu asked, “Maybe that’s why there are people who look like me and Yuya!”

“Maybe,” Yuya said, thinking, “Though, about the numbers, V, if they belong to your friend, why are they just lying around? They sound way too powerful to just be everywhere like that…”

V sighed, “Yeah. This isn’t the first time it’s happened— the Numbers getting scattered, I mean. Even so, it shouldn’t be happening again unless…” he paused, “…I’m worried something might have happened to him.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Yusei said, “If there’s any way we can help…”

V sighed, “Thank you. Though, I have to ask you all not to tell people about this. Academia has used spies to mess with us before. It’s not something we can let them find out about.”

Yuya nodded, “Yeah, okay…. Oh! Yuzu,” he looked at his friend, as if suddenly remembering something, “The number, have you tried talking to i—“

“Yuya.” A voice said from behind them. Standing there was Tsukikage— he’d approached quietly, as one would likely expect from a ninja.

“Tsukikage! What’s up?”

“The other Lancers require assistance. It seems Academia has started sending assassins after us.”

“Assassins?!”

“You don’t mean…” V said, thinking, “…I’ll come with you. If who you’re talking about is who I think it is, your friends are in danger.”

~

It wasn’t long before they were met with a cloud of dust kicked up by the other Lancers’ duel. It seemed like only Sawatari and Gongenzaka were there, so Reiji and Kurosaki were probably too far away to help.

Yuya and Yuzu ran over to their friends, who, having lost, had been thrown back on the ground.

“What happened?” Yuya called, “Are you okay?!”

Yusei looked around, the cloud of dust not quite clearing yet. “Who did they— ?!”

A massive, mechanical dragon head broke through the dust, turning to look directly at them.

Yuya gasped, but before anyone could really say anything, the dragon disappeared, a sign that the previous duel really was over.

“What was that??” Yuzu whispered, trying to look past the slowly fading fog.

“Cyberdark…” Gongenzaka muttered.

V sighed, “So it is him…”

The cloud of dust and smoke cleared just enough to see through. Standing there was a man, whose clothes were completely unlike anything they’d seen from any other members of Academia. He was dressed in all black, with a coat similar in length to the one Jack wears. The coat was designed in a way almost resembling plate armor around the arms, made of sharp lines and silver trimming.

“…Hell Kaiser.”

“How does someone even get a name like that..?” Yuzu whispered. Everyone’s eyes remained fixed on the man, whose face could be seen more clearly now that the fog had cleared.

This man, Kaiser… he looked bitter, drained, kind of unnaturally pale. A red light blinked around his neck.

V answered the question, “He’s one of Academia’s strongest. They only send him when they want the people to suffer.”

Kaiser glared at them, stepping closer. “You… I was thoughtful enough not to duel you last time we met, yet you dare face me again?”

“I owe you nothing,” V said, “If we were to duel, even back then, you wouldn’t have won.”

“I’ve cast aside my previous niceties. I no longer have any reason to spare you. Though I admit you aren’t who I came here for.”

“Came here for?” Yusei asked. With how Yuzu had almost been taken by Roget earlier, he could guess who that was referring to.

Kaiser just glared at him.

“Are any of you going to face me, or will you accept your fates as prey?”

“We aren’t prey!” Yuya yelled, “and we won’t let you card any more people!”

“You? Your allies were powerless against me. What more can you do?”

“I can do plenty!” Yuya said, activating his duel disk.

~

Sometime in the duel, during one of Yuya’s turn, Yuzu seemed worried.

“Yuya…” she whispered.

“Is something wrong?” Yusei asked.

“He’s not dueling the way he usually does. Something feels wrong.”

“Really..?”

Now that he thought about it, from what he’d seen of Yuya so far, he was focused on entertainment. But here… he’d barely added any theatrics at all. He seemed like he was having fun, but…

It was weird.

Quietly, for no reason he could recall, Yusei reached for the Double or Nothing! in his deck.

He had to have gotten it somewhere. He had to-

“I’m ending this!” Kaiser yelled.

Wait, what— agh. Yusei shook his head. He couldn’t let himself get distracted like this. Had to pay more attention, Yuya was in trouble…

“Hang on!” Yuya yelled back, “I activate the trap Cross Damage! We both take the damage from this attack!!”

A draw, then. Huh. Yuya was good, but even here he did just get pretty lucky… what was this other guy’s deal, anyway?

At least hopefully he had enough honor not to turn anyone into cards, since they technically both lost.

“…This is unacceptable. I will be back, Sakaki Yuya.”

“Yuy—? Why do I… oh, ahaha~! Yuya paused for a second, pulling his goggles over his eyes. He turned back to the rest of the group. “Guess that’s what happens when Yuto takes over all the way, huh..? Feels weird. Well, I’m glad that guy’s gone!!”

“Yuto?” Yusei asked. It was that name again… Yuya seemed nervous. That, and nobody had told him who this Yuto guy was.

“Oh!” Yuzu exclaimed, “You wouldn’t know about him, would you? Yuto is from this dimension, but he looks almost exactly like Yuya.”

“Not exactly…” Yuya said, “But I think I may have… absorbed his soul? In a way? He’s like, following me around as a ghost.”

“…Is he?” V questioned.

“Yeah, I know it sounds crazy, but he is!!”

“…Alright,” the man paused to think, “though, about Hell Kaiser, you do understand you’ve just placed a target on your back, right?”

“Yeah,” Yuya sighed, “But I’ll beat him for real next time!! Promise!”

“…I don’t doubt you could, but if Kaiser does return to this dimension any time soon, you’d be unlikely to find him again, at least before Kaito does.”

“Kaito?” Yuzu repeated.

“Yes. They have… a score to settle, to put it simply.”

None of them asked aloud what that meant.